Why the lack of interest in Accuphase?


i'm surprised by the lack of interest in my Accuphase piece, and was wondering why there is little interest past the first day of ads.
Is 9/11 still efecting the market that much, do people not know and appreciate Accuphase, or is it just too expensive.
Love to hear any musings on the state of the used market. I would figure things would be getting better.
audiodynamo
Nice T Bone. But how do you explain that some manufacturers (ie Chord) manage to sell products at practically identical costs all over the globe ???

Cheers
Badwisdom... My take on the Accuphase problem was USD/JPY and direction-specific. Japanese buyers of US or European products should actually benefit from the forex forward (though not from volatility, company risk, etc). For trade between the UK/US/Europe, forex forwards change a lot less(which means savings of 15+% vs case of Japan exports to US) and forex volatility is a lot lower historically (meaning the buffer one needs to take is lower). While I laud makers which make efforts to keep prices similar across markets, I might have chosen slightly different words to your question, replacing "practically identical COSTS" with "practically identical PRICES".

Intrigued, and having heard of the Chord DAC 64 and the big amps, I did a quick search. Indeed, it seems as if the price of the SPM-5000 amp, anywhere you go is going to run you the equivalent of $22-23k retail in many places (I checked France, Sweden, UK, US, Germany), and the Chord64 will cost a mite over $3k. I note however that continental European (and perhaps UK) prices include V.A.T. while the US price does not, suggesting that if selling at MSRP, US' dealers' net prices are probably 15+% higher.

I have noticed that UK makers (B&W, B&S' Meridian brand, Linn, E.A.R., etc) are better than others at keeping prices similar across markets (and perhaps as a result, small UK makers sell significantly better in Japan than do small US makers). I do not know if such uniformity is due to manufacturers keeping distributors in line with an iron hand or if the makers simply keep MSRP high and let "street prices" vary across markets [e.g. while B&W speakers have a higher USD-equivalent MSRP in Japan than in the US or Europe, the "street price" is competitive with and in some cases actually lower here than in Europe].

I would tend to think that for certain makers there is a bit of both; but I would also posit that if volumes are not high, then margins are (few build businesses to sell a low volume, low margin product), leaving ample room in many cases for room to manipulate MSRP across cost structures.
Glassboy,

Could you point me to a web site that sells Accuphase in Japan that will ship the US. Could you also elaborate on the conversion process.

- Dan
I bought a minimally used U.S. Accuphase DP-85 Cd player and it is superb. It blew away my Sony SCD-1 and Dodson DAC. Not even close in resolution , imaging, soundstaging and musicality. I bought a very good vinyl rig and had given up on CD's. They are now listenable.The new multichannel Indigo Girls SACD, played in 2 channel is excellent. I wouldn't pay list on the units for all the reasons stated above, but I love mine.

David Shapiro