[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

I know but for the money I want a blazing interface. I have an iPhone 6 for music now - it should at least match that interface speed for being over $1000. Especially if the OS has less to do. And why don't we have retina level displays?

 
That's unreasonable thinking. The iphone 6 is RRP $1000. The most expensive components in this are the screen, cpu and aluminium body and it cost a bloody grand for that.
 
Now lets look at the Sony ZX2, RRP $1120. ZX2 aluminum copper chassis (much more expensive and complex than the iphones chassis), the 128gb of inbuilt memory (worth $100), Sony has to design a high end audio circuit in addition to the regular design of of the main CPU PCB (iphone only needs this). ZX2 circuit boards for audio and CPU are separate, requiring two different manufacturing batches, iphone only needs a tiny PCB with everything jam packed onto it. ZX2 uses many exotic hardware components (pcb, caps, smds, super cap, MELFs etc) in the audio circuit, which believe it or not will cost more than the standard stuff found in the iphone. On top of all this the mid range screen and CPU still cost a decent amount. Also remember Sony had to design and produce the S Master HX chip, while iphone is made up from off the shelf 3rd party made chips.
 
Now you think that Sony could chuck in a very expensive screen and cpu while still having a similar price to the iphone?
 
They both have similar RRP, so you can't expect Sony to do what you are asking, they traded off the expensive high end screen and cpu, for a higher end chassis, more memory and most expensive: the high end audio circuit design and production.

 

[Neo Zuko]

Ok point taken on the NW-ZX2 (actually my 128gb iPhone 6 is a tad cheaper than $1K with a bigger screen but it's close enough). However the AK240 has no excuse at $2500 (or the priorities are not to my tastes). And I'd rather Sony make it $1500 and do it state of the art to be honest. It's like my Wii U gamepad screen. Why on earth is this not a capacitive muti-touch glass screen with at least 1080p resolution? Cost, sure. Same reason the 3DS's screen can't hold a candle to the PS Vita's screen. But how amazing would these products be if they went all out in another SKU?

 

[nanaholic]

Ok point taken on the NW-ZX2 (actually my 128gb iPhone 6 is a tad cheaper than $1K with a bigger screen but it's close enough). However the AK240 has no excuse at $2500 (or the priorities are not to my tastes). And I'd rather Sony make it $1500 and do it state of the art to be honest. It's like my Wii U gamepad screen. Why on earth is this not a capacitive muti-touch glass screen with at least 1080p resolution? Cost, sure. Same reason the 3DS's screen can't hold a candle to the PS Vita's screen. But how amazing would these products be if they went all out in another SKU?

 
The AK240 has even more audio and luxury focused bells and whistles than the iPhone in area's which you are obviously not looking at, things such as dual DACs capable of native DSD decoding, 256G memory, duralumin alloy and carbon fibre build etc.  
 
Seriously the screen is the last thing I look for in these players as 90% of the time I'm not looking at it (seriously) unlike a phone, and if you think that's a problem then these players are really not for you.

 

[Neo Zuko]

It's not a problem. I just don't want to step down in other aspects to get the audio aspects. I obviously don't have a choice though so it doesn't matter. But I can dream!!

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

   
The AK240 has even more audio and luxury focused bells and whistles than the iPhone in area's which you are obviously not looking at, things such as dual DACs capable of native DSD decoding, 256G memory, duralumin alloy and carbon fibre build etc.  
 
Seriously the screen is the last thing I look for in these players as 90% of the time I'm not looking at it (seriously) unlike a phone, and if you think that's a problem then these players are really not for you.

 
AK240 doesn't have an excuse to be 2.5K, Really 1.5K  is a [size=12.7272720336914px]much[/size] more appropriate price for it. Duraluminum is just a type aluminum alloy, the ZX2 is also using an aluminum alloy, which betters the ZX1 which was using plain aluminum. The extra memory on AK240 is worth $100. The DAC chips and circuitry are no more expensive than the stuff in a ZX2. The carbon fiber piece on the back would not be expensive as its just a flat cut out. As for native DSD, the QLS 360 does native DSD for $500. All it takes is an xmos chip to do DSD, anyone could implement this easily, just as QLS and AK have done. But different daps have different priorities, and the xmos chip takes up precious space. It does not however make a dap cost 2.5K lol.

 

[purk]

   
AK240 doesn't have an excuse to be 2.5K, Really 1.5K  is a [size=12.7272720336914px]much[/size] more appropriate price for it. Duraluminum is just a type aluminum alloy, the ZX2 is also using an aluminum alloy, which betters the ZX1 which was using plain aluminum. The extra memory on AK240 is worth $100. The DAC chips and circuitry are no more expensive than the stuff in a ZX2. The carbon fiber piece on the back would not be expensive as its just a flat cut out. The ZX2 has a real leather back which would compare in cost to a carbon fibre cut out. As for native DSD, the QLS 360 does native DSD for $500. All it takes is an xmos chip to do DSD, anyone could implement this easily, just as QLS and AK have done. But different daps have different priorities, and the xmos chip takes up precious space. It does not however make a dap cost 2.5K lol.

I can't agree more.

 

[harmonix]

I know but for the money I want a blazing interface. I have an iPhone 6 for music now - it should at least match that interface speed for being over $1000. Especially if the OS has less to do. And why don't we have retina level displays?

As a previous owner of a zx1 along with other people on this thread - the zx UI is quick and fluid enough to be a non issue.

 

[Koolpep]

  I can't agree more.

