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Legal arguments about Hypex and NORD licensing

amirm

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Were any Californian manufacturers incorporating NC1200 modules into their products prior to the publication of Nord's announcement? If not, what terms of the Californian market were they in conflict with?
Not sure why you are asking me. It is very unusual for a company like NORD to say in public what all has happened. The rest happens behind closed doors.

And I showed the problem: Retail Price Maintenance.
 

tktran303

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In 2019 a audio repairer / technician from Australia writes a post with a quote from a UK company (Nord), alleging that that Hypex has previously forced OEMs to price products above £x (10K), or £y (6.5K), and hence first company Nord claims it was not fit to release a product above that price point.

I have given an example of a UK startup that existed prior Nord. Acoustic Imagery that released a product below both x and y, at the very dawn of when the NC1200 was released (2012)- £5.7K (US$9K) per pair of mono block.

For those to care to look, there are also products with nCore 1200 at various price points eg.
Merrill Audio Veritas Twin (US$10K for a pair of mono blocks)
Theta Digital, US$12K for a pair of mono blocks)

Forgive my ignorance, but is this Retail Price Maintenance?
 
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Xulonn

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restorer-john

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In 2019 a audio repairer / technician from Australia writes a post with a quote from a UK company (Nord), alleging that that Hypex has previously forced OEMs to price products above £x (10K), or £y (6.5K), and hence first company Nord claims it was not fit to release a product above that price point.

You need to go back and re-read my very first post, slowly. I didn't allege anyone was forced to do anything. Neither did Nord's post say that. I quoted a post (cut and paste) from Nord's website and commented on it, drawing some realtively logical possible conclusions.

It is unusual they (Nord) would write something like that in the first place. Clearly, there is some truth in it or they wouldn't have it on their website- considering they still sell Hypex products and wouldn't want to jeopardize that relationship would they?

Perhaps it is their way of saying the previous 'policy' was one sided, perhaps a little trade-restrictive and now it has been changed for the better.

I'd ask March Audio, but no doubt he is bound by a Hypex NDA. ;)
 
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tktran303

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Ive preciously stated OP, which means “original post”. So cleary I have read it. There’s no need to direct me back to read the original post, slowly.

Did you underline to 2 lines to accentuate something, or was that the direct copy and paste?

Did you write below:

What they are indirectly saying that Hypex were likely (and had been doing so for a period of time) engaging in retail price maintenance by only supplying material content if the selling price was artificially maintained at a minimum of £6.5K or above!

Allege:
claim or assert that someone has done something illegal or wrong, typically without proof.

"he alleged that he had been assaulted"


This Audio Science Review forum.

All I’ve seen so far is rumour.
Anyway, I’m out. Thanks for listening. Goodnight.
 

RayDunzl

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I get that it’s specs are great and that it even uses magic “blue fuses” and fancy schmancy OFC power cables but why the need for 400W amplifiers?


No fancy fuses here, definitely no fancy schmancy cables, Oxygen Free Copper is the norm, you're unlikely to find anything lesser in wire, and my big amps are rated 700W into 4 ohms.

Power demand goes up quicky, when you start feeling frisky and decide to rotate the big round knob in a clockwise direction.


Shirley this is inefficient from a System standpoint and points to a need for better efficiency loudspeakers.

I don't claim efficiency here.

And don't call me Shirley.
 

noobie1

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If you asked Colin, he would undoubtedly deny that he is implying or hinting that Hypex is engaging in illegal business practice. It would be dumb for him to publish such accusation in his website.

Also, why would Nord imply or hint that Hypex is engaging in illegal activity when so many of their products rely on Hypex modules? You surely don’t want to piss off your main supplier.
 

Wombat

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If you asked Colin, he would undoubtedly deny that he is implying or hinting that Hypex is engaging in illegal business practice. It would be dumb for him to publish such accusation in his website.

Also, why would Nord imply or hint that Hypex is engaging in illegal activity when so many of their products rely on Hypex modules? You surely don’t want to piss off your main supplier.


Have you asked Colin or is this supposition?
 
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restorer-john

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Have you asked Colin or is this supposition?

Check the link to the NC1200 on Nord's website on page one of this thread. The text I copied and pasted has mysteriously disappeared...

No doubt someone, (maybe our old friend Samoyed) put this thread or the content on someone's radar.

Here's the original text for future reference:

nord.JPG



Here's the 'new' text:
nord2.JPG
 
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restorer-john

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Might want to fix this little spelling error which snuck by the proof-reader ;)

1560416864488.png


Wouldn't want to get exited by Hypex eh?
 

