[CQ-Contest] Wireless Headphone System

[Jim Brown]

Exactly right.  It's also important to realize that the quantity of 
units sold can be a very large component of their cost. The Yamaha CM500 
headset and Koss equivalent are relatively inexpensive because they are 
designed for and sold to a mass market of computer gamers, which is a 
far greater market than hams and audio professionals.  Their production 
quantities are in the hundreds of thousand units.

Roughly 20 years ago, the designer of a VERY sophisticated DSP system 
for large sound systems applied the same principle,  using off-the-shelf 
Ethernet hardware to transport the signals rather than designing their 
own hardware from scratch. That decision drastically reduced the total 
system cost, making it cost effective. The system (called Cobranet) was 
widely used in large scale like stadiums and theme parks (think Disney). 
They weren't using consumer-grade hardware, but rather the pro-grade 
stuff designed for high reliability IT systems. And that decision meant 
that they could use off-the-shelf products to use fiber interconnects.

73, Jim K9YC

On 12/24/2017 5:52 PM, Kelly Taylor wrote:
> True, price isn’t always an accurate indicator of quality, either way. Cheap isn’t necessarily junk and expensive isn’t necessarily quality.
>
> The trick is understanding what you need, what the technical specs are telling you and what potential problems may derive from the design. Without that understanding, you can run into issues no matter how much, or how little, you pay.
>
> Then you decide what trade-offs you’re comfortable making.