New WM-DD center gear prototype is here (EDIT - final version is here)

I add that if they sold 3 for 60 I would surely buy the 3. I hope Marian will serve you. Greetings.

 

Recently there is on ebay an offer for central gear repair service : for 50$ + shipping you get a basic DD service + central gear fixing. An offer like that has always hidden costs and I guess the overall service, including shipping will be more likely towards 100$.
Marian's centre gear kit must be cheaper than that otherwise sales will be very poor.

 

I charge 50$ for central gear repair, with NO hidden costs and that include WHOLE service - if nothing else needs to be replaced. Most expensive repair that I had was 60$ and that`s because lever for head transport was broken. All other repairs was 50$ with no hidden costs.

 

I had no intention of implying anything wrong, once you open-up a Dd it's easy to find other cracked gears especially in the older ones and that can drive costs up. Anyway including shipment back and forth the total cost is not far from my estimated grand total.
Other repair services I know of asks 100 EUR for the gear alone.

 

I also do not charge more than 30 - 40 EUR for full service of DD model. But it has nothing to do with real expenses and real effort that I have to put into it. I need several hours to work on each one. I do lot of preventive tasks, for example I increase hole diameter of reel gears from 2.00 mm to 2.01 mm, to prevent from crack in the future. I also need to do all electronic adjustments, like dolby level, balance. Only the equipment, that I use, costs more than I can earn by repairs. The real repair price should be no less than 100 EUR. For models like WM-D3 even more.
The reason is that I do not want to earn money by fixing walkmans and cassette decks. I want it to stay my hobby. I work for pleasure not for money. This is the difference between "I MUST" and "I WANT". I have my permanent job as IT specialist. I do not say that I do not need to earn more money - here in Slovakia, salaries are very low. Average monthly salary here is about 800 EUR. When I loose job or something wrong happens, then I will sure increase repair cost.

The same is for parts that I develop and sell. I do not earn money to sell them. I better invest them to other development.

 

I agree on not wanting to turn it into a full on business. Enjoy working on them and not make it "work". Once it turns in work, it's no longer fun. Hehehehe. That's why I'm planning only to work on walkmans I buy and then sell so I can use the profits on Walkmans I want to add to my own collection.

 

I must say that a total price of 10€ per piece (without shipping) is a price I would pay without event thinking about it.

I think many people want to buy one and try it out. Only after it worked, they will order more units. I bought most of my DDs (after carefully searching) for 20–40€. Most in perfect condition (however, none with original packaging). Compared to that, paying more than 15€ per replacement gear seems tough.

It does not mean I wouldn’t love to support you but my feeling is that the price is crucial – not only for your return of investment but also for the volume at which you are selling. I have the feeling that a price under 15€ will kick off your sales while a price close to 50€ will only let you sell to a few people who either have a lot of money or do this walkman thing kinda professionally.

However, thank you so much for your fantastic work!

 

I understand that you were able to hunt for cheap DD and at the end you found it for very good price. Especially when you live in Germany and many eBay sellers do not ship abroad. Such auctions go for very low prices.

But you cannot compare price of new gear to the price of an old player. It could be fair to compare it to price of Sony DD when it was new. Back in 80's they were sold for 200-300 USD? After inflation, how much would they cost now? 600-800?
In this case, 30 EUR for center gear is not unreal. You can buy car wreck for 100 EUR. But to bring it to like-new condition, you must pay 10 times the price of new one.

But there is another thing to consider. These players were produced in hundred of thousands, may be millions. My parts are produced in hundreds. Only the initial cost is very high. This is the third version of the gear. I had to pay whole development.
To keep these old analog devices working, the spare parts won't be cheap. We have to be prepared for it. Parts are made in small amounts, it is very easy maths.

Another thing - I get back only about 20% of sale price, rest goes for various fees, tax and other payments given by Slovak law. It is reality in EU. Try to make business and you will see how difficult it is to be honest. If I set price to 10 EUR, I will get back only 2 EUR. It is much less than what I had to pay for one gear set production. Even if I sell 10000 pieces, the investment will never be returned. 25 EUR is minimum, if I want to have at least chance that one day the finances will be returned. Thanks to kind sponsors here I can offer this price.

Another thing - for each gear that I sell I have to spend lot of time - answer questions from buyers, pack it, bring to post office. Day by day. All my free time is occupied by this.

One thing that disappoints me is that people are able to pay 50 EUR for several beers when meeting friends. But when it comes to buying from eBay, they do not want to pay more than 1 or 2 EUR. It's because they're used that from ebay or Alibaba they can buy things for almost nothing from Chinese re-sellers. But I am not
- Chinese
- I am not re-seller

By the way, I produce and sell other hard-to-get parts, like thin belts, pinch rollers, special idlers. I do not do it for profit. But without money I'm not able to support further development.