Wombat

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restorer-john

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And I showed the problem: Retail Price Maintenance.

Just for the record, I mentioned it, in the very first post and the fact it is illegal in this country, Australia. I also opined it was similar in the UK, where the product in question was manufactured/assembled.

1560420376694.png


The whole discussion has been very interesting to say the least. I didn't expect the level of involvement or feisty behaviour it has attracted, but at the same time, I think it was worth throwing it out there for the ASR community to see and talk about.
 

Wombat

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You know, like most Australians, you really like to wind people up for amusement.

So, all you have left are ad hominems since Australian RPM law left on the last bus?

Beethoven surely would have recognized you. ;)


f94f1138055d9a0f101d584bfa25880b.jpg
;)
 

digicidal

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I feel it is unfortunate, in several different ways, that my comment in this thread is my first on this forum... and I feel guilty resurrecting it to post here (though clearly not enough to stop myself). That being said, I arrived here due to some interest in commercial implementations of Hypex amps as part of researching the alternatives to just ordering the DIY kits and making my own. Though I own a decent soldering station... we're not on speaking terms recently.

Despite the thoroughly embarrassing conduct displayed (by what I previously believed was a cute dog of above average intelligence) I feel the discussions (outside the personal attacks) were actually like a breath of fresh air - when compared to many heated discussions on other, more subjective, audio forums.

@amirm: In addition to the valuable testing/reviews - you have my awe and respect for the manner in which you continually attempted to steer an obviously derailed train back to it's tracks. Even more so for expressing regret at losing the member... who clearly is not interested in contributing much of anything beyond vitriol.

Although I certainly have no intention of 'stirring the pot', nor am I an attorney, nor even did I stay at a Holiday Inn (express or otherwise) - I did want to impart what I thought were two valuable lessons that I gleaned from the discussion:

Lesson 1: Don't ever have dinner at Samoyed's house... especially during the holidays...
"I’m saying you are more full of crap than a Christmas goose..."
"You are as amusing as a big, fat turd in a punch bowl."
"Eat shit and die, clown."
Lesson 2: A lawyer is a person that is occasionally necessary, rarely useful, and never helpful.

But most of all, I learned a few things regarding both the law and about RF interference and Class-D amplifiers - before the rabbit hole opened up in front of me.
Cheers to you all! ;)
 

StevenEleven

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I’ve never seen (or read) a lawyer acting like that before. They are really a very diverse group overall, not too terribly different from the population at large. I look at law at its best in the big picture as the Wild West—when, in the U.S., society has got it wrong, and Congress has it wrong, the executive branch has got it wrong, and the States have got it wrong, morally, the law is the avenue to right those wrongs by force of moral and intellectual evidence and argument. Even then it can take the courts a good while and a few mis-steps before they get it right.

It is not easy to do but some lawyers manage to steer their careers so that their job is pretty much to help normal people all day at a rapid-fire pace.

I think it is unfortunate that huge corporations and a very bloated sense of what constitutes intellectual property have warped the law and the political process in the U.S. and use up so much of our legal resources. And I think it is very unfortunate that the wealthy have such disproportionate access to legal resources. And it is beyond argument to me that the poor are served very badly by our legal system. Those aspects of the law have awful consequences in our society. Here are a couple of articles by a retired U.S Federal Circuit court judge who is very critical of our system if you want a look at it from the inside as told by a very bright guy:

http://www.greenbag.org/v19n2/v19n2_articles_posner.pdf

http://www.greenbag.org/v19n3/v19n3_articles_posner.pdf
 
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Thomas savage

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I feel it is unfortunate, in several different ways, that my comment in this thread is my first on this forum... and I feel guilty resurrecting it to post here (though clearly not enough to stop myself). That being said, I arrived here due to some interest in commercial implementations of Hypex amps as part of researching the alternatives to just ordering the DIY kits and making my own. Though I own a decent soldering station... we're not on speaking terms recently.

Despite the thoroughly embarrassing conduct displayed (by what I previously believed was a cute dog of above average intelligence) I feel the discussions (outside the personal attacks) were actually like a breath of fresh air - when compared to many heated discussions on other, more subjective, audio forums.

@amirm: In addition to the valuable testing/reviews - you have my awe and respect for the manner in which you continually attempted to steer an obviously derailed train back to it's tracks. Even more so for expressing regret at losing the member... who clearly is not interested in contributing much of anything beyond vitriol.

