[linux-audio-user] Preach it! [was: Re: [linux-audio-user] Re: Behringer etc.]

[Marek Peteraj]

On Mon, 2004-11-29 at 23:27, Chris Cannam wrote:
> On Monday 29 Nov 2004 23:55, Marek Peteraj wrote:
> > Now let's look at the "tiny" linux audio market. Ask everyone what
> > unit he has got. I bet it's going to be 2/3rd RME 1/3 Maudio.
> 
> No, it's going to be 1/30 RME 1/20 M-Audio, 11/12 "other".
> I'd be prepared to bet most Linux audio users are using soundcard audio, 
> SoundBlaster variants and so on.  I reckon they make up a majority even 
> of the ones who subscribe to LAU.

I doubt it. :)
True that almost every newbie comes with a SB card or similar. But those
are not very usable for low latency audio recording(lots of xruns in my
case, and i've seen numerous other user complain about it). These
newbies are then advised to buy an maudio or rme card, depending on the
price range/quality. Basically advertising for free.
An audiophile costs as much as a new SB these days. 

> 
> That said,
> 
> > Very interesting market
> > for RME since it's *dominant* in this new emerging market.
> > [...]
> > > (LAU [...] sometimes [...] feels bigger than it is)
> >
> > Sadly it's exactly the opposite.
> 
> I think I agree with both your statements here.  RME and M-Audio are 
> surely dominant amongst people who thought and spent enough to be using 
> their cards.  And I do believe there's a fairly substantial Linux audio 
> users' market (if you will) outside the LAU subscriber list.
> 
> But that's probably not enough to sustain any hardware company now.  
> Whether it ever will be is probably up to that company and its like, as 
> much as it's up to us.

Agreed. But still if we came up with a number around 1000 or so(which i
believe is likely precisely because of what you said - "a fairly
substantial Linux audio users' market outside the LAU subscriber list"),
i think it would already be an interesting market for a pro-audio
soundcard manufacturer such as RME(higher range) or
Maudio/Egosys(lower-range) simply because the competition ratio is very
low and people would get used to and stick with them in the future if
that the units were high quality which seems to be the case. Don't know
how many units they usually sell but 
audioscience had a banner on their site saying they have sold 20000
units so far. We'd need to measure it.

And in case of firewire pro-audio one would just buy a small
egosys/maudio firewire unit for homerecording or a fireface for more
serious work(you can cascade them getting 20,30,40,50(5 units) chans of
analog i/o etc.) 

Marek