RadioBanter - *gulp*

On 2004-02-14 said:
Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
Can anyone explain this to me???
Tecsun BCL-2000 being sold online
at http://store.yahoo.com/sports-imports/5bashrainred.html
FM/AM/SW Digital 5 Band Shortwave Radio in Red or Black BCL2000
Regular price: $189.95Sale price: (You save: 32%)
I cannot fathom the selling price or the statement about
"regular price"
I want to express shock and dismay, but all I can do is
sit here and shake my head!!!
This radio is like $80 including shipping on eBay.
The Grundig S350 is only $99 plus shipping, online. And
the same price plus tax in a retail store. Right???
----SNIP----

What was that the ancient Romans used to say about, "Caveat emptor"? I
think it's rediculous to claim a retail price of $149.95 for something a
Chinese seller can advertise on EBay for $42 all the time and sell at a
proffit. Of course, by the time you pay him $38 for shipping to the USA or
Canada, you have an $80 radio, and that may or may not include a stepdown
voltage transformer, which effectively turns your built-in power supply in
something that ends up plugging in via a wall wart. That's the Tecsun
BCL-2000. The seller in Detroit has it with the stepdown transformer for
$69.99 plus $14.99 for shipping within the US or to Canada, giving you a
radio delivered to your door for $84.98. Then, you can buy what amounts to
nearly the same radio with extra MW coverage and a Grundig brand name on it
for $99.99 everywhere that sells it plus sales tax, and/or shipping and
handling.

Saying that the "list" or "regular" price is $149.99 or $189.95 is sheer
market puffery designed to convince the gullible that they are getting
something more than they are paying for. Stick something in a big shipping
crate, or even a shipping pallet on an airplane, and cost of transporting a
single radio from anywhere in the world to the USA drops to very little. It
is easy to see why the stuff is made in China and not Europe, Japan, or
North America. The proffit margins on the transactions can double twice or
more, whereas the margin used to be measured in percentage points--maybe 10,
or 20 percent on the high side.

I mentioned last week that a handfull of mostly Chinese companies are
flooding the world market with scads of cheap radios, just a few slightly
varying models sold under a dozen or more brand names, but nobody is
spending any money on really high-quality, good-sounding radio gear for the
shortwave listener. I was asked if I had heard of the Eton 900, or whatever
it is going to be called. Yes, I've heard of it, and based on what I've
heard, it will prove my point. What are its proposed dimmensions--13 by 7
by 2 inches, weight, four pounds, aprox. This is even a little smaller and
lighter than a Grundig Satellit 700. D batteries are at least 1.5 inches in
diameter, so if it uses D batteries, it won't take more than four. That's a
6-volt amplifier design. A 2-inch thick radio is going to have a speaker
with a small magnet. Don't look for any decent audio quality there.
Judging from the thin, wimpy sound and abysmal audio capabilities of the
amplifier and speaker in the much bigger Satellit 800, I don't expect to
hear good quality audio out of the Eton 900/Satellit 900/Eton E1-XM or
whatever they're going to call it. Even though they will cut the labor
costs by up to 80 percent by making the radio in China instead of even a
cheap-labor European country like Portugal, much of the money is going into
making the unit XM radio-capable. The large XM boom box is really a crappy
sounding piece of audio gear. I know two people who bought them and
returned them the next day, including one who easily comfortable listening
to a radio with a sound quality like a Sangean ATS-909. I'll bet that E1-XM
won't sound much if any better than a Sony ICF-SW77 which is about the same
size and weight, and uses C batteries instead of D batteries. I would
really be surprised if it has audio quality even close to that of a Grundig
Satellit 400 or Satellit 700. I hope my skepticism will be proven to be
overly pessimistic, but I don't plan to get my hopes up at all. Even so,
it's not here yet. We can't go see and hear one anywhere, and we can't
order one yet at any price and expect to have it delivered to our door
within the next two weeks or so. If we're lucky, we might get a chance to
play with it, review it, and read people's comments based on experience by
some time before the end of this year.

In the meantime, the 32- or 33-year-old Satellit 210/6001 still rules the
bedside table and sings or talks me to sleep many nights, and the nice
little S-350 or the equally nice little BCL-2000 will probably be my main
travelling shortwave radio. I wouldn't want to risk getting the Sat 400 or
the Sat 700 killed or stolen. I think the E1-XM would be a better radio had
it been an E1-Sir, as in Sirius Radio, and it would be even better if it
could do Sirius and/or XM in the same box along with current
state-of-the-art traditional off-air radio with current top-end portable
radio coverage and tuning features.

Reply to:
Brent Reynolds, Atlanta, GA USA