Mercury 3 vs LFM2.5-24B-A2B
Mercury 3 took 6 min 21 s and $0.053 at list price, LFM2.5-24B-A2B took 57 s and $0.020 at list price. Mercury 3 took 6.7× as long and cost 2.7× as much.
Mercury 3
Inception · $0.35/M out · 258 HN pts
LFM2.5-24B-A2B
LiquidAI · $0.70/M out · 292 HN pts
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay is a three-person repair studio in Rotterdam, tucked between a bike shop and a coffee roastery, where vintage synthesizers come to live another life. We are not a factory and we are not a museum; we are technicians who love the smell of warm solder and the patience that old circuits demand. Between us we have restored everything from early Moog modulars to battered Junos, and we treat each instrument as if it were the first one we ever opened. There is no assembly line here. Every capacitor is tested, every busbar tracked by hand, and every voice board is listened to twice—once on the bench, once through the speakers of the synth that will use it. Patchbay exists because these machines deserve more than a quick fix. They deserve someone who knows their quirks, their failures, and the strange, beautiful sounds that made us fall in love with them in the first place.
Patchbay is a small, three‑person studio in Rotterdam dedicated to bringing vintage synthesizers back to life. Founded by longtime gear enthusiasts, we combine hands‑on craftsmanship with a deep knowledge of analog electronics to restore, calibrate, and enhance instruments that have been out of tune for decades. Our workshop is a place where old circuitry meets modern precision, and where each repair is treated as a chance to learn something new about the machines we love. We work closely with musicians, collectors, and repair shops across the Netherlands, offering personalized service that respects the history and character of each instrument. By preserving the sonic quirks of classic synths, we help artists keep the sounds that shaped electronic music alive today. At Patchbay, the goal is simple: keep the past humming and give it a future. Our three‑person team blends electronics expertise, music production insight, and meticulous restoration craft.
Specs and numbers
| Mercury 3 | LFM2.5-24B-A2B | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inception | LiquidAI |
| Made in | US | US |
| Released | 16 Oct 2026 | 13 Oct 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.10 | $0.05 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $0.35 | $0.70 |
| Context | 1,000,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Weights | closed | open |
| Hacker News points | 258 | 292 |
| Time for the five prompts | 6 min 21 s | 57 s |
| List price of the five prompts | $0.053 | $0.020 |
LFM2.5-24B-A2B was cheaper: $0.033 less at list price, and less on 4 of the 5 prompts. LFM2.5-24B-A2B was faster: 5 min 24 s less in total, and faster on 4 of the 5 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games stopped painting. LFM2.5-24B-A2B's landing page was cut off at the output limit (8,192 tokens). LFM2.5-24B-A2B's Breakout game was cut off at the output limit (8,192 tokens). LFM2.5-24B-A2B has no watch: no file after 2 runs, used all 8,192 output tokens.



