Drop + THX AAA™ 789 Linear Amplifier Discussions | Drop

Drop + THX AAA™ 789 Linear Amplifier

Showing 1 of 1589 conversations about:

Cokeman

1971

May 31, 2019

Just saying this Drop was open 5 hours. You had plenty of time to get in.

May 31, 2019

CokemanYou're a funny guy

Zekerish

Jun 1, 2019

CokemanThe drop could be open for two weeks and people would still complain.

ScrewB

Jun 1, 2019

Cokemansome of us have lives

sockpuppet

137

Jun 1, 2019

ScrewBand those of us that don't have lives have amplifiers.

Jun 1, 2019

sockpuppetMore like some of us never got an email or even saw a notification until after it was already over :/ If you're here to act like a 5h window is a reasonable amount of time for a product that literally tens of thousands of people have requested to be available, that's... honestly just kinda rude.

(Edited)

Raths

168

Jun 1, 2019

kevinhbJust accept it

Jun 1, 2019

RathsDo you think I'm having some kind of unresolved emotional conflict about not being able to spend 400 bucks on an amp? I have accepted it. And the conclusion I've accepted is that Massdrop has planned kinda poorly around this product, or else has inadequate infrastructure to handle the demand around it. I'm grumpy about that but it's not ruining my day. What's far more annoying to me is the countless people LIKE YOU (and Zekerish, I really shouldn't have replied to sockpuppet cus that's actually a pretty funny comment) acting like anyone who didn't refresh this drop every hour, or more accurately anyone who just expected a higher level of communication from Massdrop, has some kind of moral failing and therefore didn't deserve the product. Or even more accurately, acting like anyone who has complaints about the way Massdrop runs certain things is just whining, I guess? Like it's unreasonable to give negative feedback to a company you've invested a bunch of time and money into, who you can now see slipping on basically EVERY aspect of their logistics? Practically speaking, the people who got the amp were either lucky, or had too much goddamn time and disposable income on their hands for their own good. That's fine, I also have too much disposable income for my own good, so maybe I'll get a similarly performing but more expensive amp somewhere else, or maybe I won't. Thanks for helpfully contributing an unneeded dose of condescension to the whole situation, though. Sorry if I brought you down.

(Edited)

Jun 1, 2019

kevinhbI realize I just wrote three paragraphs in response to three words, so egg on my face there, but MAN, is there EVER a more shitty and irritating three words to tell somebody who is any level of frustrated about anything than "just accept it"? :P

(Edited)

sockpuppet

137

Jun 1, 2019

kevinhbHey Kevin, you seem very passionate about buying one of these. I understand your frustration. All good.

ELACaster

Jun 1, 2019

I literally come to this discussion page for the rolleroaster.

Jun 1, 2019

Honestly though... trying to be 100% reasonable... what I REALLY think Drop should do as a business is raise the price to like, $500. There's clearly a situation where the supply is orders of magnitude from being capable of keeping up with the demand, and the only real power Drop has to control the demand curve (other than making a worse product, but... knock on wood) is to control the price. They've raised the price up once before from the preorder level, and fewer people immediately jumping on it would mean fewer people being frustrated when the drop ends almost immediately after relaunching and well before the projected end time (which... that's also something they should've known better about lmao.) Or maybe I'm wrong, and nobody is paying attention and they all pay $500 anyway and Drop just makes more money. Either way they can lower the price back to $400 once everybody and their audiophile mother isn't screeching for it anymore.

sockpuppet

137

Jun 1, 2019

kevinhbWhat if someone offered you a unit at cost if you donated some of that spare cash of yours to charity?

Vote

Jun 1, 2019

sockpuppet...You serious? That's a pretty weird offer, but it IS one I'd be interested in, you got me there. Maybe you should propose that to Drop, too--ensure a spot in X or Y limited drop if you commit to contributing an additional % of the drop price to one of a set of charities. (I'm maybe half-joking, but with some tweaks to presentation by a person who is far more qualified in business than I am, that would actually be a pretty damn intriguing program IMO. There are clearly folks on Drop who have loads of cash to burn, and a combination of charitable feelgood and exclusivity seems psychologically potent. Could drive some real good, who knows?)

(Edited)

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Zekerish

Jun 2, 2019

kevinhbI think my response is reasonable tbh. It is true. It could be up for weeks and people would still miss and come complain. It happens all the time.

Jun 2, 2019

ZekerishYeah, I guess you're right, I'll be honest I get grumpy a little too fast on the 'net, my B. If it were actually available for 2 weeks though, that would imply they actually had enough stock to last through an entire drop period, which would be a pretty different situation :P

(Edited)

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Vigrith

4081

Jun 2, 2019

kevinhbTruthfully, the core of the issue is that most of the supply vs demand comes from the wrong place - I know many people have the right intentions here and I definitely feel for you guys, the 789 is a really good amp for the $400, but there is what seems to be an ever increasing amount of FOMO coming from people who are somehow unaware of the fact that this isn't a pair of Yeezys or Jordans. What I mean by that is that you're not paying aftermarket, or just an inflated amount of money, for eye candy and (artificial) scarcity. The amount of money one should feel comfortable spending on should be capped by the price:performance curve at this level of gear, and how it compares relative to other units that share the same/similar characteristics (compact, low distortion, neutral, fairly powerful, etc); most people paying north of $500 tops for this on ebay or other sales platforms are going to be generally uninformed and unaware of competitors, pros and cons, just overall blinded by the stellar (both biased and unbiased) reviews and the hype they've generated. In my opinion that's what the real issue is and why the supply vs demand has gotten so skewed. I thought it'd have normalised far more than it has by now, unfortunately not the case.

Jun 2, 2019

VigrithHeh, yeah that's why I imagine Drop could get easily away with raising the price a lot for a temporary period of time for the people who Gotta Have It!! But I very much appreciate an unwillingness to do that, because the price:performance ratio is what originally kicked off this level of hype to begin with. I'm just a little surprised by it, given the absolute potency of the 789 hype beast (and not even for a pair of headphones, but for a headphone amp! The world seems a-changin')

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T4Deals

334

Jun 2, 2019

VigrithI have no insight into Drop's internals, but having been part of several startups I am aware of the risk factors involved in what they are trying to do with their collaborations. When I came across Massdrop, they were moving quantities of retailer goods in bulk, likely negotiating wholesale prices based on quantities sold: e.g. "if we can move 100, give us $10 each off the wholesale price; if 1000, give us $25 each off our wholesale cost". Everybody wins--massdrop makes a profit, buyers get a great deal, and the wholesaler (or manufacturer) clears their end-of-life stock off the balance sheet /or/ moves a significant quantity of goods in a short time. Risk was fairly small and life was rosy. The only limiting factor was how much inventory the vendor had available to give Massdrop. ("There's 10 left, here you go.") But collaborations tend to be a different thing. Rather than helping clear existing product, Drop is taking a risk literally 'testing the waters' with every new collaboration, as the product generally didn't exist before. Take the HD6xx -- a great product, but Drop didn't know how it would be accepted -- would audiophiles turn up their noses at a cobranded 'pretender' with 'tweaks'? Would something Drop thought was excellent only appeal to a few? To mitigate the risk of investing a significant amount of cash into a failure, Drop (not a huge $$$ corporation, but a mid-size co. barely out of startup territory) would test the waters with a limited run of available product -- say investing $200,000 up front in time and effort and for the initial production run, offset (at least in part) by contributions of those willing to take that risk with them upfront (a la kickstarter), and waiting 6-10 months+ for delivery. If the product tanked, or their production partner pulled out, or some other catastrophe, then Drop is on the hook and takes the loss (nothing is done for free. Employees need to get paid, and there may be significant goodwill upfront deposits with manufacturers tooling up for the product that could get forfeited as well) So with the 789 amplifier. Not having bottomless pockets, Drop had a limited initial run to test the waters (appetite) and calculate the risk of what they could lose ($) if the product/production failed. That risk assessment drives the size of the initial offering ("let's invest our and our customers' funds in producing an initial run of 350" (I don't know actual numbers) "and see if we have a winning product. If it takes off, we can have confidence in investing in another larger run AFTER we ship the first to ensure we didn't have a load of lemons on our hands"). This is how the 789 was launched. And Drop has managed to get up to 3500 units of these in a very reasonable of time, considering the risks involved. What if Drop had worked out a production run for 3500 up front and the unit did not take off, but languished? Guess who ends up holding onto that dead stock and taking a loss on it, or at least tying up funds for any other use until the units slowly get sold off? Guess who has to significantly slow down new offerings until they can slowly recoup the funds? So Drop does the reasonable thing, assesses the risk, does a proof of concept production run, manages their own and their customers' cash conservatively, and lo and behold, the product takes off. All 350 are sold immediately. Great, let's order 10,000 more. So who's got (let's say for the sake of argument) $300 cost/unit x 10,000 units = $3m handy to order and process all these? Probably not Drop, as far as I know they're not owned by Google$$$. But let's say they do have $3m cash around, say from their customers or investors or DEBT. Great, do they have the facilities to take in 10,000 units all at once and redistribute them? The staff? Can they outsource this? Sure, and kiss away the profit. I could go on, but the thing to remember is, Drop is not Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or some other very large corporation with deep pockets: say Starbucks. Drop is more like Joe's Fish and Chips who have grown to 10 locations, but need to take reasonable steps to get to the big leagues. Sure there are always investors, but that is work, takes time away from managing the company, and perhaps that's not what the owner wants for himself and his vision (not to mention the diluted shares). All in all, I think Drop is a marvel of initiative and risk management in their approach. It may not be able to please those who want that instant product availability now. But as time goes on, I'm sure their financial resources will grow where they can afford to take bigger risks on their initial collaboration runs. Cheers

(Edited)

JJayJJ

472

Jun 3, 2019

kevinhbOh you have disposable income on a better performance and more expensive amp somewhere else? Wonderful news my friend. The pioneers that employed the THX AAA tech first was a company called Benchmark, their headphone amp (as well as all their stuff) measures state of the art for consumer products. The headphone amp is called the HP4A and is basically the 789 and better.. So, if you truly are serious about what you said, I have found the precise thing you said you would go after. I'll expect a reply at the least attesting to your experiences with it. Good luck to you kevinhb.

Vote

Jun 3, 2019

JJayJJI said similarly performing actually. Seeing that it's $3k I think I'll pass, that's more than the rest of my signal chain put together. "a reply at the least", wat ?

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