gkoones

In the case of hardware products that need drivers or firmware, separating the software development costs from the overall cost of engineer is removing a drop of ink placed in glass of milk, it can't be done and it doesn't matter. Its just part of the fixed cost that has to be amortized over the sales volume. In fact, the design process is often a process of how much functionality to place in hardware and how much to place in software.

High end audio is part of the consumer electronics industry. It's big yearly show is the CES. (the c stands for consumer). Cost of goods teardowns are a standard part of the review of pretty much every consumer electronic product. Every new iPhone and iPod is subject to one, I don't see Apple complaining that's it's an insult to do a teardown. If anything, the ability to price your product with a higher multiple of price to cost of goods is an indication of the consumer's belief in the value added of the engineering and your brand. It's not an invasion of privacy or a violation of trade secrets, its simply one measure of comsumer value.

Rather than insult me, tell use. You have one, list the major components, and we can all calculate the cost of goods. As for your intolerance of opposing viewpoints, high end audio isn’t a religious cult, it’s a commercial enterprise. Why should it be exempt from expressions of “caveat emptor”

I think its very positive to challenge a vendor with a financial interest in selling a product packaged in what looks like high school shop class sheet metal at 10 to 20 times its cost of goods.

I might be showing my age, but the first thing that came to mind was Heathkit or Eico, but more primitive.

The chipsets on those motherboards don't include USB 3, the support is added to the motherboard with a specialized USB 3 chip. Rather then go to wikipedia, look up the Intel specs, you will notice no current Intel Chipset or IO controller chip (the P55 is a lower end single component chip set, the higher end ones require an additional IO controller) include USB 3 support. Don't take my word for it, behold Intel's block diagram of the p55. http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Chipsets/P55/P55-overview.htm

I don't think any of the major chipsets currently include USB 3. Last I heard, Intel chipsets will start including USB 3.0 in late 2011 or early 2012. When that happens, every new production PC will have USB 3. There are a few motherboards that currently include USB 3, but I think they do it by adding an NEC 720200. Once the Intel chipset include USB 3, its market share goes to 100%, if they don't it stays at zero.

First, USB licensing fees are pretty close to zero. Last time is looked it was a flat fee of 1000 per year to get a vendor id. There are no plans to change that for USB 3. As I recall, Apple initially demanded a $1.00 per port royalty for FireWire but relented after USB 2 drove its market share close to zero. As for the “design and testing” cost to incorporate USB 3 on new computer system designs, just like USB 2 the cost will be zero. There is no spot on a PC where you drop in a USB chip, its part of the chipset. USB 3 will be also be part of the chipset. As for peripherals, just like USB 2 support chips, USB 3 chips will use the same standard I2C bus interface. Compatibility with existing designs is a big issue for every chip vendor.

Perhaps the cable had to bend more using the first port, thereby squeezing the bits.

No current generation system has a USB 1.1 only port, they have USB 2 ports that are backwards compatible with USB 1 and 1.1.. Within the next two years of so, native support will be all be USB 3 , backwards compatible with previous versions. The extra cost, zero. As for LightPeak, stop listening to the Intel press releases. They pushed WiMax which went and is going nowhere, they pushed NGIO with was transformed into the marginalized Infiniband and they would produce 64 bit x86 pushing Itanium until AMD ate not only their lunch but their breakfast and diner for years.. LightPeak is only Intel’s way to get a patent royalty interface to avoid being overrun by 10 GB Ethernet. Computer interfaces live by the motto, marketshare is everything, and just like “The Highlander”, in the end there can be only one. Ignore Jobs, if USB 3 becomes ubiquitous Apple will support it in an instant.

I think that the box the WireWorld cables came in are changing the Fung Shui of the room causing the high frequencies to roll out the door, you need to place the shipping wrapper of a cheap USB cable in a spot that will equilize the energy from the WireWorld box.

One effect of USB 3 is it might make marginalize FireWire to such an extent that it will for all intensive purposes disappear. The computer industry has a way on converging on single interfaces. With USB 3 as fast as the latest versions of FireWire, you might find FireWire disappearing from both Apple and the high end Intel motherboards. Once native support disappears, peripherals, like DACs will follow.

The advantage of USB 3 will be in the derivative products. It will spur the development of a new generation of high function interface chips. I’ve always wondered why there is any jitter at all in either USB or FireWire. Both have transmission speeds that far outstrip the rather modest need of audio. You can simply build a couple of buffer on the DAC side, send the bits to the buffer, and then clock them out to DAC with zero jitter.

"rounded off square waveforms of the signal, making them less clear" That's completely absurd. Yes, there is jitter, but every usb chip is designed extract bits from those "rounded off" waveforms with pretty close to perfect accuracy.

You'll notice that its only supported under Windows XP.