Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

[tyger23]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

Cool concept. One design every 90 days? That's asking a lot of someone IMO.

I have to agree. I certainly understand why 90 days could be reasonable, but in all honesty - it's tough for me to get out two high-quality designs in a year. Also, with 10 designers, that pace would produce 40 new designs a year, which seems to be quite a lot to me. I worry about that amount literally saturating the market.

Ginger - a few questions for you:

1. 4 designs per year can be prohibitively expensive, especially with 3-way designs requiring lots of crossover components. Will the designs be subsidized by PE? I.e. - will there be a subsidy above and beyond the "monthly stipend" and "additional credit"? I might be willing to design 4 per year for you, but there's no way I can personally afford the expense of all the drivers and crossover components required to produce 4 per year. If the monthly stipend is intended to cover these costs, then I guess that would be fine provided the monthly stipend can be adjusted based on the project being proposed/produced.

2. Do the designs produced belong to the individual designer, or will the rights be owned by Parts Express? I'm guessing the answer to this depends on the answer to #1. To me, if the designer ponies up the money for the drivers and crossover components, the rights should belong to the designer. If the drivers and crossover components are subsidized by P.E. - then I assume the rights to the design should belong to P.E.

3. Does this type agreement essentially make the "design team" an employee of Parts Express (like a contract employee)? What will be the tax implications, etc? Will there be W2/W4 forms to worry about or will the "monthly stipend" be in the form of store credit (which should avoid this type issue, but force any non-PE expenses to be covered by the designer)?

Thanks for the idea, and it seems quite interesting!

[Kevin K.]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

I am trying to see the purpose of introducing such a competitive aspect to this?

I didn't mean for it to come across as an aggressive competition, in fact, don't call it a competition at all. More of a "show and tell". I was thinking more along the lines of seeing the variety that would come from it and how each designer would put his or her "own signature" on their designs. I think a lot could be learned from how each designer picked his other driver choice to compliment the designated driver and how he decided to incorporate them into the final speaker.

[hongrn]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

I don't think any of us here can crank out 4 projects a year. 1 per year is OK, two is really pushing it.

[johnnyrichards]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

Interesting/new drivers always end up being used by multiple people in multiple ways no matter what. Adding constraints to multiple people creates a competition in every thing but name.

[johnnyrichards]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

I think four per year is doable - perhaps some of them can be pro-audio related, amplifier/DSP related, a series of modular designs implementing larger/more woofers under the same T/M...

[dlneubec]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

I am trying to see the purpose of introducing such a competitive aspect to this?

+1. PE already has a great competition event with MWAF. No need to inject a competition into this, IMO.

[fdieck]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

I think some you guys are missing the point, PE provides this forum at some expense and is a pretty consistent and genorous sponsor to most of the audio gatherings promoted here. A very sizable number of projects, with extensive exposure here, wind up as kits sold by a competitor, many kits and from the same competitor. I don't know what the quid pro quo is with this competitor is, but it only makes sense for this forum to benefit Parts Express to a large degree under most business models. I don't think anybody is asking for exclusion PE product discussion here but it would be nice to throw some business their way. This is a constant issue with hobbyist forums and PE has show a very light touch concerning this.

Ideally it would be nice to have an in house designer but that would be expensive. Maybe a team effort with a division of labor would be possibility. Part of the "problem" is to usual suspects here have moved up to level of using some pretty expensive and exclusive drivers that it might not make sense for PE to stock.

[jhollander]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

Interesting but as other have mentioned I’d not be interested in 4 projects per year. That would take the fun out of it. The tax and liability issues would bother me as well. Maybe I could use a pen name or alias, like Hillbilly Bob or something like that if I was to make it in…

[fdieck]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

Interesting but as other have mentioned I’d not be interested in 4 projects per year. That would take the fun out of it. The tax and liability issues would bother me as well. Maybe I could use a pen name or alias, like Hillbilly Bob or something like that if I was to make it in…

The Stig....

[Kevin K.]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

+1. PE already has a great competition event with MWAF. No need to inject a competition into this, IMO.

I had forgot about MWAF and I personally have not attended one yet, looking forward to it. You and Johnny are probably right, it doesn't make sense to have this group of guys compete with each other on this level, they should be rooting each other on. I would however argue that a lot of the new drivers exist for quite some time before you start seeing proven applications for them, just thought this might be a way to kick them off to a better start. Perhaps a more fitting solution would be to create a custom forum just for these ten guys "the round table of designers". Other members could view their conversations and projects, but not comment so the threads don't get derailed.

[isaeagle4031]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

4 is possible, but very tight imo. No competition. There is enough of that already. Personally, I believe 3 per year is more doable depending on the size of the projects. In the last year, I've built 6 distinct builds dating back to mwaf 2014. Financially, that's been a bit rough not to mention the time commitment. I like the idea and let the designers use their own imagination and creativity. That is what this hobby is really about!

[Blenton]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

I think some you guys are missing the point, PE provides this forum at some expense and is a pretty consistent and genorous sponsor to most of the audio gatherings promoted here. A very sizable number of projects, with extensive exposure here, wind up as kits sold by a competitor, many kits and from the same competitor. I don't know what the quid pro quo is with this competitor is, but it only makes sense for this forum to benefit Parts Express to a large degree under most business models. I don't think anybody is asking for exclusion PE product discussion here but it would be nice to throw some business their way. This is a constant issue with hobbyist forums and PE has show a very light touch concerning this.

I agree with these sentiments. PE does this community a great service by hosting this forum; it's free for us but not for them (well, except that I have acquired the same speaker hoarding illness that many members on this board are afflicted with... :D). Personally, I think the new team is a great idea. My very first pair of speakers that I designed and built were inspired by Dr. K's MTM's found on PE's site; I still have them and listen to them everyday. I applaud PE's effort to assemble a team.

[tyger23]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

The Stig....

[ATTACH=CONFIG]58207[/ATTACH]

I'll take Jeremy Clarkson. And if you don't like it, I'll punch you.

[Jeff B.]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

I don't think their terms are excessive, and it sounded like they would be covering a lot of the cost of the drivers plus giving a stipend. The quantity isn't that big of a deal either. I have completed eight full designs since March. So, it's not too hard. I do think it's unrealistic to think all of these designs would make excellent kits, and I would expect that there would be a lot of overlap in the interest of the designers. I also agree that they will have to be careful not to over-saturate their market.

I do disagree with some of the comments about the forum though; I think it generates a lot of revenue for PE.

Jeff

[isaeagle4031]

Re: Announcing the Parts Express Speaker Design Team call

Are those actual full builds Jeff? If so, you are a madman lol! To be able to conceptualize, design, build, test, tweak etc 4 full builds per year is possible but won't be easy by any means.