Massdrop x Airist Audio R-2R DAC Discussions | Drop

Massdrop x Airist Audio R-2R DAC

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Aug 11, 2018

If the thing is truly already designed, prototyped, and tested, then it would take a week to make 1000 of them in Shenzhen where things like this are produced - so what is with the 6 months of lead time???? - Send me $350K and I can do the same thing, this is friggin Kickstarter or even worse, Indiegogo.

Aug 12, 2018

burrito-rustlerNot just the time to build... Add in the time for the supply chain to procure the parts, plus the time to schedule this into the production flow (these lines, especially those dedicated to small volume builds, have to find an appropriate time, and go through the tooling and employee training). My guess is this small build takes time to schedule. Possibly the parts have long lead time.
But yeah, wow, Feb '19...!

Aug 12, 2018

jsmiller58No. If you know anything about Shenzhen, the largest electronics manufacturing area in the world, parts lead times are measured in hours, rather than days or weeks! - It makes Silicon Valley look like a rural hick town by comparison.

Aug 12, 2018

burrito-rustlerActually I do know quite a bit about manufacturing in China... I had been VP of Operations for a time at a company whose manufacturing was done in a few areas in China. You are right if you are referring to the vast majority of components, but there were definitely parts where we had lead times in excess of 13 weeks - usually uncommon specialty, or custom parts. And negotiating for slots at our contract manufacturesrs still meant we had to wait our turn.
As to Shenzhen vs Si Valley. Yup. No argument there. But availability is still availability. The miracle that is Shenzhen can't change that.

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Aug 12, 2018

jsmiller58Yeah, but this DAC is not breaking any new ground, except maybe on price, it's pretty much just discrete off the shelf components - not much lead time on SMD resistors for a resistor ladder!

Aug 12, 2018

burrito-rustlerI will definitely grant that you could be right. I do not know the specifics of the Airist design, the availability of all the the parts, etc. Nor do I know how hard or easy it would be to get manufacturing partners to grant a slot for such a small production run without waiting for larger customers to finish their runs. I was just commenting that there are definitely scenarios where you cannot simply spin up manufacturing overnight, even in Shenzhen, from my own experience. Whether in this case MD & Airist could or could not, I really have no insight!

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Will

8470

Chief Product Officer

Aug 14, 2018

jsmiller58Hey jsmiller58, burrito-rustler is incorrect. Lead times for even popular components are 12+ weeks now due to the global parts shortage, and that's the stuff you can buy on digikey. It's possible to source parts from brokers (groups that have been buying large volumes of parts since ~2010 in anticipation of the shortage) to get a shorter lead time, but the majority of brokers cut their stock with reject parts outside the spec'd tolerance and you're paying a premium ($50-$80 on the retail price). This is all before we start getting into the world of custom FPGA chips.
Instead, we buy parts from the source. The result is a longer lead time, but certainty that the parts are what we need, not mystery meat substitutes. These also aren't made in Shenzhen, but that's neither here nor there, almost nobody runs production in Shenzhen proper anymore (realestate costs in SZ rival parts of the SF Bay Area), nearly all production has moved to suburbs or surrounding countryside.
None of this was true 10 years ago, so potentially burrito-rustler has production experience, just a little out-dated.

Aug 14, 2018

WillWill - everything you are saying makes perfect sense to me given my prior Ops experience with both supply chains and manufacturing in China. On top of the usual challenges in securing manufacturing slots, and components, lets not forget that China's manufacturing is ramping the production of holiday shopping goods. So yeah I can understand the lead times!!

Aug 14, 2018

WillNot sure where Will is getting all of this nonsense, there is no "global parts shortage" except in VERY rare cases where the item in production shares a component with something like the latest popular iPhone, such as a particular type of OLED screen or a particular Qualcomm chipset - with the type of components used here, we don't even have any cutting edge RAM (which there was a global shortage of some types of, a while back) and we have no components shared with a super popular phone. In fact, in this tiny production quantity of 1000 units, EVERY component in this design should be in STOCK at DigiKey or Mouser, with NO lead time. How about we stop with the fear mongering, again, there is no "global part shortage", just a handful of items used in very popular phones, and we are talking about a number less than 10, out of MILLIONS of semiconductor and discrete component brands & types. We buy various components from Digi-Key DAILY, and I am hard pressed to remember the last time they were out of stock on something, and even when they were, there are typically SEVERAL equally good competing components from competing manufacturers. So if by some rare chance that your Nichicon cap is out of stock, just buy an equally good Panasonic, Rubycon or Chemi-con part of the same spec that is IN STOCK. Stop the silliness, please!

Aug 14, 2018

burrito-rustlerQuestion for you... Since you are speculating / postulating that Massdrop is "manufacturing" a fake parts shortage as an excuse for long delivery schedule, can you speculate as to why they would want to do this - that is what is their advantage to do so?
To the two items that I believe (though do not know for sure) could explain this is parts lead time (which you strenuously contest), and getting manufacturing slots. A third is that nowhere that I can recall has Massdrop said the design is final (they made prototypes).

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Aug 14, 2018

jsmiller58Well that is what I addressed earlier, they are basically running a kickstarter here, and will need to let this run for several months in order to get enough interest and orders for all of us to FINANCE this tiny production run. Did you ever notice that really popular items here, that fill the drop in a matter of days, also seem to have a very quick delivery date? - well duh!

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Aug 14, 2018

burrito-rustlerWell I figure that once they see a high level of interest they either make and stock enough for demand, or have continuous manufacturing for those items. That makes business sense.
For low volume items that they manufacture, or units they have to get from third parties, I can understand longer lead times.
For brand new designs, yes it is clear that they follow a Kickstarter-like model, where early adopters at least subsidize some of the development. Alternatively a guaranteed order convinces their partner to do the development because they know they have a minimum order. In either case, this makes a lot of sense, and I don't think MD have ever (strenuously) denied this.
In the case of this product I can see any of these, or combination, being the reason for the long lead time - parts, manufacturing availability, or readiness of the design.
I think I understand your perspective as noted above.
What I guess I just don't understand is why you are so worked up about it. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff, and this is really in the small stuff category.
Advice - leave this drop alone and come back next year and see if the lead times have changed sufficiently enough to be acceptable to you.

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