 

"By the way, I produce and sell other hard-to-get parts, like thin belts, pinch rollers, special idlers. I do not do it for profit. But without money I'm not able to support further development."

I'm absolutely agreed with this!

 

mihokm I don’t even know why you are trying to justify your position, you have done a great job in addressing a problem that a lot of people are having.

We all know a lot of people want something for nothing. It’s like music a lot of people think it should be free and don’t want to pay for it as they can get it off some torrent site, how long do they think they can keep getting the music for nothing if the artist making the music cannot put food on the table for their family. Those artist will stop and do something else that puts food on the table.

mihokm you are lucky as to the only way they are going to get your gears for nothing is to burgle your house. You should charge what makes you a profit and if people don’t want to pay the price, let them go and make their own gear. Me I have no problem paying for what I want as I want to reward the person that has done the work to give me pleasure. Like I said before I have paid more to have my broken gears fixed.

 

I would happily pay 30 Euros for a new gear, hell I might even pay to have my DD professionally cleaned and serviced too + new 'it's a sony' sticker form Doublecee.

It's worth every penny to get what is essentially a piece of history, fully functional again. I think people should be grateful that you're actually offering this service at all. Until now, people would just have to get their gears repaired and there's no guarantee that the clicking noise is going to completely go away.

 

Hey mihokm. You are absolutely right – you put so much time ( = money) into it and you are not a mass-producer. Also you are very modest in general and so I understand that when I say 10€ would be a great price it just sounds awful to you. I apologise That was simply my initial feedback without thinking too much. Don’t get me wrong – if you say it’s only reasonable to sell the gears for 30€ and up that’s perfectly fine – I would happily buy them! You also have a strong point to compare the price of the spare parts to the initial price of the Walkmans!

After all, I think we cannot ask how much we feel or think the spare parts would be worth.
Only you can set the price, based on your investment.

Again – I cannot say that enough – thank you so much for your work!

 

mihokm, I think you should contact SONY and they should sponsor this, it is somehow their fault.... They should even give you a reward if you ask me.

 

I would be willing to pay whatever you think is reasonable for repairing the centre gear especially as I do not have the expertise to do such things . Indeed a plug and a fuse is about my limit as Iwas brought up in a non scientific or non technical household I am amazed at what you can do. can you let me know your address so I can send some through for repair and would it be better to send them all together or one at a time Philip (UK)

 

Hi Reimar,

you do not need to apologize. You're absolutely right about price. Whatever price you say, it will be right price.
When I showed my DC2 to my colleagues, noone would pay one Euro for it. Many people rather throw it to trash, instead of trying to repair it. The reason is very simple. They're not interested in analog music. 99.9% do not care. They don't care what they listen to. Some even do not like listen to music. For them, paying i cent is too much. There are only few DC2's sold per month on eBay and they're very expensive. On the other hand, hundreds end in trash.

For example for me, one glass of water is more valuable than one glass of the most expensive wine. The reason is, I do not drink alcohol at all and I do not like. How much would I pay for a bottle of the most expensive wine? 1 cent may be. I do not need it. The same rule applies to spare parts. Only I can tell what is minimum price. But to find optimum price, for most efficient return of investment, it is very hard to estimate.

 

Hi Marian. I think that sounds very reasonable for the gear itself and I would be keen to buy at least three. I guess the big issue is going to be fitting the replacement gear. If it can be done by an experienced tech locally then I would opt to buy the gears only. If it's really a job you need to do I would need to know what budget I need for each DD I need repaired.
Cheers
Brian

 

It's not difficult to fit a new gear, just make sure you don't lose anything while you take it apart.

 

Hi Marian
So much air in the sky! Your gear is an essential piece for all DD walkmans, even an important piece to do the repair right! 35€ is a good and fair price because iT is the only proper solution to the problem... Bravo!!!

 

Yes. Value is relative. But the price needs to be set to an amount that leaves a reasonable profit margin for Marian. The points are strong:

• the spare part will fit a large range of DD models
• we cannot compare the price to prices of Chinese mass manufactory
• we need to count in the development time and investment for prototypes
• we should consider the (expensive!) initial price of the DD Walkmans
• the repair extends each device’s lifespan for another few decades
• it’s a service for mankind – we preserve these beautiful little machines

And considering all these things, 35€ does not sound like a lot of money any more!

 

I got message from producer, the gears are finished. They will send it later, so that they could reach me when I'm back.