#107

I would be willing to bet that they’d get bashed for betraying their fanbase and creating a new OP-2 instead of updating/upgrading/improving/fixing the OP-1.

I’m with Jonny on this. Yes, the new price of the OP-1 is too much. They should’ve looked into their user base and the competition to determine the price, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. They’re producing cheap instruments all day long, claiming that they’re doing it “for the profit” is a bit far fetched. I’ve read a lot of posts (mostly IG and other forums) from people saying they’re not buying a TE product ever again. How upset can you get over a price that’s too much for your wallet?

I’m unsure whether people are just super sentimental over trivial things or if it’s the internet in general. Don’t mean to derail but I do think people lose grip of reality. I get that people are pissed, but there are some very bold statements out there.

Sorry everyone who might get offended by the above. :kissing_heart:

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#108

It’s a fantastic device, no doubt, loved mine but sold it for workflow reasons.

However, 1400 euros for it is just too much, I am not prepared to do that. I do feel like this is a bit of a less than tasteful move from their part. Can’t really see the justification behind such a huge price hike, unless the screen contains adamantium parts or some such.

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#109

whats perhaps even more bewildering than the price hike itself is the lack of a statement about it directly from TE (though i suspect one will emerge, it seems like it has to).

this certainly warrants a good faith explanation and it would seem to be in their best interest to release one, as lots of people (myself included) are very turned off by this increase which really does scan as a gouge (even when rigorously and completely speculatively unpacked, as people have attempted above), the extremity of which feels almost unprecedented in boutique electronics

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#110

surely, some people would be offended by whatever action.

however, many of the meaningful improvements (audio fidelity being primary among those) would rely largely on hardware improvements.

I’d go further and just say they are a design studio that happens to make some regularly available boutique products.

TE are free to draft off or ignore conventional hardware company logic when it comes to updating products. From my point of view (having worked in consumer electronics), all I can say is that if a device like the OP-1 has to have the kind of price it now has, they’ve set themselves up poorly to justify that to people.

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#111

I would argue that TE started as a design company and they still are a design company, but they’ve secured a place in the music manufacturer industry and they do promote themselves as such. I don’t see any other designer studios in NAMM and/or Superbooth.

#112

I feel like now would be an excellent time to direct people’s attention towards OTTO, the open-source synth inspired by the OP-1: https://github.com/topisani/OTTO

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#113

Given how instrument manufacturers usually operate, this was a weird move.

I feel like most would have decided they can’t charge 40% more for an instrument that’s 0% better – and either discontinued it with a promise that more exciting things are to come, or redesigned it and taken the opportunity to make some minor improvements.

But then, choosing an expensive, wrongly sized OLED screen in the first place was a weird move. (I’ve owned a PS Vita, I know OLEDs look nice, but really… the Vita sleeps in a drawer and I play my Switch multiple times per week.)

Unless I’m dreaming it, I seem to recall one of the reasons Paul Schreiber developed the SynthTech E352 was that the screens on the E370 were cheaper in bulk than at the quantity he needed.

1 Like
#114

Thanks for this. I am watching with interest.

#115

The OP-1 is a worthwhile investment. As you can see, it is worth more now than it has ever been worth before, a trend I see only continuing as time goes on.

I don’t expect to retire on the money I’ll get from selling my OP-1 in thirty years but I’m sure it’ll pay for a couple hyper-virtua-FX (or whatever is rad in thirty years). Or, if I die before I sell it as an older gentleman, it will bring in some money to help comfort my abandoned family.

That said, I agree that the price of the OP-1 is quite expensive. Certainly, as an instrument it succeeds wildly for many whereas others view it as a toy or as an inferior piece of gear.

As for myself, I believe it to be an effective instrument and use it frequently in my own music to add flourishes which would otherwise be difficult for me to attain.

Additionally, I feel the OP-1 exists at the intersection of musical instrument, objet d’art, and lifestyle signifier. I have already discussed why I believe the OP-1 is a musical instrument (professional or toy; you can decide).

As mentioned above, an OP-1 is on display in a museum forever which gives it a certain glow. A Waldorf Blofeld (cheaper + better than the OP-1, though less immediate) is not in any museum, for example.