Although I certainly have no intention of 'stirring the pot', nor am I an attorney, nor even did I stay at a Holiday Inn (express or otherwise) - I did want to impart what I thought were two valuable lessons that I gleaned from the discussion:

Lesson 1: Don't ever have dinner at Samoyed's house... especially during the holidays...

Lesson 2: A lawyer is a person that is occasionally necessary, rarely useful, and never helpful.

But most of all, I learned a few things regarding both the law and about RF interference and Class-D amplifiers - before the rabbit hole opened up in front of me.
Cheers to you all! ;)
Ha ha this is brilliant.
 

suttondesign

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Advertised price is not the same as selling price. To avoid Internet price shopping, manufactures often set MAP or minimum advertised price. They are very careful to NOT tell you how much you can sell it for. You just can't advertise that sale price publically.

Yup. As a dealer, my distributors and mfrs require me to adhere strictly to MSRP and MAP in all advertising and marketing, but they cannot control the actual price which a dealer may finally negotiate with a customer. That's not to say they don't send signals about what they prefer (min. price maintenance in order to protect their image and aura), and in their dealer agreements, they reserve the right to terminate a dealership for any reason. The message dealers get is that the mfrs don't want their products sold for less than MAP, and if they think a dealer is doing it, the dealer can find herself out of a dealership.

I am clear with my mfrs and dists that I work with clients based on an individual-deal basis separate and apart from any advertised pricing, and each deal has to reflect the realities of that time and place, the marketplace broadly, interwebs competitors who do not charge sales tax, the cost of credit card charges, shipping, the amount of time spent with a customer, damage waivers, etc. Plainly, if a customer will pay cash upfront, waive damage claims, can pick up the goods, etc., a dealer with a min. profit requirement can sell at a lower price to that customer than to a customer who pays with a credit card and requires a long shipping distance and lots of follow-up care.

FYI, nothing in this post is intended to be legal advice or a legal opinion. I practice law full-time and represent only people who are up against corporations and well-funded opponents and big law firms and people who want to take away my clients' property rights.
 
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digicidal

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FYI, nothing in this post is intended to be legal advice or a legal opinion. I practice law full-time and represent only people who are up against corporations and well-funded opponents and big law firms and people who want to take away my clients' property rights.

You seem like one of the good ones, and a sorely needed exception to the rule... I amend my "never helpful" to "occasionally helpful" with you in mind. ;)

It makes perfect sense for any IP holder or OEM to seek to protect their property and mark from the dilution that can come from business practices of downstream retailers, distributors. In many cases, the consumer is further served (even better than by rock-bottom prices) through this as well... as responsible OEMs also bear a larger burden regarding various liabilities and R&D overhead. Naturally, the consumers and general public tend to forget this until it all goes sideways due to OEMs (whether its airbags or airplanes) attempting to avoid responsibility.

The problem comes from the ease with which a lack of transparency creates opportunity to 'game the system'. My guess regarding the Nord/Hypex situation is that it was likely less of a matter of intentional price-fixing, and more a case of manufacturing limitations. If they knew they would be unable to keep up with small-lot demand of the pricier modules, they could simply restrict them on the volume side to a handful of integrators. If selling 100 units a year to Nord and other similar companies would make it difficult or impossible to meet supply requirements of their contract with Theta Digital which I assume is at least 20X that... then the choice (for them) is clear.

The legality of it is a different matter perhaps, but at least the motivation is clear - and it's easier to set a standard you know will cause the little guys to "self restrict" - than it is to tell them "you can't buy these - we can't make enough for you". Likely the restricted liquidity of being a small(ish) player in the market with an unexpectedly popular product, led them to avoid contracts with entities not significant enough to finance large production runs... something that a few years of operation has now solved for them.

My guess is that now that more time has passed and they have much larger economies of scale on the manufacturing side - they now have the capabilities of meeting all demand regardless of the volumes - hence the change in pricing/availability.

Naturally, all of this is conjecture - mostly from reading 3rd party press releases/blog entries... which is definitely not a trustworthy source of information. In many ways, it mirrors the conspiracies and consternation that much of the public harbors regarding the lawmakers themselves. It's difficult to tell the difference between true corruption and unintended consequences, given the lack of transparency surrounding the policies and interests involved (at least from the 'outside'). Add in a healthy dose of bias in the 'reporting' of the situation... and it's impossible to figure out the actual truth of the matter - whether political or commercial in nature.
 
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