UPgrade specials are back

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 11:10 am

On 2004-10-28 12:38, helldriver wrote:
sell your creamware pulsar 1 on ebay and buy a pulsar 2 also via ebay.
it´s much cheaper.

You forgot about warranty. If you get a new card you get warranty and it costs. Additionaly - if you sell the P1 on e-bay, you don't get the free plugin transfer offer.

cleanbluesky · Post by **cleanbluesky** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 11:30 am

The Creamware boards are overpriced IMHO. We should pay for the software seperately perhaps, check out Texas instruments website and you will see they offer SHARCs for as little as $10.
I think Creamware should offer existing registered owners discounts on all hardware and software, as we are far more likely to want their 'special interest' cards anyway. If Creamware bought their prices down a little, they would also make much more of a dent in the market... the quality of the card is very high and if more hobby musicians could afford such cards I imagine use and support would become more widespread.
You must be an accountant from Digidesign to tell me that a board with 12 SHARCs on can cost as much as Creamware are asking... I'm not against taking profit in something you have designed, but not Bill Gate's massive profits. If the cards become more popular Creamware wont have to play legal games to avoid going bust again.

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 12:34 pm

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 12:44 pm

Hmm, you forget about the software. You're not just buying a card with DSPs, you also buy the software.

I find the cards to be dirt cheap myself, but I guess some engineering background helps in that. If you are not happy, you should switch to ProTools|HD, starting at us$9000 a card! And 700$/plugin. or get that TI/Analog Devices SHARC/whatever devkit, and see how many years you need to recode all the algorithms you get with the Creamware cards.

[ This Message was edited by: symbiote on 2004-10-30 03:44 ]

Post by **Guest** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 1:04 pm

True enough,
let's pick apart any of these cards and see how much each plugin is worth to you as a musician and then total them up without the price of the hardware and let us know what the total cost is.

I understand when you say that the cards are overpriced when released with 4 dsp and less software 6 years ago. But today and at 599 with a full Pack that is priced 398 on the shop you still getting a mighty deal.

here is how I see it

1. more software
2. ULLI
3. More DSP
4. new warranty

that is all I can think off right now

[ This Message was edited by: antar on 2004-10-29 14:08 ]

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Sat Oct 30, 2004 6:59 am

On 2004-10-29 12:30, cleanbluesky wrote:
The Creamware boards are overpriced IMHO. We should pay for the software seperately perhaps, check out Texas instruments website and you will see they offer SHARCs for as little as $10.
I think Creamware should offer existing registered owners discounts on all hardware and software, as we are far more likely to want their 'special interest' cards anyway. If Creamware bought their prices down a little, they would also make much more of a dent in the market... the quality of the card is very high and if more hobby musicians could afford such cards I imagine use and support would become more widespread.
You must be an accountant from Digidesign to tell me that a board with 12 SHARCs on can cost as much as Creamware are asking... I'm not against taking profit in something you have designed, but not Bill Gate's massive profits. If the cards become more popular Creamware wont have to play legal games to avoid going bust again.

I refuse to go into this again again again again again again stop it again stop it again stop it again stop it stop stop stop stop stop stop

Sky - we can do nothing about it. If you want a discussion, take a search on price, cheap, expensive, overpriced, value, quality ... and read the threads. You will probably see, that miiiiiiilions ons ons ons of arguments have been stated in both camps. Afther you have read that, you can keep on feeling cheated. It is your choice really.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Oct 30, 2004 8:30 am

overpriced... ?
well, let's have a look with a broader focus and extend the frequency spectrum a bit

an ultrasound imager is pretty close from signal processing and hardware requirements.
there's an industrial PC inside and the algorithms and amount of developement is comparable.
assume each $5k for a solid case, the PC and the DSP unit, equals $ 15k overall in hardware.
now go shopping...
your range will be roughly $100k to $300k - and that is charged for a unit almost EVERY physician and each and every hospital department absolutely needs.

now get informed about the 'density' of physicians and hospitals per habitant in your country and divide the overall number of the population by that figure.

divide by the number of suppliers available for that kind of gear (probably 10-50) in your country and and you'll have a realistic amount of revenus you can compare CWA's income from their overpriced Shark boards to

don't break out in tears then ...

cheers, Tom

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:19 am

Actually, this got me thinking...

If Creamware lowered their prices, people (well, some ^_^) would take their stuff even more for granted, and ask for even more!

Also, you have to take into account the whole psychological aspect of prices, i.e. prices too low tend to scare away some customers (the ones with the most money too ^_^ -> check out protools!) It's not "logical", but definitely a proven empirical fact.

There was some Audio Anecdotes file floating around on web sites, mostly compiled Usenet posts. One of them was about Marantz amps. Some shop in town (think it was Boston) did amp recabliration/monging for 250$. Someone else tried to do it for dirt cheap, like 10-20$. First customer, when asked for the 10-20$ in question, got really insulted, stormed out of the shop, and went to the 250$ place. So the guy started raising his prices, until he hit the near-250$ mark, and then the customers were happy (for *exactly* the same thing he used to do for 10-20$.)

Eventually, he met the other guy in a "neutral" zone, and asked him why he charged 250$, and the other guy answered that if he charged less, customers weren't happy!

