Man opens "$700" Nagra battery, finds $30 worth of batteries inside

[Noiz2]

It is a good argument for some basic electronics knowledge and soldering chops ;~)

 

[Mitch Gross]

Hey Mitch,

You probably didn't mean to do this, but in fact, you pretty much dismissed the collective intelligence of the audio group as being uninformed or otherwise ignorant of manufacturing issues. You of course are on the inside, so you must know more right?

Of course you know nothing of our backgrounds, and what we have done in our lives to have the experience to discuss this. It is obvious this topic hit a hot button considering the many responses, and even the posters who aren't in the know, have a passion for the topic.

So you have been a company man for a while, and for some reason seem to be pouring some cool-aid in defense of what would appear to be a rip-off by conventional wisdom. Not sure what your background is before that. Have you designed products yourself, or done much cost accounting? What I can say is that I do have some background in manufacturing, posses a BS in an industrial discipline, and have owned 3 businesses over 30 years. two of them were technically oriented and involved the design and manufacture of a variety of complicated stuff, often producing only a single prototype unit. The point here is that some of us do understand what is involved and are calling this BS and greed. If you have some numbers on this so we can separate what we do know from what we don't, it would go a long ways towards proving your point.

I do know there is a lot of effort that goes into building any product, but charge circuits are pretty well worked out, formed or molded boxes are a mature industry, and we all know the cost of the off the shelf batteries. So if they can't build that battery for a reasonable cost, and charge a reasonable markup, they should have just used L series batteries like SD does.

Peace
Grant

I didn't mean to insult the group, I was responding to a particular comment. I should have quoted accurately.

 

[davefisk]

The SD702 can be powered with lemo but I quickly got a sketchy connection there, lemo is also annoying because all my monitors, leds, (and my GH4/yag) run from XLR4, which I have loads of spares.

If they would have used a 4 pin XLR the machine would have to have been bigger and loads of people would have complained about the large connector and larger recorder AND people would have complained about not being able to use all their 4 pin hirose power cables that are popular on lots of recorders and power distribution systems. I personally have never had an issue with robustness (is that a word?) of a 4 pin hirose, but I definitely prefer a 4 pin XLR if I can get. It's just easier to plug and unplug blindly in a bag. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

 

[Greg_E]

Hirose and Lemo are two different things, Hirose makes some small and fairly robust connectors, much like the DIN I mentioned from ages past. Lemo was mentioned, so I mentioned it back.

 

[davefisk]

Hirose and Lemo are two different things, Hirose makes some small and fairly robust connectors, much like the DIN I mentioned from ages past. Lemo was mentioned, so I mentioned it back.

Ok, but the 702 uses a Hirose connector for power, not lemo. As far as I know, nobody uses Lemo for power connectors in the audio world. Easy to confuse the 2, though. Small connectors with silver colored barrels. I know in conversations I've accidentally swapped "Hirose" for "Lemo".

 

[CharlesPapert]

Hey Mitch,

You probably didn't mean to do this, but in fact, you pretty much dismissed the collective intelligence of the audio group as being uninformed or otherwise ignorant of manufacturing issues. You of course are on the inside, so you must know more right?

Of course you know nothing of our backgrounds, and what we have done in our lives to have the experience to discuss this. It is obvious this topic hit a hot button considering the many responses, and even the posters who aren't in the know, have a passion for the topic.

Actually Mitch specifically said "Unless you are in manufacturing and understand the business considerations that must be applied then I don't believe anyone here is qualified to lay judgement on this manufacturer as to whether this is a fair price for this device." Which left the door open for those who do have experience in this field to make a counter-argument based on that experience. You just had to identify yourself as such. As for Mitch's background, it's not hard to find as he has been a familiar name in the industry for years, bringing a unique wealth of experience from on-set as a cinematographer to working with manufacturers and distributors at Abel Cine, which combined with his current position means he has, rather uniquely, seen all sides of this industry. I for one pay attention to what he has to say.

What several of us have responded to is the tendency over the past decade for message boards to be filled with insistent voices that gear should cost little more than the sum of its materials, which--I'm gonna say it--a naive and entitled position and one that is rarely taken by working professionals who choose their gear based on quality, reliability, customer service and company reputation (because their own reputation rides on it). It is exhausting to continually read "I could make that myself for $X" because, feel free to go ahead and do that. In the earliest part of my Steadicam career, cash-poor and looking in at the industry from the outside, I too wondered why things cost so much and tried to skirt the system by having parts machined or building my own cables. Later, I came to place a value my own time and preferred to pay the man (and receive the support after the sale, which was absolutely worth it). And, Patryk's point earlier is exactly right--if you devalue everything down to the lowest price you can find on eBay or wherever, don't get mad when you find yourself similarly outsourced by the same reasoning.

None of this is to say that I think $700 is a fair price for that battery, but I'm not qualified to have a real opinion on it because a) I'm not a sound person and don't use Nagra products and b) I have not been privy to the cost analysis of that piece of hardware, and I don't care to guess. I do know that having a battery that mounts and dismounts quickly and smoothly is critical for on-set use and anything wonky such as a cable that needs to be plugged in would be a poor choice.

I once noted a group of young enthusiasts at NAB who were vocally deriding an equipment manufacturer for daring to charge above a single figure profit margin while sipping on $6 coffee drinks...

 

[David W. Jones]

I would rather find $30 worth of batteries, than 2 dead Hamsters. :cheesy:

 

[morgan_moore]

Hirose and Lemo are two different things, Hirose makes some small and fairly robust connectors, much like the DIN I mentioned from ages past. Lemo was mentioned, so I mentioned it back.

My point wasn't really lemo, hirose or 4pin XLR.. it was that I would prefer an 'overpriced' integrated power pack of the nature Nagra solution, Id pay $200 a pop if a couple worked all day (on the $2000 702 recorder)

My further point ref the CD o7q is basically I wont use it all (out side of a studio) without such a solution.

S