Original Tuner Cost....

With all the REALLY high prices for tuners being paid I wonder: What was the original cost from Empeg/SB?

and...drum roll please...
For the love of GOD... will someone please make some more tuners ;0)

$99, then dropped to $69

That may have been the price, but I think the cost wasn't much below that... they weren't cheap to make.

$99 was pretty dag-gone close to cost on the original tuner lot. As I recall, material and assembly was over $80 each when all was said and done so there wasn't much money (any?) made on these at all. I never did know the final COGS on that project.

This is another case where we all owe the empeg team a huge THANKS for pushing this project through because there certainly wasn't a financial incentive for this effort. They were simply keeping good on their word.

Thanks guys!

speaking of which what was the orginal cost of the mk2a before hard drives are put in.

Ahh Austin...Nice Place

With Tuners so cheap (relatively) why can't we get more??

Certainly no incentive for SB to hang on to the recipe?

what about the Empeg guys (sorry, GODS)

AFAIK it's a matter of scale. Some if not all of the parts needed can only be bought in multiples of 500 so to make one you would have to make 500 minimum. Even at a cost of £50 per unit (which is a conservative estimate) that's 25k before you have even factored in manufacturing costs and everything.

I believe there was talk of licensing the production out for free but even then it's a matter of finding someone willing to put their money where their mouth is and I guess there's nobody out there with big enough balls...

Anyway, I'm sure someone in the know could give you a more informed answer, I'm just going on what I've gleaned from this forum!

Maybe with all the new Empeg owners due to price cuts there are 500 people out there!?. Some have paid upwards of $400 for a tuner on ebay. Talk has died down again of a new batch, I am cursed with a single DIN M3 and I am an NPR junkie so I gotta get a tuner.

Maybe one of the early breadboard prototypes had off the shelf componentry, bigger yes but a tuner at least...

We're more likely looking at 1000 units - its not worth the factory's effort to make less. There are 4000 Mk.2 and Mk.2A players so it could work.

Rob

Will this be an *exact* copy of the present tuner, or can it be possible to convince you to change the firmware *slightly* to make it possible to read out the status of the "unused" analogue inputs of the PIC?
(Hugo mentioned he "forgot" to include a "Car battery voltage meter")

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

Let's not run before we can walk.

Rob

I just thought I would mention it before it's too late :-)
In my eyes, you could keep the hardware exactly like the
old tuner, and change just the firmware (and leave everything else for DIY).
(Then I would ditch my present tuner and buy a new one ;-)

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

I'll buy your old one if this happens.

Is there an alternative tuner on the market right now that'll work?

Is there an alternative tuner on the market right now that'll work?

Yes. You can plug any other line-level device into the Aux Input of the car player. Many other types of car stereos, or even a portable radio, could work for this.

You won't be able to control it and change stations from the empeg's front panel. And you'd need to find a place to mount it. But it will work.

Has anyone seen www.carplayer.com

They are charging a $410 premium for a tuner on a 30gb MK2a. Crazy !

Yeah we had that discussion in the For Sale forum. In fairness to Jeremy he paid a high price to BBS users for those tuners, although it beats me why he bothered just to make a couple of hundred bucks in total. It doesn't seem worth the adverse publicity, when customers could have bought those tuners direct from the original owners minus Jeremy's margin.

What really upsets me isn't Carplayer.com, but the situation since Christmas which has demonstrated that even the best intentioned group of people can fall foul of greed. The "close community" is willing to make great profit out of the desperation of its neighbours.

Huge kudos to those who resold their spare tuners at cost.

I'm going to make every effort to ensure that a future batch of tuners is sold at a reasonable price, and that everyone pays the same price.

Rob

There's a saying in Germany "Geld verdirbt den Charakter", which means "money destroys the character". It's obvious, that people want to make money, when they have a thing which is rare and there is a great demand for.
When i read first time on the BBS, that MK2a's are completely sold out, i searched ebay in an act of panic and bought a player for much too many money, just to read the next day about Jeremy and his "more than fair"-priced Players. So i ordered my third player from Jeremy and will try later to resell the high-priced unit to another "poor idiot" on ebay. I don't want to cheat anybody, i know, it was my fault, to buy it for that high-price without waiting for alternatives. I will just try to get my money back.
I just learned not to buy in a situation of despair. I want a tuner, but i won't buy one on ebay. If there are fair-priced tuners from the empeg-guys, then one is for me...

cheers,

Rob.... I just wanted to thank you for recognizing all of what you just said. That's exactly what's been pissing me off recently with the whole carplayer.com situation and tuner's going for insane amounts. As much of a stretch as it is, i consider all the users on this board a friend of sorts... and i wouldn't fuck a friend over like that. I don't wanna get into that whole argument again... i just wanna thank you again for being "down" from day one.

(and thanks to Paul G for being one of those who sold his tuners at cost. He's got my respect)

amen rob

will you cut taxes and make sure gov't spending in on a minimum?

No, Rob has been raising taxes. But it's a voluntary tax. i.e: don't quote Monty Python.

Several have offered. I think although we might not have official word, it is underway.

re:I believe there was talk of licensing the production out for free but even then it's a matter of finding someone willing to put their money where their mouth is and I guess there's nobody out there with big enough balls...

I'll do it. Where do I sign?

I do see a danger of a similar thing happening again.
I assume steps would be taken to limit the sales of the new tuners so no one person is allowed to buy 10's and 10's of them.

Say something like 1 per empeg owned and an extra one for a spare?

The only thing to be cautious of is not enough tuners ordered. If someone wants to order a larger number (as long as no one else gets shorted) I don't see any harm. This just means will be closer to filling the quota demands of the manufacturer.

We plan to contact every empeg owner (as far as possible) and explain clearly that this will be their last opportunity to buy a tuner. If someone decides to speculate on a bulk order (in the hope of future sales) then that's fine with me - everyone will have had a chance to get them at a fair price first.

Rob

I know I want one, and I might even buy a few for future units that I might buy...