Takahashi : absurd prices for spares.

[ollypenrice]

While our EM200, after a dodgy start, is now performing like a trooper I intend to give Tak a bit of richly deserved bad publicity over their spares prices. The middle pin of the handset cable remained in the socket when I removed it last week. I pulled it out OK but a spare cable from Tak is - make sure you're sitting down - over 150 Euros.

This is treating their customers with avarice and contempt. There can be no excuse for it and they deserve to lose orders as a result.

Alternative cable sources do exist but that is not the point I'm making, as I'm sure you understand.

Olly.

[Sparrow]

That price is just taking the **** - I understand your frustration Olly

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

Spares are ridiculous no matter the company, thats why stuff is built so poorly nowadays. Ford tried charging me almost £600 for the back end of a mondeo exhaust (It was the ST so a dual exit), literally just the backbox and tailpipes. I could buy an entire custom stainless system for that! What's wrong with these people? It's almost like they don't want to sell you the spares.

[gooseholla]

Ouch. It'll cost them all of a few quid to make.

I know your pain. Ages ago I needed a cable for my phone - £50!!! Looked around, 3rd party was about £10. Did the same job - after all, it is a bit of wire with a connector!

But you're right, "official" spares are stupid prices, in any field of life.

[johninderby]

If you want ridiculous look at the prices of audio cables.

Linear Flow 2 "Shielded" Cable 2M: £450.00

For a 2 metre audio cable.

John

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

That is just a rip off. What is is made of, platinum?

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

Haha! that reminds me of when i bought my first HDTV, the salesman was all "oh, you'l need an HDMI cable..." so we wondered on over, and he proceeded to tell me that i NEEDED this shielded, braided, superwhizbang 1 meter cable for £150.

I told him to put the tv back, and went next door to buy from someone who wasn't a moron. I made sure to wheel it past the door on my way back to the car with a big smile on my face.

[Stephen]

Certain audio and visual cables do justify their high prices (just because it's 1s and 0s doesn't mean that 20p cable will work as well!) - though you need to be an audiophile/visualphile purist to fully utilise it.

As to the cable in question by Olly - WTF!!!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Old analog signals justify expensive cables much more than do digital signals. I used to do quite a bit of stage lighting and sound, and quality cables count in situations where there is a lot of interference in the same frequency band as the signal. Good contact surfaces (gold) are useful in particular if you frequently plug something in and out. As telescope cables really do not need to transmit high frequency signals (how fast does your stepper motor go), precious little shielding is needed, as a rule. And of course Etoille de St. Cyrice is not a hotbed of RF interference.

[johninderby]

High end audio can make astronomy look like a budget hobby in comparison.

I did once buy a £100.00 replacment cable for some headphones and there was a noticeable difference, but that was using some very good headphones along with a Creek headphone amp.

John

[LMC]

...The middle pin of the handset cable remained in the socket when I removed it last week. I pulled it out OK but a spare cable from Tak is - make sure you're sitting down - over 150 Euros.

Olly.

One of the reasons I wouldn't buy another Tak anything!

[Earl]

Scary Prices.

however not unexpected, did they charge you for the phone call? or rather do they not have a free phone number?

[parvee]

Had to stretch £1.5k for the (refurbished) turbo in my Mazda6 recently. Had no choice really... turbodiesel without turbo is just a tractor and the car without it would be worth... well I was told 1.5k. But generally I think the more expensive the stuff is, the more maintenance cost will be. And as far as I'm concerned, Olly has astro-setup equivalent of Ferrari.

[ronin]

All companies tend to make their money on the spares and possible servicing after you have whatever they sell these days.

Have a Volkswagon and they do not say in the extensive user manual what oil goes in the car. What they say is "Take the car to your VW service centre and have them put in VW part No 1234567890."

Where VW part No VW1234567890 is 10x the cost of ant other oil and you get a charge of 1/2 hour for someone putting it in.

The whole manual is like that, no real information, just take it to a VW garage to be done.

Company I work for sells each item a user needs individually, any customer has to buy each one seperately, usually licenced for a year. So instead of purchasing a "system" they have to purchase several bits. Fancy having to buy each component of Windows before you can use a PC, then relicencing again in 12 months. That is how a company does it.

Once you have the main item then in many cases you have no option then to buy their parts, the Mazda being a prime example. Really the choice is a Mazda turbo or another car. Mazda also have their service interval at 9000 miles not 12000 as most others. So if you miss the more frequent service the whole guarantee will be void. So paying for a service at more frequent occasions.

