PS audio new 25K dac and the psychological effect of owning a company's best.


I was purchasing some hi-res files from NativeDSD today and found mention of PS Audio’s Obsidian Ted Smith Signature Dac ($25K) in their compatibility excel table scheduled to be released in 2021. I am the owner of their Direct stream DAC and DSD memory player and I immediately thought that I would never spend 25K on a DAC. I also thought that now I can have their best so why to stay with the brand. This might be my personal bias but I was wondering if this has an effect on anyone else. Is owning the top-of-line of any brand important to you and would you leave a brand if you were priced out of the market?
rufusluna

Showing 1 response by mahler123

The company is free to make and sell whatever they want.  However, when a company that has had a long standing history of occupying a certain tier of a a product market suddenly lurches and starts going after a much different market sector, it is interesting to speculate as to why.  Especially when that company has been reaching out to consumers with videos and product forums like PSAudio, the effect of which creates a type of family atmosphere.  Now the family members feel like the teenage children of a marriage where dad has dumped mom for a flashy new girlfriend and wants the kids to acquiesce to him blowing their college money to get her a new Ferrari .
  I remember a John Atkinson column during the crash a decade ago.  In it he basically argued that the gap between the very rich and everyone else was going to widen.  He recommended a survival strategy where we all figure out ways to make a living servicing the one percenters
.  I suspect PSAudio is tired of being seen as a value company that the hoi poloi frequent, but that can safely be dismissed by the “big spenders” (“Good looking, so refined, the minute you walked in the joint I could tell you were mine…”).
First they dumped their dealer network.  Now they are chasing the stratospheric pricing market.  Do some of these moves show a hint of desperation?  Or are they just being diligent and exploring all possible markets?  I would love it if the next PSAUDIO video features the CFO going over the company balance sheet.