AJ

price of AUDYA module should be price of SD3, and price of SD3 should drop...

What about put Audya at a "reasonable" price before even start any questions about price of
future models who might show up?
Yeah I know, it's only $5000 in the US, cheep, but here it's another story...... $8150 +++
Tyros3 and PA2XPro we can buy around $4000 or less.

Cheers
GJ

Gunnar and Anthony:

Regarding Technics......
Is very different way some business are conducted in USA and Mexico than in Europe, many manufacturers give certain line and or models to "Organ & Piano" stores, and others to "Combo/Pro" line stores, and the markup prices in the Piano & Organ stores are VERY HIGH. Here Roland did the same with the E80 and G70, then later, changed and probably a little to late.

I saw it myself several years ago the KN7000 in the store in Phoenix AZ with a tag of $6,000.00 dls....about the same of the AUDYA now....and that was 7 years ago more or less.
If that is not high, well.....

And even before I moved to USA, in Mexico I saw a similar situation, for a fact, I know that a KN 6500 was sold for $4,500.00 dls. to a friend of mine, whom I later sold my Ketron SD1.

Now, if you have a more "relaxed" markup, the sales chances are to be MUCH higher, therefore more revenue....

Is just the way it was.


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mdorantes

Leezone,

AJ don't fix prices , AJ don't fix Audya, he did fix other things in the past, he's been a good representative for Ketron!

This would mean that the Ketron Module would be a simplified version of The Audya, missing most of the features, sounds and styles of the orriginal model...

If they make it the same machine without the keybed, al features and sounds intoo it, i don't expect it to be more then $500 cheeper then the 76 key audya.

So either way you are going to be unhappy with the price or with the feature set of the module.

AFAIK, Ketron don't offshore their production. It is still, I understand, being made in the EU, in Italy, right?

The reason Roland, Yamaha and Korg have managed to keep prices low is to manufacture them in China, with their artificially low wages. Unless Ketron take this step (very difficult to do - look at all the labor problems Roland had moving arranger production from Italy to China), I doubt you are going to see a big drop in their prices. You want a state of the art audio/MIDI arranger, with features no other arranger has, and you want it CHEAPER?

What is being smoked by some of our members?

Beleive me if i tell you that all the components come from south eastern production, all they do in Ittaly is assembly of the systems and software install..

The high prices for Ketron are mainly because of the hugh investment in new technologies (Auio styles) research and development combined with the relatively low number of systems they sell.. And espescially this major part of the cost needs to be done in europe as they have the knowledge.

Electonics hardware (components) is becomming cheeper every day, so the hardware can't be a main part of the costs.. its the software development

Since Yamaha sells much more units they can spread out the development costs of new technologies over much more keyboards and so it has less influence on the price..

For instance Yamaha's development investment intoo super articulation sounds will make them money in Tyros, top models PSR and Motif... For Ketron there is just a relatively low number of Auya's to gaet their investments back..

So all in all, Ketron is to small a company to compete with Roland Korg and Yamaha based on proces, and they can only sell their products if they have a substantiall better quallity then the competition.

Bachus

I have been in PCB and electronic development before and what you say is correct, it would be better for Ketron to make up and assemble outside of Italy. I don’t know if the people running Ketron would want to do that, every KB they release appears to be behind the times the day it comes onto the market. Ketron appear to have a fundamental flaw and perhaps its management, they survive only by luck and avoiding a major crisis by default. I think they must live on a knife edge, certainly not in the fast lane, if the shares came on the market it would be like Lehman Brothers all over again. If you look closely at the PA2x and forget how each sample sounds, take this out of it, the KBs perhaps look similar, but there is much more technology in the PA2x than the Audya. But the cost of the PA2x is £2000.00 below the Audya, you need to look if there is £2000.00 more in sounds, or will there be on OS4, but we haven’t got OS4 and there is no guarantee that we will ever get it. My advice to anyone is to hold off buying Audya until you see the whites of Ketron eyes, it’s all bull**** at the moment and it’s not worth the extra £2000.00. The cost to build the Audya will be much less than the PA2x which ever country it’s built in.

Your Quote

"The high prices for Ketron are mainly because of the hugh investment in new technologies"

Don't believe a word of this, they are well behind.


Tony


[This message has been edited by Tony Hughes (edited 02-08-2010).]

but remember guys, countdown is at 1...

AJ,

can you post a pic of the AUDYA module so i can salivate?