NaimUniti. Big price rise from today.

[Helmut80]

slightly off topic, but does the Unity still only play Apple lossless from iPod only?

 

[Andrew Everard]

slightly off topic, but does the Unity still only play Apple lossless from iPod only?

Yes.

 

[WishTree]

Naim have an annual price increase every April without fail, which means they can usually get away with very small price rises, usually about 5%, instead of other manufacturers who increase by 10-15% every 1.5-2 years

I am a big CONSUMER and I never thought that a manufacturer will increase the price of a product, especially if there is no model upgrade / change. Generally philosophy is the desire to own a new product commands a full MRP in the initial times after a product is launched but after few months, through dealer discuounts, the price of the product generally comes down. As the product reaches end of life (especially for the yearly renewed products), the prices dip upto 50% or more when the new product gets launched.

This is my current thinking about product pricing, however Naimi or some other manufacturer's price hike seems to be completely illogical. This thought is against Economies of Scale, Initial R&D abosrption (or no new R&D at the later stage of the product life cycle) etc. At many levels, this feels to be equal to getting robbed as they have a possibly great product.

In ideal world, I am personally in favor the Emotiva kind of business model with magazines giving honest reviews. I do not know how much gets inflated because of the distribution channel but given the Emotiva specs and quality, it feels like other manufactures are purely ripping because they can tune the product much better. The essential Raw Material seems to be sourced similarly by every one.

Sorry for using Emotiva more but I do not know many other internet based HiFi Manufacturers.

PS: I have bought brand new products - no demos - (like speakers, amps, DAC from various manufacturers) at 20% off retail price and I do not believe that these various dealers are paying from their pockets just to make me a happy customer. Please do not ask me for references or doubt me, as I am only here to seek out the truth based on my own set of facts.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Some products dealers make less than 20% on. Only a dealer working on his own could survive on making less than 20%, and even then you'd have to be fairly busy. lots of variables here though.

 

[captainx]

I used to work in the trade and found Naim one of the best companies all round to deal with. They didn't generally put the price of products up for the sake of putting them up.

The profit margin (not mark-up) on Naim products was around 37% if the dealer took settlement discount, with an additional 10% off for demonstration stock.

It's a healthy profit margin, that allows a dealer latitude to move on price and takes in to consideration that many thousands of pounds a dealer has to spend on stocking their products.

Many years ago, Linn increased the prices of many products by up to 25% - this made the products the same prices as those sold in Europe - Linn always denied this though. Customers were very annoyed. The profit margin on Linn was always around 42% with additional demonstration discount available - 60% rings a bell, but don't quote me! This would explain why end of line / ex-dem Linn products are heavily discounted!

 

[Anonymous]

I guess this is the price we pay for funding a proper specialist hi-fi dealer network, whatever manufacturer is involved. This is very important for me, because two of my most loved pieces of hi-fi that I will never part with were items I fell in love with during audition; and I am very happy to pay the price for that. For years, I have taken pot-luck with equipment which was good (and even came with What Hi-Fi Five Stars) and wasn't satisfied with the result.

So dealers do need to be in an industry that makes it worthwhile to work in if they are to provide a decent service, in my humble opinion.

 

[chris hollands]

Gotta say, i think that the price increases in general on most brand products have been totally out of proportion with inflation , a few examples of my own purchases from a few years ago, Wilson beseech Arcs bought for £2200 , now £2950, Pathos Logos bought for £2600, now £3500. I also had a pair of PMC OB1s at just over £2200 and look at the price of those now.

I for one would seriously consider buying second hand on hi fi products in the future as i certainly haven't had pay rises with these type of increases. The manufacturers believe all the hype of a few good reviews and think it is a perfect excuse to massively increase the price of a product on the back of them .