The price at Sony Ginza is EX TAX, with tax it goes to 930k. Price at e-earphone is 830k INC TAX. Please do your research, the fact is the price difference is almost 100k if you don't buy from Sony Store. It's actually surprising that 10 people is willing to pay the MOST expensive price to buy this unit, those are the surely the diehard fans that has more money and don't bother with researching.
Also there is a review on Kakaku which says his unit is serial number in the 40s, and I personally know a person with a unit with serial in 480s. Even discounting a few stub numbers (usually the first 10 or so units are not really for sale), it's safe to say Sony shipped around 400 units @ 800-900k. So I'd say they have a good successful product on their hands again.
From what I'm getting on units sold in China/HK, I very much doubt that Sony has managed to actually sell 400 units - they may have shipped out 400 units, but most of those are either demo units or still sitting on shelves. Unless they managed to move 400 units purely inside Japan which would be almost unheard of for gear in this price range.
From what I've heard pre-sales and sales are not up to expectations from Sony China and Hong Kong dealers. Even Sony can't compete in this space if they push out a product that isn't as good as a Hugo 2/404 stack for nearly 2x the price. I'm not not a Sony fan (I am probably the first XJE-MH2 owner outside of Japan), but you can't take $3,000 worth of sound and charge $8,500 for it and expect people to line up and buy it.
From what I'm getting on units sold in China/HK, I very much doubt that Sony has managed to actually sell 400 units - they may have shipped out 400 units, but most of those are either demo units or still sitting on shelves. Unless they managed to move 400 units purely inside Japan which would be almost unheard of for gear in this price range.
From what I've heard pre-sales and sales are not up to expectations from Sony China and Hong Kong dealers. Even Sony can't compete in this space if they push out a product that isn't as good as a Hugo 2/404 stack for nearly 2x the price. I'm not not a Sony fan (I am probably the first XJE-MH2 owner outside of Japan), but you can't take $3,000 worth of sound and charge $8,500 for it and expect people to line up and buy it.
Shipped units to other retailers are as good as sold, as you can't return stock back to Sony. So unless Sony decides to just stock 400 units in their own warehouse gathering dust while knowing full well how many orders they had received from partners as well as internal demand (which makes no business sense at all), your argument doesn't make much sense.
OTOH from what I heard straight from Sato-san's mouth, the units sold are exceeding his expectation, so much so that HQ is planning to let him tour some Asian countries to do hand-over events to the new owners. I'll trust Sato-san's word over yours, for obvious reasons.
Shipped units to other retailers are as good as sold, as you can't return stock back to Sony. So unless Sony decides to just stock 400 units in their own warehouse gathering dust (which makes no business sense at all), your argument doesn't make much sense.
OTOH from what I heard straight from Sato-san's mouth, the units sold are exceeding his expectation, so much so that HQ is planning to let him tour some Asian countries to do hand-over events to the new owners. I'll trust Sato-san's word over yours, for obvious reasons.
Maybe he was referring to Japanese sales or units shipped? I'm not sure if they factored in how well retails are actually moving units.
I‘m not at liberty to say what Sony China told me about redistribution, but Beijing and HK Sony dealers have not been moving as many units as they'd prefer. I wouldn't expect Sony to have data on how fast units are going to actual customers, so it might very well be the case that dealers expected good sales and overstocked. Not Sony's issue as you mentioned, but eventually someone has to pay for them and if retailers have to offer discounts to clear stock, that's their loss on profits.
This is on top of reportedly good sales on the new IEMs and the Z7 mk2, as well as surprisingly good sales on the WM1Z, which does suggest that Sony's pricing strategy is simply way too aggressive this time. For me I might be interested in one as an all-in-one travel solution for $4,000, or maybe even $4,500 but beyond that price and I'll stick to stacking a 404 or a Xi audio Broadway.