However, I believe the OP-1 is in the museum because of its status as a lifestyle signifier. The lifestyle signified is minimal, refined, clean, socially conscious, aesthetically pleasing, and not without a certain wry humor.

For those reasons I believe the OP-1 is a worthwhile investment.

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#116

Is it possible the OP-1 price hike is a Russian backed move to divide the synth community?

I mean…TE is in cahoots with Huawei via IKEA (Google it). Ponder that! Ponder! It!

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#117

I know you meant it as a joke, but lets not feed Russo-phobia please, western media has enough of that :slight_smile:

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#118

maybe this is obvious, but i think the vast majority of the new outrage could have been avoided if they 1) didn’t go out of their way to say the used market for the op-1 was getting too expensive and 2) simply acknowledged the price increase in their new announcement. it’s really the combination of those two things that is getting people mad enough to post a comment

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#119

Yeah, this is a really bad look for TE. “Nobody should be paying this much for an OP-1!*

*Unless they are paying us directly.”

I think it’s a great investment but definitely not for $1300. It’s a killer sketchpad for musical ideas and a lot of fun, but I bought mine for $750 with a coupon when they were $849 new. I wouldn’t want to pay much more for it given the quality control issues and that it’s inherently pretty lo-fi.

#120

Good point. No harm meant, but you’re right. :+1:

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#121

Thanks for also not implying that westerners believe everything their media spews.

Regarding the OP-1 being worth it, I would agree with what most are saying here. It is too much for what you get, but if I really wanted one or if there was a need for one, I think it is still attainable.

Personally I’d look at which CPU, ADC, and DAC are being used in the OP-1 and OP-Z and which ever had the better components there would probably be what I get. That TE didn’t improve any of that in lieu of the price hike is nonsense.

Still small companies can’t work like big companies, and they don’t leverage the supply chain like them. I don’t think the price hike is a conspiracy to milk a situation and make a boat load of money.

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#122

Are they? When they went looking for financing three years ago, they had annual sales of $7 million, presumably that’s grown, and now have 40 employees. That’s not Google, but I’m not sure very small is what I’d call them. Not that it matters I guess, but I have seen lots of people use their perceived size as a defence of their choices.

Given losses they had in the early years, I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t charging enough for the OP-1 from the get go, but that the market wouldn’t have stood for anything more (when it came out, lots of people thought it was too expensive). It’s a shame though that in reviving it with the raised price, they don’t appear to have fixed any of the long-term problems people have had with it.

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#123

To me, that’s a small company. I’m comparing to the giants like Korg, Roland, Behringer, etc. Not going to blindly defend Teenage Engineering, just trying to have more than a knee jerk reaction to a price increase (nobody likes those of course). People have always complained about the price of an OP-1, so this definitely didn’t help.

Word over on the OP-1 tips/tricks thread is that the recent software update improved the gain structure and a bunch of other things, so they are putting effort into it again.

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#124

That’s literally what I did. Swapped for a Digitone and Thyme. Norns also a great step from an OP-1 if you don’t mind getting a bit closer to the metal of tool configuration.

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#125

40 people is a very small company. I run my own s/w house for a few years and we were 5 people. 40 is just the next size level and it’s still very small. But you are right in that size is not an excuse for a lot of things, but it is an excuse for pricing. At least somewhat.

I’m just amazed by the synth community, if there is such a thing, acting so high and mighty about the price increase. It’s a rather intriguing example of perception. You have a nicely featured and eloquently designed synthesizer at $1300 and people find it expensive, while at the same time a DIY drum synthesizer from a one-off manufacturer at 1000 gbp seems reasonable. And at the same time people will doll out 390 euros for a eurorack filter and get ecstatic!

I am not complaining. Really, I’m not, I just find it fascinating to follow the posts. I also find it fascinating that the IG post about the OP-1 re-release got 12k likes last time I checked and around 700 posts with a lot of bashing (although I’d say half of those posts pertain to the same 2-3 people complaining constantly).

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#127

I’d agree it’s not a “big company” but it’s all relative – many companies in the synth world are 1-2 people.

I’ve worked for three companies with 3 or 4 people each, one that was about 25 people at peak, and my current job is about 15. 40 would probably feel kind of big to me.

Anyway – I think the main cause of the complaint isn’t the price itself, but the drastic price change, and right after the company advised people not to pay those prices.

1 Like