MOTM

It is sad that over the years, the price of all the MOTM electrical 
components (ICs, resistors, etc) has remained relatively stable, if not 
dropped slightly. However, things like switches, pots jacks and knobs (and 
most recently, wire) has easily doubled to tripled since I started in 1998.

There are 2 main reasons:

a) the Evil Empire that is Tyco Electronics. You may recall several years 
ago about the Tyco CEO spending $6,000 on a shower curtain.
 http://www.sptimes.com/2002/08/09/Columns/Of_greed_and_6_000_sh.shtml

Well, Tyco has this interesting policy about pricing in distribution. This 
happens EVERY YEAR. Even after the old CEO was sent to jail.

1- the bottom 5% of all Tyco products in terms of revenue, discontinue them 
with 6 week notice. Got no time to fool with them, screw it.
2 - the top 5% of the products, raise the price 10%. People need them, and 
will pay for them.
3 - everything else, raise price 5%. Why not?

For example, the PKES90B1/4 knob, which has not physically changed since 
*1964* when it first came out by Alco, I was paying $0.58ea in 1998. Today I 
got a quote from Mouser for 1,500 at $1.85ea. Are you freakin' kidding me? I 
will contact Allied, I can weasel a better price like maybe $1.28 because I 
have a friend in the sales dept :)

b) look around your studio/home. Everything is tact switches or encoders. In 
my home TV setup (Yamaha A/V receiver, Pioneer DVD, the DirecTV DVR) there 
is exactly ONE pot, on the Headphone Out jack. And that is a wimpy-assed 
ALPS pot 9mm diameter for 28 cents max cost. NKK toggle switches? Nope.

So, only 'industrial' people like me use this old-school stuff. And they 
(distribution) just keep jacking up the prices. A funny story: I had a relay 
in the electric window of my Toyota 4Runner die. It was a DPDT pcb mount, 
12V, Omron relay. Well, at the time, I was working for the Omron rep in 
Texas! So for fun I called the Toyota place and asked for the relay 
replacement cost and they said $47. The relay was in the Mouser catalog for 
$4.85 and I just ordered a free sample.

Switchcraft is no better, the jacks are slowly creeping towards the $2ea 
mark and at some point the Chinese knockoffs at 38 CENTs each are going to 
look awful good.

Paul S.
kits were shipped today, and a carload tomorrow if the rain stays away

--- In motm@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Schreiber" <synth1@...> wrote:
> 
> Switchcraft is no better, the jacks are slowly creeping towards the
$2ea 
> mark and at some point the Chinese knockoffs at 38 CENTs each are
going to 
> look awful good.
> 

Please be careful on that one.  When I was with Mackie it became very
clear that Chinese 1/4" jacks vary greatly in terms of base metal and
plating.  We had MASSIVE problems due to poor quality Chinese jacks
that only showed their problems months or years later.  What a
nightmare; it ended up killing two products and costing Mackie a few
million dollars.

I don't like much from Switchcraft except their 1/4" jacks and plugs.
 They seem to do those better than anyone else, even though in general
I'm a Neutrik fan.

Ivan

On 2008-09-03 22:12 -0000, Ivan wrote:
> --- In motm@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Schreiber" <synth1@...> wrote:
> > 
> > Switchcraft is no better, the jacks are slowly creeping
> > towards the $2ea mark and at some point the Chinese knockoffs
> > at 38 CENTs each are going to look awful good.
> 
> Please be careful on that one.  When I was with Mackie it became
> very clear that Chinese 1/4" jacks vary greatly in terms of base
> metal and plating.  We had MASSIVE problems due to poor quality
> Chinese jacks that only showed their problems months or years
> later.  What a nightmare; it ended up killing two products and
> costing Mackie a few million dollars.

What about Lih Sheng Precision's LJ-0695 through LJ-0698 ? Do you
have experience with those ?

-- 
Andr\ufffd Majorel <URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/>
Do not use this account for regular correspondence.
See the URL above for contact information.

--- In motm@yahoogroups.com, Andre Majorel <aym-htnys@...> wrote:
> 
> What about Lih Sheng Precision's LJ-0695 through LJ-0698 ? Do you
> have experience with those ?
> 

No.  The problem is that the Chinese are good at mechanically
reproducing things, but will skimp on materials.  Or just not care.  I
have experienced this with other products where mid-production they
will change the composition of plastic used in a structurally
important part.

In the case of the jacks the composition of metal changed, and most
importantly the plating process changed and quality control was poor.
 So over time microscopic corrosion occurred which caused intermittent
audio in switching jacks.

You wouldn't think there was much science involved in making a decent
1/4" jack.  But evidently Switchcraft "gets it" while some of the
companies making clones don't.

Ivan

Ivan writes:
>>You wouldn't think there was much science involved in making a decent 1/4"
jack.  But evidently Switchcraft "gets it" while some of the companies
making clones don't.<<

I have a bunch of cables many years old with Switchcraft plugs.  Some look
like they're brand new, others have turned to a flat grey color, and even
steel wool won't get them looking new again.  So maybe even their formula
isn't consistant.

-Elhardt