Hi All
I have been a bit sidetracked for a few days so I have not had time to contribute some of my thoughts on the grubby issues of HDMI and stuff.
The truth is INVOLVE's real purpose in audio is actually IP sales (our encode/ decode and Sweet Spot Technology) and product sales is a sideline that
1 Helps us stay afloat
2 Spreads the word
3 Increases our acquisition price for a future buyout
4 We/ me/ Bitch and others also enjoy our products and end result
To make ends meet we have also over the years designed all sorts of stuff for other companies, not necessarily audio. I run two (actually 5 but 2 that generate $) companies as some of you know. The other is our solar battery company Zenaji p/l....go to
www.zenaji.com . Right now Zenaji is creating the income through domestic battery sales (they last a lifetime- running 6 for my house). Involve subcontracts its staff design/ admin labor to Zenaji. The relationship zig zags , last year Involve was paying for Zenaji, it all helps secure our continuation and staff.
Of all of our sales the stuff we have sold to QQ members has been the most fun and thanks for all the good feedback! It is still tough going and in the last year I have had to put $300K and my partner Dawson has done the same just to keep the ball rolling and buy parts etc. Things are getting better on the solar side we have quadrupled our sales in the last 4 months despite lockouts and some of those funds help keep Involve going and designing new stuff.
So here comes the truth on the good ol SM, due to recent crazy parts shortages the latest cost of components/ packaging alone is USD$250, then you add manufacture, testing packing , dispatch, marketing costs, admin costs, factory rental ($6000 per month, taxes), you get the picture. Somehow along the way we need to pay wages every week of around $15,000. Fortunately much of this overhead is shared between the 2 companies. Oh due to the recent death of our US distributor we lost/ bad debted around $100K of Y4 product (he was uninsured/ cancer blah RIP- really liked him personally). Along the way we are really busy developing a shit load of new stuff.
Early on I / we all hoped that sales through top end surround sound nuts like you great guys in QQ would have a multiplication effect and others from the general community would take your lead and buy our stuff. That really has not happened and it seems you guys tend to keep your little stash of special gear secret!
I hope you do not think this is a winge, its more I am giving you my perspective (total perspective)
The original series of our Y4 surround sound 10 channel amp and system had the wretched HDMI crap, the license fee was originally around $20K per annum . Its now $15K PER ANNUM, plus you have to by the chips from them.
The 3 input, 1 output HDMI looked like this inside the Y4:
As you can see its not trivial. Worse yet, it was responsible for around a 25% rejection rate with the product with subtle failures and wobblies, in short it really was a nightmare. Combine that with customer complains of lead issues, incompatibility issues with their stuff it was not something I want to support. That is why on the new Y4 we had adopted optical inputs (at least its stable!) and we sell it with a very good HDMI to RCA/ optical converter that we buy for around $25 I think.
I agree a good product would be a 5.1 to HDMI converter.
We are actively looking at Displayport as it looks a better platform and has a license fee of 0$. It is something we will probably include in the super pre amp for late next year and who knows the displayport might be SM4 maybe but that's 2023.
Please also consider each revision of the SM costs us around $50K of design time and prototyping expenses excluding overhead. The new mini pre amp will cost us around $100K of development time (and that is super cheap) as did the 6 channel 120 W amplifier that is in early manufacture trials.
I am creating this new range as we are targeting more volume sales sub $1K for all and $1500 for the new electrostatic desk speaker. Again we are holding up the flag to be seen. One of our consultants in the USA who was director of licensing at Dolby said that licensing is very rare these days for all companies who's name is not Dolby. His advice was to get noticed with product and get the word in the streets. The mini stuff largely is targeted at those who do not want one of these terrible look alike ATMOS and the rest of the logos receivers. Its mini and it really is simple and different. I do not like "me to" products.
Yes I know I am a late night rambler