Of course, this example involved audiophileness, which isn't exactly the most rational domains around, but that's human psychology for you

I've seen the same happen with natural fruit jam vs more synthetic stuff. The company ended up selling much more jam if they charged *more* than the synthetic stuff, even tho they could afford to sell it for less. People simply didn't take their all-natural claims seriously if they charged less.

If anything, Creamware would probably benefit for selling their product for more (any Creamware employee reading this, please ignore and disregard

), but I'm *seriously* not complaining about the lower prices heh.

Also, if you compare all the other DSP-based cards out there, the Creamware stuff is around the same price, and you get mongloads of *quality* plugins, with the optional plugins being pretty reasonably priced (ie same as what UAD/TC sell their optional plugins for.) Plus you get the pretty funky routing, which is unique. Not to mention a
free SDK!

I think alot of people end up being spoiled by using native stuff, since they can just download all the plugins for free off p2p, and end up wanting the same thing from everyone else.

Also, about the newer technology and newer DSPs and newer stuff in general, given the current complexity of stuff, it ends up taking a fair bit of time to stabilize everything. Personally, I'd much rather bounce a few tracks to audio and have a rock -stable system, than pulling my hairs off dealing with ultra-fast ultra-unstable technology

Not only that, (and I understand it's really not obvious to the less-technical people who just want to get the music done,) but developing something like like SFP takes years and years. Porting it to newer DSPs can be pretty easy IF you can just recompile, but since newer technology usually has a fair bit of differences, it can be a pretty big pain to port everything to a new platform. Not only that, but it wouldn't be compatible with the older platform, which can be a serious problem too (some people might remember the Commodore/Amiga fiasco

) So by the time you have all your stuff nice clean and stable on the "newer" technology, the "newer" technology ends up being old and there's already something newer and faster out, and, well, it just goes on and on and on and etc.

Like if you take the newer ProTools|HD, I'm pretty sure they ended up using 24-bit DSPs that were fairly compatible with their older TDM technology. They could have use much newer, faster technology, but that would have incured massive lost on their side in lost R&D (i.e. have to re-develop everything again), pissed customers and so on.

All in all, its a pretty risky and tight line to walk on. Just look at what happened with Noah. If you have billions to pour in new R&D, I guess it's a risk you can take, otherwise it's death of company, which pisses off a lot more customers than not having the absolute-newest DSP on-board

JamMusic · Post by **JamMusic** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 4:04 am

I Agree with all of you

doodyrh · Post by **doodyrh** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 6:55 am

Less discussion and more buying please.
They're waiting finally to release their top-secret new mega-product and don't want to be left with kilo-dollars worth of old stock.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 7:18 am

they have mega bucks in the developement of that stuff - it doesn't matter at all in that context.
This is a regular way of generating cash flow, nothing else.
But the buying advice is right, of course

cheers, Tom

helldriver · Post by **helldriver** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 8:40 am

creamware sucks sorry but thats my opinion
that´s all i have to say

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 8:46 am

no need to be sorry if that's your opinion
I think the same about the dude next door...

cheers, Tom

Post by **garyb** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:18 pm

everything sucks in hell.

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 2:18 pm

GaryB you must be thinking of the Death Star. It sucks like an intergalactic Hoover.

Hell is really known more for fire and Devil's advocates...

Oh and I agree with Tom. His neighbour really sucks. Overpriced too, and underpowered. If you look at the cost of one molecule of his body, it's next to nothing. Hell I could easily build a newer, better version of Tom's neighnour. And a nicer one, too. And it wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg. Errrr... OK, well I guess I would have to give him an arm and a leg after all. I'll have to figure out the other arm and the other leg, not to mention the head... Hmmm, this is starting to sound complicated.

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 10:13 am

On 2004-10-31 08:46, astroman wrote:
I think the same about the dude next door...

Show us a photo of your face after you say it to the guy

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 10:18 am

On 2004-10-31 04:04, JamMusic wrote:
I Agree with all of you

That's what I call a horizon wide point of view

This reminds me of an old joke:

A mother asks her son:
- Do you want the sandwich with a slice of ham or with a slice of cheese?
- Yes - answers the son

_________________

Sir samplaire scopernicus

[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2004-11-05 10:19 ]

[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2004-11-05 10:19 ]

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 7:07 pm

On 2004-11-05 10:13, samplaire wrote:
Show us a photo of your face after you say it to the guy

righty, right, Sam - I used the word 'think' with some consideration...

he's more than a head taller and weighs 30 pounds more - and he is NOT fat

I'd certainly draw the shortest straw on that, so I'd rather fall back to one of the tricks from the very darkkk side of my mind...

but actually - I love him - for all his annoying behaviour, and I've even considered a donation of booze (not shure about the quality yet) - when I'll be leaving this place very, very soon !

he had a sigificant acceleration factor on the search for a new home, which I've been doing for quite some, but I'm such a slow mover...

well, I'll post a couple of pics soon (instead of my face...) - but it's a flat in the 'most wanted' area of town and only a 10 minutes footwalk from the company I (mostly)work for - and - it has broadband

so folks - a bad experience can turn into a tremendous advantage, very soon and unexpected - better be prepared...

cheers, Tom

Post by **garyb** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 7:33 pm

blazes...
the s-man made the death star(check the name) AND the hoover(ditto).

i test then rest my case.

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2004-11-05 19:35 ]

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Fri Nov 05, 2004 7:55 pm

Oh groan!!!! The "Hoover" took me a minute...