Electronics in new analogs!

[Troy Sheets]

Economics of scale.

If you can sell a high volume of a product, you can bring the price way
down, to make a small profit off a lot of sales.

Unfortuantly, most of new electronic boxes  you are talking about here
have very low volumes, so the companies/designers have to charge more
to make their profit.

Oh, Waldorf Pulses are down to under 500 dollars... thats a pretty good
price for some fat analogue sounds... cheaper than what I payed to 
build my asm-1.  Descrete parts for the board alone costed upwards of
190 dollars.... thats before pots, jacks, power supply, panal,  ect.

-troy

> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I just visited some sites (Doepfer, Syntecno etc...) and wondered why the
> machines they sell are so expensive? I mean, the electronics are about the
> same as they were 20 years ago. Most of the components are very cheap.
> Midi-interfacing isn't that expensive!
> 
> For instance: if I would build the PAiA MCV8 ($150) + VCO, VCF, VCA,
> Envelope and noise generators (+/- $50 depending on what luxury you ask!) +
> housing (+/- $25) + power supply (+/- $25). That would make $250. In
> comparison the MS-404 costs $500+ !
> 
> I think for $250 you can build yourself one hell of a synth.
> 
> OK, so my question is: what's the difference (apart from the production
> costs)? Is it in electronics? New techniques or something? Or is it just
> that a big demand automatically leads to a big price?
> 
> Erik
> 
> PS: I don't know whether synths like the MS-404 sell well or not!
> 

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