[Aether Audio]

Friends,

Now THAT's an inductor.  You may not be able to tell from the picture so well, but that sucker is HEAVY!  The build quality is excellent as the coil windings are vacuum impregnated with a type of varnish and then baked.  Doing so virtually eliminates any possibility of spurious microphonic artifacts from being generated.

Then...as you can scarcely detect in the photo, the laminations of the core are unusually thin.  That reduces eddy current losses even further than typical cores and goes a long way in providing superior magnetic performance.  What you can't see is Mundorf's "Feron" chemistry of the core.  That's a huge part of why these devices sound so good - very low hysteresis artifacts resulting from superior core metallurgy.  The thing just "reeks" of superior quality.  Now if they'd just lower their prices.  Boy, have I heard that one before.

-Bob

[zybar]

So what does it cost?

George

[Bill Baker]

 Hey Bob, with all the free time you have on your hands why not just source some very good materials and wind your own inductors?

[Aether Audio]

George,

See for yourself:

http://www.mundorf.com/downloads/info-news/MUNDORF_News_&_Product_Range_hi_res_USD.pdf

That's $37.61 retail (for 1 inductor?) but I'm not at liberty to divulge the OEM discount - unless I want to loose it.  Problem is, the price breaks don't really kick in until you purchase 100 pcs of whatever - which I didn't find out until late last week.  Yeah, like we can afford 100 of "anything."  Then, I just found out I'm getting hammered by brokerage, Customs clearing, handling and duties fees - which I knew nothing about either.   So geez, we get to factor in those costs too. 

I don't see how we can absorb these prices in our existing price structure.  We may have to offer the Mundorf stuff as an upgrade option.  It really pisses me off too as I don't want to have to fool around with all those different parts and all the damned different prices.    I just want to build the darn things with good parts and be done with it.

But...what do you guys think?  Should we just raise prices a little to accommodate and include the Mundorf parts in everything or... offer them as an upgrade?  I'm all ears and empty pockets.

-Bob

[Freejazz]

Bob,

At one point, Karsten suggested that the largest change was that effected by the substitution of the Mundorf inductor. 

How significant of an effect do the cap changes bring (over the SonicCaps) to the speakers (and which Mundorf caps are you using?) 

That might help with the decision.

Thanks,

Scott

George,

See for yourself:

http://www.mundorf.com/downloads/info-news/MUNDORF_News_&_Product_Range_hi_res_USD.pdf

That's $37.61 retail (for 1 inductor?) but I'm not at liberty to divulge the OEM discount - unless I want to loose it.  Problem is, the price breaks don't really kick in until you purchase 100 pcs of whatever - which I didn't find out until late last week.  Yeah, like we can afford 100 of "anything."  Then, I just found out I'm getting hammered by brokerage, Customs clearing, handling and duties fees - which I knew nothing about either.   So geez, we get to factor in those costs too. 

I don't see how we can absorb these prices in our existing price structure.  We may have to offer the Mundorf stuff as an upgrade option.  It really pisses me off too as I don't want to have to fool around with all those different parts and all the damned different prices.    I just want to build the darn things with good parts and be done with it.

But...what do you guys think?  Should we just raise prices a little to accommodate and include the Mundorf parts in everything or... offer them as an upgrade?  I'm all ears and empty pockets.

-Bob

[Double Ugly]

Then, I just found out I'm getting hammered by brokerage, Customs clearing, handling and duties fees - which I knew nothing about either.   So geez, we get to factor in those costs too. 

So there's no OEM price break from US retailers who already order by the hundreds?

I don't see how we can absorb these prices in our existing price structure.  We may have to offer the Mundorf stuff as an upgrade option.  It really pisses me off too as I don't want to have to fool around with all those different parts and all the damned different prices.    I just want to build the darn things with good parts and be done with it.

But...what do you guys think?  Should we just raise prices a little to accommodate and include the Mundorf parts in everything or... offer them as an upgrade?  I'm all ears and empty pockets.

Maybe you'll have a better feel for what to do after you hear how my fully Mundorf-ed (new word?) Revelations compare with the originals. 
And don't forget...I want the Zero-Ohm-Coils!   

Gimme a call if need be.  I'll call you back.

-Jim

[Aether Audio]

Friends,

Well...it looks like a lack of haste made some serious waste this time...i.e., a waste of our $$$.  The Mundorf parts costs aren't as bad as I feared - although they're still expensive as heck.  After some investigation it looks like we'll get a decent deal on them after all.  The biggest source of the whole snafu was due to a delay in Mundorf shipping our parts.

We had a ship date that they quoted and that's what we were basing our planning on.  Apparently, they didn't have a custom value cap in stock and had to make it from scratch.  Had we known, we could have had them supply lower values that, when combined in parallel, would give the value we needed.  Anyway, they delayed shipment based on making that one part. Arrgghhh.

Well, we had to have them this week so Mundorf switched shippers to make up time.  In the process they managed to pick a forwarder that charged for every little thing they did on this end - "up the sphincter."  If Mundorf would have stayed with TNT as originally planned, all of those extra costs would have been included in the shipping costs that we had already paid for.

Upshot:  Lesson #1 in our new World economy -  Importing stuff SUCKs!!!

Anyway, we're still evaluating costs and how best to proceed, but the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a train after all.

-Bob