Matt, all
In Europe, Harley Davidsson motorcycles have had an enormous success! This
from a rather limited sale.
One of the strongest arguments is that you can fall in love with it and have
it a lifetime, as Harley guarantees full service and a lifetime stock of
spare parts.
The mistake they have done, and is severely suffering from, is the
introduction of an electronic ignition system. All of a sudden the motor
won't run, and even if you are an excellent mechanic, there is nothing you
can do. To keep it's good reputation, Harley guarantees to pick you and your
cycle up anywhere, even in the middle of the night. I don't know if this
guarantee actually works, but it shows what efforts a manufacturer has to do
nowadays, to save it's reputation.
This has nothing to do with wildlife recording, but reflects the same kind
of thoughts which are just now discussed in this group.
Klas.
At 09:50 2002-07-12 +0100, you wrote:
>Timeframe for supporting discontinued products varies widely, depending on
>the specifics of the parts involved. We obviously aim to continue
>supporting products for their entire lifetime, but parts availability can
>impact that. As with most electronics manufacturers, certain parts (
>particularly laser mechanisms for CD and MD ) are bought in from 3rd party
>suppliers. Occasionally these manufacturers will cease production on those
>parts, and then we can no longer replace them, but this has happened
>rarely during my time in the industry, and we usually have enough warning
>to be able to buy up a couple of years worth of parts. In pro-audio we
>assume our product lifetimes are much longer than in the hifi/consumer
>world, and so our planning is done on a much longer term basis. This is
>worth considering for everyone who uses consumer recording products, in
>that consumer manfuacturers are committed to extremely fast product
>cycles, with products rarely lasting longer than a year. If the product
>was cheap enough to start with then obviously this isn't necessarily a
>problem, but if you are looking for a long term purchase with support and
>parts availability guaranteed at least for a few years, you are much
>better off spending the extra bucks and getting a professional machine
>with all the added bells and whistles. The other issue with using consumer
>machines in a 'pro' environment, ie outside of their reccommended usage (
>usually in the home ), also impacts on your warranty cover. I know of
>several consumer manufacturers who count any usage outside of 'leisure'
>activities as an invalidation of the warranty.
>
>Matt Jarvis
>Product Marketing Manager
>Marantz Professional Europe
>Kingsbridge House, Padbury Oaks, 575-583 Bath Road, Longford, Middx, UB7
>0EH, United Kingdom
>+447796610410 - Mobile
>+441753686080 - UK Office
>+441753686020 - Fax
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Walter Knapp <>
>2002-07-11 18:32
>Please respond to naturerecordists
>
>
> To:
> cc: (bcc: Matt Jarvis/LGD/CE/PHILIPS)
> Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] ATRAC compression
> Classification:
>
>
>
> wrote:
>>
>> Music recording is definitely a major part of our recording business,
>> although that is more in terms of rack mount products. In portables , we
>> sell to many, many different markets, and the ones that tend to dislike
>> ATRAC are the speech and language recording professionals, linguists,
>> speech therapists, forensic scientists etc. particularly those who
>> undertake detailed computer analysis, because any kind of compression
>can
>> leave artefacts in the recorded material , not necessarily audible but
>> which affect this kind of analysis work. In Marantz's defence we have
>> been supporting and manufacturing cassette portables for over 20 years ,
>> and even if we do stop manufacturing MD at some point in the future, we
>do
>> continue to support all of our discontinued products.
>
>Over the last couple years I've had extensive contact with several
>speech specialists. In all cases they were picking my brains about ATRAC
>and the HHb Portadisc considering getting one for their work and
>contacted me as I was one of the first ones with a Portadisc. Every one
>eventually bought a Portadisc, and have been delighted with the
>recordings. They have told me they have had no problems with analysis.
>The only one I know to have problems managed to drop her Portadisc and
>damage it. She did a lot of whimpering while it was off being repaired.
>I think that these folks were previously using cassette recorders for
>their work, though I did not ask.
>
>The detailed analysis that these folks do is often not much different
>than the sonograms we do. In fact most of the sonograms I've seen from
>those groups look like pretty simple stuff which gives less info than
>the stuff I use. Some of the other exotica they do can be really strange
>and be dependent on custom, calibrated equipment and therefore would not
>use any general purpose recorder. Like any group they get stuck on
>favorite equipment and techniques, often attributing special abilities
>to it that are not so special.
>
>I think ATRAC does so well because it does not try to bring selected
>samples through, but synthesizes a whole new audio track from what
>amounts to control data. That track is very little different from any
>other D/A converter output. Many people get trapped into thinking
>there's missing samples, and it does not work that way. You get a full
>set of samples, they just are not the original ones, and may differ
>slightly in their values. For most analysis software this presents no
>problem, and in terms of numeric analysis is generally within the range
>of error of the mic's and pre's used. The problems I've seen have mostly
>been ones of clock sync, one of the new problems with the advent of
>digital sampling. And that's not really a ATRAC problem.
>
>I would expect that you have a stock of repair parts and would continue
>to do repairs as long as the stock remains. I've not heard of any
>manufacturer restarting the manufacture of parts just for repair stock,
>so there's bound to be a limit. What sort of timeframe do you plan on as
>far as parts for discontinued equipment?
>
>Walt
>
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