+ Reply to Thread
Page 9 of 9 FirstFirst ... 789
Results 81 to 90 of 90

Thread: SW1X: A review of a new DAC from a new company

  1. #81
    Join Date: May 2008

    Location: A Strangely Isolated Place in Suffolk with Far Away Trains Passing By...

    Posts: 14,535
    I'm David.

    Default

    How come the eBay price has more than doubled since all this kicked off last Easter and all the good reviews started coming in? or is it that there are now multiple versions?

  2. #82
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: W Lothian

    Posts: 99,005
    I'm Grant.

    Default

    Dealer. Markup i guess. Such is life.
    Regards,
    Grant .... ؠ ......Don't be such a big girl's blouse

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply-doesn't-work
    .... ..... ...... ...... ................... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....
    FIIO K7 BT, M11 PLUS, BTR7, KA5 - OPPO BDP-103D - PANASONIC UB450 - PANASONIC 4K ULTRA HD TV - PIXEL 6 - AVANTREE LR BLUETOOTH - 2* X600 SOUNDCORE - HEADPHONES INCLUDE, FIIO, NURAPHONES', FOCAL, OPPO, BOSE, CAMBRIDGE, BOWER & WILKINS, DEVIALET, MARSHALL, SONY, MITCHELL & JOHNSTON - 2*ZBOOK'S- MERCURY BD ROM, ROON, QOBUZ, TIDAL, PLEX, CYBERLINK, JRIVER - MULTI HDD'S -

    Oh my god! There's nothing wrong with the bidet is there?

    “Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy".

    “You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”

    "You don't have free will. You have the appearance of free will.”

    “There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!”


    ***SMILE, BE HAPPY***

  3. #83
    Join Date: Apr 2016

    Location: Essex

    Posts: 127
    I'm Slawa.

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by DSJR View Post
    How come the eBay price has more than doubled since all this kicked off last Easter and all the good reviews started coming in? or is it that there are now multiple versions?
    Dear David,

    The SW1X products are currently offered in 2 versions (Standard and Signature) on 3 different performance/price levels. In order to keep our products affordable we offer a Standard version that employs highest quality components but are less exotic in nature than employed in the Signature versions. The prices for the Standard version at performance level 1 (USB 1, DAC 1 and LPU 1) should remain at around GBP 1K level. SW1X DAC 1 Standard currently retails for GBP 730. Its price is ought go up to 1100 including VAT in the coming months. That price level should not change much in the future otherwise. The performance level 2 & 3 products e.g. SW1X USB 2/3, DAC 2 and DAC 3 were recently put into the series production and should be available around December/January. USB 2/3 and DAC 2/3 have more sophisticated tube rectified power supplies are substantially larger in size, therefore require additional space. All higher performance level products will hence come in a larger chassis. Everything inside our performance level 2/3 inclusive larger chassis is custom designed and produced in England.

    As regarding rising prices, the are numerous reasons for the increase in prices.
    One of them is that the current promotional pricing cannot continue forever. It makes no sense to offer products made of finest, vintage and out of production materials that also perform accordingly for a fraction of a cost.
    The other is the uncertainty associated with Brexit, which is partly causing Pound Sterling to slide against EUR and USD. Despite everything being designed and assembled here in England, many of the parts that we employ in our designs are imported from Japan, US or EU and are priced in foreign currencies accordingly. Pound Sterling has lost over 25% against EUR and USD over the last couple of months. Last but not least is the 20% VAT (we are VAT registered business) and the mark up required by the dealers, who also need to make a living. Believe me or not but we are not making any net profit at the moment because of all initial production costs and costs associated with R&D.
    Last edited by SW1X; 20-10-2016 at 17:06.
    SW1X Audio DesignTM ... Finest Audio Components ... Designed and Handcrafted in England
    www.SW1XAD.co.uk

  4. #84
    Join Date: Apr 2016

    Location: Essex

    Posts: 127
    I'm Slawa.

    Default

    Our products appear to be expensive but the musical performance they offer is also conclusive. We have no intention to sell overpriced products made of cheap materials that will not deliver our promise.

    Please feel free to read here about our performance level system that use to classify and to price our products.

    http://sw1xad.co.uk/product/sw1x-aud...-level-system/

    In some ways the performance level system is very similar as employed by Audio Note (UK). The idea is to offer a product that maximises its musical performance at any given price level.

    Should you still feel that our products are overpriced please feel free to visit ebay and check out the availability and cost of Black Gate capacitors, Allen Bradley resistors and Germanium transistors and diodes.
    We also would encourage you to visit Audio Note (UK) website to see for yourself how much the Kaisei capacitors, tantalum resistors and their other components cost that we heavily employ in our designs.

    http://audionote.co.uk/comp/cap_electro.shtml
    Last edited by SW1X; 18-10-2016 at 10:08.
    SW1X Audio DesignTM ... Finest Audio Components ... Designed and Handcrafted in England
    www.SW1XAD.co.uk

  5. #85
    Join Date: Apr 2016

    Location: Bishops Stortford

    Posts: 1,250
    I'm Chris.

    Default

    Slawa

    There is one particular forum on the Net that has made some cruel criticisms of your products. Of the people giving 'informed' comment there is not one that has actually heard any of your gear.

    Here are typical comments:

    "Its made of bullshit."
    "Is it possible that Slawa" is a front for a Chinese company (one of the AliBaba ones) to push their gear at huge mark-ups in the UK market ?
    "This looks like a budget Chinese product "

    I am not expecting you to dignify the "bullshit" comment, but you may wish to clarify the situation regarding links to China.

