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Author Topic: Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc  (Read 54724 times)

Samuel Rees

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Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc
« Reply #40 on: January 26, 2013, 12:04:18 PM »

Competition, competition....that's the free market system at work. Great for the end user. I remember when cell phones cost big bucks.

Not so great for Soundcraft dealers (like me) who still have Si Compacts in stock that were bought a while back (before all the price drops). I guess I'll be loosing my ass on those...thanks Soundcraft.  >:(

I appreciate that competition drives down costs. This is them cleaning up after apparently introducing this desk at the wrong price. If they wanted to do this they should have released the Si Compact at this price in the first place. I get that once they screwed that up they had little choice but to do it now.... But it should have been done right from day 1 that's what I expect from a company like Soundcraft.

It obviously didn't cost them much to make this desk, unless someone is about to convince me that they were able to reduce production costs by 60% within a year? :)
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Jamin Lynch

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Re: Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc
« Reply #41 on: January 26, 2013, 12:08:47 PM »

I appreciate that competition drives down costs. This is them cleaning up after apparently introducing this desk at the wrong price. If they wanted to do this they should have released the Si Compact at this price in the first place. I get that once they screwed that up they had little choice but to do it now.... But it should have been done right from day 1 that's what I expect from a company like Soundcraft.

It obviously didn't cost them much to make this desk, unless someone is about to convince me that they were able to reduce production costs by 60% within a year? :)

I'm with ya bro!
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Ryan McLeod

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Re: Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc
« Reply #42 on: January 26, 2013, 12:52:52 PM »

I appreciate that competition drives down costs. This is them cleaning up after apparently introducing this desk at the wrong price. If they wanted to do this they should have released the Si Compact at this price in the first place. I get that once they screwed that up they had little choice but to do it now.... But it should have been done right from day 1 that's what I expect from a company like Soundcraft.

It obviously didn't cost them much to make this desk, unless someone is about to convince me that they were able to reduce production costs by 60% within a year? :)

As much as I agree (and I have stock of new SI-C as well as 4 rental units in cases and two installed in venues) I also think that a drastic move was somewhat necessary on Soundcraft's part, and had they removed a major feature (other than the analog inserts) to get that price down, I would be a little happier about it. My compact stage box with MADI card at twice the money is what actually stings a little.

In my eyes, with this price slash, there is no such thing as a 'digital' or 'analog' mixer in any part of the market - a 'good 16 channel analog mixer' now costs similar as it's nicely-outfitted digital counterpart... Or at least close enough that it won't matter for much longer. 

When they make an 8in-6out for $299 that my iPhone fits into, it'll get interesting.

I'm surprised it hasn't already happened, whatcha think... Maybe in a few weeks?

 
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Bob Leonard

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Re: Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc
« Reply #43 on: January 26, 2013, 09:25:25 PM »

As much as I agree (and I have stock of new SI-C as well as 4 rental units in cases and two installed in venues) I also think that a drastic move was somewhat necessary on Soundcraft's part, and had they removed a major feature (other than the analog inserts) to get that price down, I would be a little happier about it. My compact stage box with MADI card at twice the money is what actually stings a little.

In my eyes, with this price slash, there is no such thing as a 'digital' or 'analog' mixer in any part of the market - a 'good 16 channel analog mixer' now costs similar as it's nicely-outfitted digital counterpart... Or at least close enough that it won't matter for much longer. 

When they make an 8in-6out for $299 that my iPhone fits into, it'll get interesting.

I'm surprised it hasn't already happened, whatcha think... Maybe in a few weeks?

some analog boards can cost more. Perhaps you might like to buy my APB Pro House for $2500?? didn't think so, but the fact is I wouldn't part with it anyway.
 
Years ago a 1mb 8 bit ethernet card cost around $1000. components were repackaged and could be made more cheaply and costs were driven down bit by bit until finally today you can buy a pretty good 100mb card for less than $20. Supply and demand, the primary reason for lower costs.
 
The costs of electronic components has dropped since the day the transistor was invented. The more demand for the component, the lower the cost. Soundcraft is doing what it needs to do in order to survive in the low cost board market.
 
And let's not kid ourselves into thinking Behringer forced the market to design low cost boards. They may be forcing the price line, but boards aren't designed overnight, so I'll bet Soundcraft had a marketable product 6 months ago and has chosen to wait for prices and features to be shown by other manufacturers before announcing the product line at NAMM. That's just good business sense on their part.   
 
I've said 100 times over I wouldn't go digital until the market was populated with choices from a number of manufacturers. It may not be as much "fun" to wait for the playing field to level, but eventually it always does and that's when most people find out they might have been better off watching the parade instead of leading the parade with the only banner available.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 09:30:31 PM by Bob Leonard »
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Samuel Rees

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Re: Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc
« Reply #44 on: January 26, 2013, 09:48:35 PM »

It may not be as much "fun" to wait for the playing field to level, but eventually it always does and that's when most people find out they might have been better off watching the parade instead of leading the parade with the only banner available.

A lot of wisdom there Bob. I think I'm coming around to thinking like this.
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Josh Daws

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just heard that the 32ch is approx 600 more than the X32...
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Nicolas Poisson

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Re: Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc
« Reply #46 on: January 27, 2013, 09:37:29 AM »

I really think that this is greater than your average product turn over. What mixing product has had this kind of undercut? Just Soundcraft.
And Midas with the Venice F that are sold half their initial price. And I would not be surprised if this happens to the StudioLive.

As other said, Soundcraft (or Midas,) had no choice but to drop prices. Unfortunately for them, the X32 is not bad enough (X32 buyers, please don't shout: joke).

Concerning the initial price that should have been the one of today since day 1, it could be, or it could not be. We all have get used to price dropping quickly in the computing world. The price of microprocessors are very high at the beginning, it is divided by say 4 or 5 during their commercial life. Early buyers will pay for R&D, the followers will get good prices because the costs are now covered by early sales.

It could more or less the same with the Soundcrafts: the whole line shares many components (VI included), many have been sold and maybe it is possible to drop prices because R&D costs are now covered by sales.

Other than that, I wonder if the digital desk market has really turned into a computing-like model. For years, if you wanted a live digital board for a reasonable price, it was a Yamaha. Then, all major companies have released "low cost" boards roughly at the same time (SI-C, GLD80, X32, Pro1,...). It could be that we currently are in a transition period. New models are released every 6 month, and a fierce competition make it hard to keep stable price for a long period. But once each manufacturer has released its first low cost board, once the prices have been adjusted to competitors, maybe the market will slow down.
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John Roberts {JR}

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Re: Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc
« Reply #47 on: January 27, 2013, 11:07:45 AM »

--
 
Years ago a 1mb 8 bit ethernet card cost around $1000. components were repackaged and could be made more cheaply and costs were driven down bit by bit until finally today you can buy a pretty good 100mb card for less than $20. Supply and demand, the primary reason for lower costs.
I paid around $1k for a 32k x 16b memory card for my first computer back in the late '70s, and that was the cheap 3rd party price, standard memory from the computer maker cost a bunch more. BTW that old computer could only address and use about 28k of that full load of memory. :-)
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The costs of electronic components has dropped since the day the transistor was invented. The more demand for the component, the lower the cost. Soundcraft is doing what it needs to do in order to survive in the low cost board market.
Surely you are familiar with Moore's law.

The driving factor IMO is technology, constantly reducing the "size" of transistors, so all other things held roughly equal, the cost per transistor drops dramatically, as you get more active devices inside the same size IC. This is most obvious in memory ICs, but large scale integrated devices benefit too.

Soundcraft like others is caught in the turbulence from the new pricing/sales volume math. This will take a while to settle out.
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And let's not kid ourselves into thinking Behringer forced the market to design low cost boards. They may be forcing the price line, but boards aren't designed overnight, so I'll bet Soundcraft had a marketable product 6 months ago and has chosen to wait for prices and features to be shown by other manufacturers before announcing the product line at NAMM. That's just good business sense on their part.   
Pretty much every console maker, and some who weren't, have been working on digital console designs for decades. You only see what they decide to manufacture.
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I've said 100 times over I wouldn't go digital until the market was populated with choices from a number of manufacturers. It may not be as much "fun" to wait for the playing field to level, but eventually it always does and that's when most people find out they might have been better off watching the parade instead of leading the parade with the only banner available.

At some point, the features available from using digital technology to execute basic mixing capability, will create too much of a advantage for non-digital products to survive the comparison in a competitive marketplace. 

At some future date, analog consoles will seem as archaic as a slide rule. For you young pukes who don't know what a slide rule is, it was a mechanical predecessor of the pocket calculator.

We are in the early days of digital mixing for the masses. Interesting times, but this is far from over. Just getting started in my judgement. Behringer is well positioned to defend the low price ground, but there are other niches to mine. 

JR
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Brandon Wright

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Re: Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc
« Reply #48 on: January 27, 2013, 11:53:19 AM »

Does anyone know if you have to buy two cards to use the mini stage box with the Expression? Or does the stage box come with a card installed?
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Brian Larson

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Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc
« Reply #49 on: January 27, 2013, 01:10:05 PM »

This is the reason when a few years ago when I was faced with the option to go digital, I chose a used LS9. Not because it sounds good (it doesn't) not because it's user friendly (it isn't) and not because its cheap (it certainly wasn't). I chose it because it stood on a solid foundation.

Sure it has bugs, but I can rent a replacement from anywhere. Conversely, I'm always cross-renting to other companies because the know exactly what they're getting. Every BE knows how to mix on it (even if they complain about it). And if I sold it today it would only be for about $500 less than I bought it for since I got it used. Sure it cost more up front, but I easily made back the $500 it cost for me to own this console up until now.

I really don't see these cheap MI consoles effecting the price of "real" consoles (even if my little LS9 is at the bottom of the "real console" list.)
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Soundcraft Si Expression - Desk to compete with Behringer, Presonus, etc
« Reply #49 on: January 27, 2013, 01:10:05 PM »


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