I am in Kong Kong for the holidays, went to Jaben wanting to try the z1 but the unit is sold out including the demo unit. So I went to the Sony Show room at Sogo and was very happy that they have a demo unit for me to play. There is a Z1R connected to the Z1 and I have my campfire Atlas and Solaris with me. Too bad that they did not have the new Z1R in ear head phone available. I was able to play with it for about 30 minutes so I can’t really say I can give any detail impressions at all but I did get a flavor of what it is like. Since the announcement I had thought about I might get one if it is out of this world. Well I can say that the sound of the Z1 is very different from my WM1Z, it is not as warm and most likely due to the AKM dac. It does have a high end sound as some who have listened to it have said. As I have a 1Z so both my Atlas and Solaris are terminated with 4.4. When I say high end sound I am referring to the sound being more clean, more transparent, and more detail. Do not like the interface as much as it has only thee physical buttons and it keeps going into sleep mode and I have to awake it by pressing the play/pause button to bring up the screen may be I did not know how to operate the screen. I come away thinking that if someone like the sound presentation it will definitively worth 8 grands to them but frankly in the back of my mind I keep thinking as a desktop unit, somebody is going have to connect a bigger amp to this thing in order to drive many of the full size headphones to their potential.
Mm...what does it matter if Sony sold 400 or 4,000 units? How do you even measure if it is a commercial success or not? Does it really matter? Whether it lives up to its promise is an individual decision. Having auditioned it for about 3 solid hours in a quiet venue (pre-production/demo unit/tentative) a couple of months ago, I say it does. All I’m sure of is 1 of those babies will be mine in the near future (pre-ordered).
I do not need a desktop reference machine. I need a reference transportable machine. DMP fits that bill.
I am in Kong Kong for the holidays, went to Jaben wanting to try the z1 but the unit is sold out including the demo unit. So I went to the Sony Show room at Sogo and was very happy that they have a demo unit for me to play. There is a Z1R connected to the Z1 and I have my campfire Atlas and Solaris with me. Too bad that they did not have the new Z1R in ear head phone available. I was able to play with it for about 30 minutes so I can’t really say I can give any detail impressions at all but I did get a flavor of what it is like. Since the announcement I had thought about I might get one if it is out of this world. Well I can say that the sound of the Z1 is very different from my WM1Z, it is not as warm and most likely due to the AKM dac. It does have a high end sound as some who have listened to it have said. As I have a 1Z so both my Atlas and Solaris are terminated with 4.4. When I say high end sound I am referring to the sound being more clean, more transparent, and more detail. Do not like the interface as much as it has only thee physical buttons and it keeps going into sleep mode and I have to awake it by pressing the play/pause button to bring up the screen may be I did not know how to operate the screen. I come away thinking that if someone like the sound presentation it will definitively worth 8 grands to them but frankly in the back of my mind I keep thinking as a desktop unit, somebody is going have to connect a bigger amp to this thing in order to drive many of the full size headphones to their potential.
I am in Kong Kong for the holidays, went to Jaben wanting to try the z1 but the unit is sold out including the demo unit. So I went to the Sony Show room at Sogo and was very happy that they have a demo unit for me to play. There is a Z1R connected to the Z1 and I have my campfire Atlas and Solaris with me. Too bad that they did not have the new Z1R in ear head phone available. I was able to play with it for about 30 minutes so I can’t really say I can give any detail impressions at all but I did get a flavor of what it is like. Since the announcement I had thought about I might get one if it is out of this world. Well I can say that the sound of the Z1 is very different from my WM1Z, it is not as warm and most likely due to the AKM dac. It does have a high end sound as some who have listened to it have said. As I have a 1Z so both my Atlas and Solaris are terminated with 4.4. When I say high end sound I am referring to the sound being more clean, more transparent, and more detail. Do not like the interface as much as it has only thee physical buttons and it keeps going into sleep mode and I have to awake it by pressing the play/pause button to bring up the screen may be I did not know how to operate the screen. I come away thinking that if someone like the sound presentation it will definitively worth 8 grands to them but frankly in the back of my mind I keep thinking as a desktop unit, somebody is going have to connect a bigger amp to this thing in order to drive many of the full size headphones to their potential.
Nanaholic, I don't know why you are making a lot of fuss about e-earphone price but please read my post again. "Sony Ginza is selling Z1 at 855k when you say e-earphone is selling it at 850k."
850k is a price you mentioned which I didn't research and now you are saying it is 830k!
Which is true? Please do your research! (Sorry I just mimicked your way of writing a post LOL)
And I see you don't care about waiting but pricing. So it is natural that you don't buy SONY product at SONY Ginza.
But it is pretty dangerous to believe that everyone thinks like you.