  6. #86
    Join Date: Apr 2016

    Location: Essex

    Posts: 127
    I'm Slawa.

    Default SW1X Audio Design is Designed and Handcrafted in England

    Quote Originally Posted by bumpy View Post
    Slawa

    There is one particular forum on the Net that has made some cruel criticisms of your products. Of the people giving 'informed' comment there is not one that has actually heard any of your gear.

    Here are typical comments:

    "Its made of bullshit."
    "Is it possible that Slawa" is a front for a Chinese company (one of the AliBaba ones) to push their gear at huge mark-ups in the UK market ?
    "This looks like a budget Chinese product "

    I am not expecting you to dignify the "bullshit" comment, but you may wish to clarify the situation regarding links to China.
    Comments of such nature most likely come from our competitors. Some of those comments are quite amusing and some of them are less so. Just to make things perfectly clear:

    Anybody who thinks that any of SW1X products are made in China should come over to us to see our production for him/herself. You are more than welcome to test drive our products.
    My team and I personally design, prototype, solder, assemble and test all of the products that we offer. There is nothing inside our products that is made in China.

    We employ only the finest components made in Japan, US and Europe. Some out of production IC chips such as TDA1541/3, CS8412/14 are known to be produced in Asia, though.

    Feel free to read further here about our approach here:

    http://sw1xad.co.uk/informed-and-rational-choice/
    SW1X Audio DesignTM ... Finest Audio Components ... Designed and Handcrafted in England
    www.SW1XAD.co.uk

  7. #87
    Join Date: Apr 2016

    Location: Bishops Stortford

    Posts: 1,250
    I'm Chris.

    Default

    "This looks like a budget Chinese product "

    I have been thinking a bit about this put down. It is meant to imply that the product uses cheap components, is perhaps electrically unsafe, may not last very long and worst of all has poor sound quality.

    Those parameters can only be assessed with any credibility if one has actually touched and listened to that product.

    If the judgement is made on looks alone using a picture on the Internet, then most people browsing the cheaper regions of E Bay will no doubt have been impressed by the LOOKS of those Chinese amps. Some of them are just beautiful, including layout of the circuit boards. At times I have been so tempted by the looks that I have to sit on my hands to avoid bidding.

    So for me, saying that a component looks like a budget Chinese product, is something of a compliment

  8. #88
    Join Date: Oct 2015

    Location: Durham

    Posts: 426
    I'm Andy.

    Default

    What gets me is uninformed criticism from people who decline an offer to hear the thing, then make assumptions about how it sounds. I seem to remember the very same people criticising AVI for this approach.

  9. #89
    Join Date: Apr 2016

    Location: Essex

    Posts: 127
    I'm Slawa.

    Default shoot the messenger?

    Quote Originally Posted by bumpy View Post
    "This looks like a budget Chinese product "

    I have been thinking a bit about this put down. It is meant to imply that the product uses cheap components, is perhaps electrically unsafe, may not last very long and worst of all has poor sound quality.

    Those parameters can only be assessed with any credibility if one has actually touched and listened to that product.

    If the judgement is made on looks alone using a picture on the Internet, then most people browsing the cheaper regions of E Bay will no doubt have been impressed by the LOOKS of those Chinese amps. Some of them are just beautiful, including layout of the circuit boards. At times I have been so tempted by the looks that I have to sit on my hands to avoid bidding.

    So for me, saying that a component looks like a budget Chinese product, is something of a compliment
    We take any constructive critique serious and anything what our competitors say as a compliment. Comments like that are quite understandable. There are plenty of people who are annoyed by the marketing tricks in the industry.
    I am myself developed an allergic reaction to it. So, when we take a completely different approach by offering maximum possible transparency, some folks think that it is some sort of marketing gimmick.

    Just to be perfectly clear, we are spending zero on advertising. All the money goes into R&D of sound improvement instead. Anybody who knows me and has been at our place knows this.
    Why would we want to invite people to see how different passive components sound in our products? Quality of materials and musicality of our products are fundamental to our business model. Nothing is better than a satisfied customer who keeps coming back for more. The only but very crucial difference between us and our competitors is that we also walk the walk instead of talking the talk. Everything we state on our website comes with the intention to keep our customers informed as opposed to misinformed as widely practiced in the industry. If somebody thinks otherwise, please come over to this forum, contact us or better come over and talk to us - feel free to ask your questions publicly.

    All I can say, do not take my word for it but come over for an audition and find out yourself. One can hardly fault us if you will like what we do.
    Last edited by SW1X; 18-10-2016 at 12:56.
    SW1X Audio DesignTM ... Finest Audio Components ... Designed and Handcrafted in England
    www.SW1XAD.co.uk

  10. #90
    Join Date: Apr 2016

    Location: Essex

    Posts: 127
    I'm Slawa.

    Default you are welcome

    Another thing:

    It is relatively easy to scrutinise other peoples ideas and products based on their looks especially without even having listened to them.

    It is much harder to put your money where your mouth is.

    If somebody thinks that they can make a better product for less, then bring it on. We welcome you to compete with us but please be fair when you do so.

    How many of our respected competitors can or are willing to show what is inside their equipment, hidden inside their designer casing?

    Try us
    Last edited by SW1X; 18-10-2016 at 14:04.
    SW1X Audio DesignTM ... Finest Audio Components ... Designed and Handcrafted in England
    www.SW1XAD.co.uk

+ Reply to Thread
Page 9 of 9 FirstFirst ... 789

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •