from Hacker News

Teenage Engineering lets you pick what you want to pay for an OP-1 Field

by slackpad on 6/4/25, 4:08 PM with 24 comments

  • by paxys on 6/4/25, 5:22 PM

    The slider starts at $1400, which is the already the retail price of this device, so I don't understand the "pay what you want" concept. They are basically asking for donations? The cult behind this company being what it is though I can definitely see people forking over thousands more and patting themselves on the back for it.
  • by rcarmo on 6/4/25, 5:16 PM

    Spoiler: Lowest I could go is €1399, which is still three times as much as I would consider paying (especially considering I have the OG).

    Without getting into the weeds, the value I see anyone getting from an OP-1 (of any generation) is still the all-in-one musical notepad angle, and I just don't see that being anywhere above the price of an iPad (which trounces the OP-1 in terms of music features if you install AUM and the Audiokit Pro synths - no DAWs involved).

  • by aosaigh on 6/4/25, 5:34 PM

    This is cringe and feels very much like the BrewDog of music hardware where they dress up cynical marketing tricks as some sort of statement.
  • by Workaccount2 on 6/4/25, 5:32 PM

    They should include their breakeven price and allow people to go below that. That would be a more meaningful experiment.
  • by subjectsigma on 6/4/25, 5:32 PM

    As a non-musician I had defended TE in the past just because I think their shit looks really cool and fun. But this is egregious. This is marketing only a communications major could love, and even then, god damn
  • by kesor on 6/4/25, 5:59 PM

    I'm willing to pay $50, maybe $100. This is just a bait and switch, they don't want me to buy it.
  • by RankingMember on 6/4/25, 5:20 PM

    not as ballsy as the title makes you think, let me buy it for $100 and you can use "pay what you want"
  • by boscillator on 6/4/25, 5:52 PM

    Teenage Engineering has some really obnoxious marketing, but it seems to work. I mean, we're talking about then. Roland or Korg never make hacker news.
  • by benmmurphy on 6/4/25, 5:35 PM

    in their backend did they have to create a new product for each price point?
  • by neepi on 6/4/25, 5:23 PM

    Nope. If I shop around I can get a Korg Nautilus for the price of the left hand of that slide.