[malc-c]

If you buy the "Rolls Royce" of telescope mounts then this is what to expect when buying "dealer" parts !

Have to agree with the others, there will be cheaper alternatives (like patten parts for cars) and often they work, maybe not as well as the pucker part, but well enough.

[RikM]

I would have though high end manufacturers would be keener to have customers want to use their products, rather than curse that they have to use them to get the results they want. You expect to pay a premium for for a premium product, but that is insulting.

[AndyH]

While our EM200, after a dodgy start, is now performing like a trooper I intend to give Tak a bit of richly deserved bad publicity over their spares prices. The middle pin of the handset cable remained in the socket when I removed it last week. I pulled it out OK but a spare cable from Tak is - make sure you're sitting down - over 150 Euros.

This is treating their customers with avarice and contempt. There can be no excuse for it and they deserve to lose orders as a result.

Alternative cable sources do exist but that is not the point I'm making, as I'm sure you understand.

Olly.

Mmm.

I was going to type, 'that's terrible'.

No.

It's disgusting and shameful.

[pete_l]

... a spare cable from Tak is - make sure you're sitting down - over 150 Euros.

Ahhh, but you'll see many more stars with a genyoooou-ine Takahashi replacement cable than you would with a cheap substitute. :D

They'll also be rounder, less prone to atmospheric effects, a more realistic colour and less "flamboyant" in the upper mid ranges (ooops, sorry that's the audiophile response leaking into the post)

[pmlogg]

Other annoying things Tak are:

- their use of so many odd thread sizes

- that they do not publish the thread sizes and optical lengths of adapters

- that they use different part numbers for the same component in different parts of the world

[jamespels]

I think you should ditch the Tak cable, get on eof these and make up your own connectors:

Amazon.com: Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable: Electronics

Given what they can do for audio (see the reviews - they're great!), they really will brighten, sharpen, de-cloud, auto-stack and probably even print the results . Well worth a rread of the comments on this one - it's one of those ones where people have responded as you would expect for a £500 CAT5 cable!

[Zakalwe]

If you want ridiculous look at the prices of audio cables.

Linear Flow 2 "Shielded" Cable 2M: £450.00

For a 2 metre audio cable.

John

You'll love the Kimber leads from Russ Andrews then...£1134 for a power lead

Fools and their money.....

[great_bear]

You'll love the Kimber leads from Russ Andrews then...£1134 for a power lead

Just make sure you demagnetize your vinyl records to make it worthwhile

LP Demagnetiser $2,448

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

You'll love the Kimber leads from Russ Andrews then...£1134 for a power lead

Fools and their money.....

As someone with a MSc in physics and astronomy, I really, really, really wonder what they mean by

"mains voltage optimised copper"

???

Copper is a metal, how on earth do you optimise it for mains voltage? You minimise resistance by using silver, that might justify high prices, but this sounds like a real rip-off.

[Zakalwe]

Just make sure you demagnetize your vinyl records to make it worthwhile

LP Demagnetiser $2,448

Or the $500 wooden knobs.

And apologies to Olly for the thread hijack.

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

LOL i love these marketing blags. You see them everywhere though, be it shampoos with "silkening" ingredients (apparently thats a word now).

Or my personal favourite - my lynx shower gel, with glacier water and deep sea enriched mint.

REALLY? Lynx import millions of gallons of glacier water to make this shower gel? Is that so....

DEEP SEA ENRICHED MINT? How exactly does that work? You plant mint at the bottom of the sea? or perhaps you water your mint plants with sea water that you've pumped from the depths? Either way, i don't think thats going to do it much good, or be very cost effective.

And yet you know that most people won't even give it a second thought. They'l read the label and just get drawn in by the buzzwords GLACIER, DEEP SEA, ENRICHED, and they'l think "mmmm sounds refreshing" and they'l buy it. Whats worse is that by buying it, they'l be validating some guy in lynx marketing department, who'l sit there thinking up all new buzzwords to slap all over their next generic shower gel with added fragrance, all the while patting himself on the back, thinking "great work jim, you've nailed it again" and getting paid **** knows how much for doing so..

I mean seriously, how did "Glacier water and deep sea enriched mint" manage to get from concept, all the way through presentations to the next higher up, all the way through marketing presentations in boardrooms to the corporates, basically all the way through the system, being exposed to all those people, those great minds in charge of where the company is going, and nobody, not one person said "ummm, what does that actually mean? Because, you know... It doesn't actually make any sense..."

*sigh*

/rant