Pricing rant

[JTK]

I'm have been kind of exploring the idea of a receiver upgrade just for laughs.

I've made a very frustrating discovery.

In the two years that have elapsed since I last bought any hardware for myself, I've come to find that competitive pricing at authorized online dealers is a thing of the past.

Two Januarys ago I bought my HK 635 from One Call and they had that thing marked down a good $400 or so off of MSRP, like you would expect from aggressive salesmanship and just being competitive.

Three Novembers ago I bought my Onkyo DVSP1000 for $1447 from Vanns when it was brand new with an MSRP of $1999.

Same concept.

Wow, are those days long gone and over with. Now they're all like Crutchfield: MSRP.

I can't catch a @#$%ing break legit to save my life! My local scene is abysmal. That's MSRP plus sales tax, period. Choice leaves a lot to be desired.

So I'm at the mercy of the Internet or I can drive for over an hour to a Best Buy, but I see they're not even being that competitive.

For laughs, I called Crutchfield yesterday and called one of my old regulars and haggled with him for the best possible deal conceivable that they could do for me on a particular receiver.

I was put on hold for 5 minutes while he went to his supervisor and he came back on and acted like Santa Claus had bestowed this great gift: A whole whopping five percent off MSRP.

I hung up on him.

Just ridiculous. Do I HAVE to go gray market and take my chances of having a DOA item or hot merchandise and no manufacterer's warranty just so I don't get @#$^ing raped on prices ?!

At that rate, this entire industry deserves to feel serious pain from the consumers and I hope they do.

That just plain sucks, folks. Dead wrong.

If they want people to steal and go black/gray market, all they need to do is continue on as is, becuase now even I'm angry enough to be half tempted to do it.

P.S. I know our friends outside of America will rightfully have zero sympathy for me. You guys have it 1000 times worse than what we do here in the States.

EDIT: Hmmm...I see it varies from brand to brand. Maybe all hope isn't utterly lost here after all, but jeez.

[Zvi]

Internet is your friend, my friend
It's been a very long time since I bought any EC product in local store. That includes 3 DLP TVs, electric wall oven, rangetop, dvd and blu ray players, of course computers and parts for them and so on. Hell, I even buy some of my clothing online. 98% of my knives I bought online including factory and custom made.

P.S. You don't have to buy gray market on the net either.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Zvi

Internet is your friend, my friend
It's been a very long time since I bought any EC product in local store. That includes 3 DLP TVs, electric wall oven, rangetop, dvd and blu ray players, of course computers and parts for them and so on. Hell, I even buy some of my clothing online. 98% of my knives I bought online including factory and custom made.

P.S. You don't have to buy gray market on the net either.

The Internet is my friend, indeed, but one must be careful. I'm pretty much almost like you are at this point.

Some of the brands just seem to be harder to get nice deals on then others.

[Longshot]

What receiver in particular are you interested in?

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Longshot

What receiver in particular are you interested in?

Top end/ceiling: Yamaha RXV2700 or something those lines.

I'm still trying to hash out how much of a potential screw job I'd be in for if I bought something like that now and then HDMI 1.3 and God knows what else rolls around.

On paper, audio wise, HDMI 1.2 should cover me with ease, but hell you never know anymore it seems...

My HK AVR635 is a nice receiver but it lacks one thing: HDMI.

Since I have a PS3 I'd like to be able to enjoy LPCM and the rest of the new audio codecs. HDMI is the only way that can be done off the PS3.

[theknub]

JTK, doesn't our TV have an hdmi input and optical out? i might be wrong since i haven't looked at the back recently. but if that's the case, couldn't you output the audio signal from the TV to the receiver?

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by JTK

I can't catch a @#$%ing break legit to save my life! My local scene is abysmal. That's MSRP plus sales tax, period. Choice leaves a lot to be desired.

I guess you never noticed we Canadians moved the border on ya.

The lack of proper competitive pricing has driven me nuts here forever. Sony and Panasonic and Apple stuff all magically seems to be priced the same everywhere.

Originally Posted by JTK

P.S. I know our friends outside of America will rightfully have zero sympathy for me. You guys have it 1000 times worse than what we do here in the States.

Yeah, but sometimes we get a head scratcher like the PS/3 selling for the cheapest price in the world outside of Japan, or the Xbox 360 add-on for par.

Apparently our cries of "what's all this then?!" during the rape scene were heard after all.

Gary