As I wrote, I would select Sony Ginza as I don't care about pricing but shopping experience and their service. I also know a lot of people ordered their ZX and WM1 at Sony Ginza.
So I don't understand why you can be so arrogant to think people do not select Sony Ginza. Please do your survey and bring evidence! (Sorry, I would stop mimicking you now...)
And for the serial number, what I can say is that we all don't know Sony's numbering rule.
My Chord Dave has 30XXX ... so may be it is shipped over 30,000 if I think in your way???
Nanaholic, I don't know why you are making a lot of fuss about e-earphone price but please read my post again. "Sony Ginza is selling Z1 at 855k when you say e-earphone is selling it at 850k."
850k is a price you mentioned which I didn't research and now you are saying it is 830k!
Which is true? Please do your research! (Sorry I just mimicked your way of writing a post LOL)
And I see you don't care about waiting but pricing. So it is natural that you don't buy SONY product at SONY Ginza.
But it is pretty dangerous to believe that everyone thinks like you.
As I wrote, I would select Sony Ginza as I don't care about pricing but shopping experience and their service. I also know a lot of people ordered their ZX and WM1 at Sony Ginza.
So I don't understand why you can be so arrogant to think people do not select Sony Ginza. Please do your survey and bring evidence! (Sorry, I would stop mimicking you now...)
And for the serial number, what I can say is that we all don't know Sony's numbering rule.
My Chord Dave has 30XXX ... so may be it is shipped over 30,000 if I think in your way???
Price at e-earphone - note it is 830k INC tax. I took this photo a couple of days ago myself.
Price at official Sony Store - note price is 850k EX TAX. Including 8% sales tax this shoots the price all the way up to 923k.
Contrary to what you are thinking - stating facts is not being arrogant. Also if the EXACT same product is being offered cheaper elsewhere then people will tend to buy it from the cheaper store - that is simple economics theory and normal human behaviour where many businesses and economists base their operation on - not how just *I* think. So it is also a fact that using the most expensive store (and a difference of 100k no less) to gauge how well a fairly widely sold product (as you yourself has mentioned - is in stock in most places) is selling is hardly being representative, preciously for the reasons I've stated previously as many of the other stores are offering extremely generous cash back offers which Sony Ginza Store is not offering at all, anyone whom is not out there with an agenda to put down the product can see the common sense logic in this. Bring up the WM1Z or other ZX devices is not going to change that point either, as the 1Z is nowhere near the same price bracket of the Z1 here where the price difference is 100k between stores, and I think you'll be hard pressed to convince anyone that 100k yen (900USD) difference for a 800k-900k product doesn't sway most buyers under most circumstances.
Also serial numbers are not that hard to decipher - the most significant digit are not counted. In the case of DMP-Z1, the production serials begins with 5000xxxx (easily enough to verify as people began posting pictures) and increases sequentially - I have seen serials posted by Chinese owners in the high 100s, combined with the low 40s as posted by the reviewer on Kakaku and my friend's own high 400s, it's pretty safe to assume the serials are genuine and in sequential sequence. In the case of the Chord Dave it's logical enough to think it is the same. So stating that your DAVE starts at 30xxx as a single data point to disprove any point doesn't mean anything.
İ did not hear this but it did not make me running for my wallet at all.... it is a hugo2 with expensive price tag...
İ think it will go down in history Books as a “not so big” failure for Sony....
İ own zx2, 1Z and z7 , mdr1z almost Sony fan boy, i own the NC one as well....
shame, i was expecting something good after all good hits....
Nanaholic, your post is very amusing as you are presenting your personal opinion and calling it as a fact.
What is the fact or evidence that 100K difference can't be justified? It is just your opinion.
What is the fact or evidence that people won't buy Z1 but ZX and WM1 at SONY Ginza? it is just your opinion.
If you are really correct, no one would buy Z1 at e-earphone as e-earphone is not offering the lowest price.
And no one bought Z1 at SONY Ginza.
And no one would shop jewelry and watch in Ginza... as Ginza is where things are the most expensive in Japan.
If you are presenting your personal opinion and believing that they are fact, you are enough to be arrogant, Nanaholic.
For the serial numbers, you are once again presenting your personal guess as fact.
What is the fact or evidence that the # of units sold is nearly equal to the serial numbers?
Please provide solid evidence, not your personal opinion or guess. Hope you would not be arrogant this time.
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