Hmm, I don't think it's fair to base the price solely on the parts. Technically advanced products have to be priced high in order to make sense for the producers. You need to have a way to make profits and get your R&D costs back that are not in the parts. You can burn so much money in market research, product design, fundamental sound research , prototyping, focus groups, and whatnot. All of that needs to be recouped with the product you end up selling. You then make a guess how many you think you can sell and price it accordingly to recoup the development costs and make a profit.That makes some things incredibly more expensive than the sum of it's parts. Everyone buys sneakers - the material and manufacturing costs is way below $10 for ANY shoe, still we pay up to $300 for them because they have the new airsuperdupercushionspringbox sole = which took either the R&D dept. or the Marketing dept. a lot of time and effort to come up with
 
cheers,
K

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

 
Hmm, I don't think it's fair to base the price solely on the parts. Technically advanced products have to be priced high in order to make sense for the producers. You need to have a way to make profits and get your R&D costs back that are not in the parts. You can burn so much money in market research, product design, fundamental sound research , prototyping, focus groups, and whatnot. All of that needs to be recouped with the product you end up selling. You then make a guess how many you think you can sell and price it accordingly to recoup the development costs and make a profit.That makes some things incredibly more expensive than the sum of it's parts. Everyone buys sneakers - the material and manufacturing costs is way below $10 for ANY shoe, still we pay up to $300 for them because they have the new airsuperdupercushionspringbox sole = which took either the R&D dept. or the Marketing dept. a lot of time and effort to come up with
 
cheers,
K

 
I am aware of that, the 1.5K I said took that into account. There is nothing extra special about the insides of the AK240 compared to other daps. There is no outstanding reason why it would have cost more to develop the AK240 than the ZX2. The AK240 had around a year of development time, same as ZX2.

 

[harmonix]

I am aware of that, the 1.5K I said took that into account. There is nothing extra special about the insides of the AK240 compared to other daps. There is no outstanding reason why it would have cost more to develop the AK240 than the ZX2. The AK240 had around a year of development time, same as ZX2.

If I was a betting man my money is on the zx2 equalling or perhaps even exceeding the ak240 sq. The dual crystal clocks tells me Sony probably got serious on the zx2 sq..
$1.5k makes sense to me if that is the case., fwiw street is already around $2k. If sq is better then it goes down more and ak needs a new flagship fast!

 

[Koolpep]

   
I am aware of that, the 1.5K I said took that into account. There is nothing extra special about the insides of the AK240 compared to other daps. There is no outstanding reason why it would have cost more to develop the AK240 than the ZX2. The AK240 had around a year of development time, same as ZX2.

Well there is one thing: Sony can do many things in-house for lower prices as when you go to separate companies for: software development, industrial design, etc. A smaller company like iRiver has a much higher cost base than Sony. 
 
HOWEVER, I am not defending the price levels - I think they are priced so high not necessarily because they need to, just tried to raise a bit of awareness especially to the smaller producers. It can very well be that they just want to appeal to the high end market and hence create a player for that price point that didn't take that much money to create/develop/design/manufacture.
 
I am with you that the prices of AK are pretty crazy for what you get compared to a desktop setup....

 

[Mython]

Dealer mark-up is also enormous with A&K.  Their dealers are on a gravy train the size of which is an affront to moral decency. I think many people would be shocked if they found out just how big the margins are.
 
...But... let's not drift off-topic, into A&K-bashing 

 
 
Sony are using a lot of in-house silicon chips on the ZX1 and ZX2, this is very expensive to develop and tool-up for, but, on the flip-side, can save them a bunch of cash in the longrun, or at least until the chips circuit designs become obsolete.
 
I'm not excusing the price of the ZX2. Not at all. I'm only mentioning the above to point out that it's not quite so easy to directly compare the component costs with those of A&K, because A&K buy most of their silicon components rather than attempting to manufacture any, in-house.
 
 
.

 

[Koolpep]

  Dealer mark-up is also enormous with A&K.  Their dealers are on a gravy train the size of which is an affront to moral decency. I think many people would be shocked if they found out just how big the margins are.

Oh yes, totally forgot to mention that! Based on talks to electronic shops in the region here, they don't touch a product that has less than a 25% margin for the dealer. 

 
The same goes for high end watches etc. Margins are closer to 50% than to 0...
Indication can be found in Jason's writings about Schiit - Distributor - Dealer - they all want a share of the pie... If I remember correctly Jason mentioned that he would need to double the price of some of his products if he would sell them in retail and not direct.
 
Cheers,
K

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

^ Sorry, but I need to get some more AK bashing out of my system. The large dealer margins on AK's are actually enforced by AK, dealers are not even allowed to lower the price of the units to sell better, unless given permission by AK (which they won't give unless its a runout model). While Sony uses the usual free market approach, where the price is open to adjustment, can drop the price or put it on sale whenever.

 

[Mython]

 

The large dealer margins on AK's are actually enforced by AK, dealers are not allowed to lower the price of the units, unless given permission by AK.

 
 
Hmmm... is that true?
 
I live in Europe and price-fixing is illegal here.
 
 
 
EDIT: I have since been informed, via PM, that A&K do not enforce the retail price of their DAPs, but do enforce what price retailers may advertise the DAPs at.
 
 
...Anyway, getting back to Sony and the ZX2... I see no reason why the huge price-increase can be justified between the ZX1 and the ZX2. It's too big a difference for too small a change in production costs. It doesn't stack-up.
 
 
.