Sony went into decline by making lacklustre products, not because they 'weren't charging enough' for them. Apple beat them by substantially raising the bar for industrial design, and, as everyone knows, by co-branding the iPod with iTunes, for an extremely successful product ecosystem. Ironically, Apple did this without even
owning any of the music rights, per se.
Sony, on the other hand, with extraordinary ineptness,
do own massive music rights, yet they have, for years, failed to market both their music,
and their associated DAP hardware in anything like as resourceful a manner as Apple's product ecosystem.
Producing isolated flagship products, at inflated prices, does not automatically rectify all of those competitive shortcomings, and, since you mention that the ZX1 suddenly got people interested in Sony again, I have stated on several occasions in this thread, that, IMO (and I am not alone), Sony let down their ZX1 customers by producing a so-called flagship audiophile device, for approx $750, which, at times, can produce a shockingly artificial sound quality, so I challenge the notion that Sony's approach is truly 'working'.
Whilst it might be true that the high-end DAP market isn't an entirely rational market, that doesn't mean all of the DAP-buying public should just quietly suck-it-up without challenging the status quo.
If DAP companies get into the habit of routinely resorting to cheap tactics of overpricing their products, just to make people around the world gasp, get the bling-seekers wetting their underwear, and the inadequates reaching for their chequebooks in a misguided attempt to compensate for their perceived inadequacies, so they can 'be the ultimate', then it's a pretty sorry state of affairs and not a healthy situation.
You seem to feel that I am making a case for Sony lowering their product quality down from TOTL, to middle-quality, but that
isn't what I'm saying.
I'm saying Sony have the resources to produce a TOTL quality product without resorting to excessive pricetags.
For example, let's say, hypothetically, I make a product at a net cost of $425 and I sell it for $1000, it doesn't magically make it higher quality than if I sell it at a smaller profit margin, more accessible to the general public, for, say, $700.
I don't mind paying a premium for a premium product.
Here's some things that I
do mind, though:
1) Paying a premium price for a product which turns out to sound very much less than a premium product should (ZX1)
2) Being expected to pay an illegitimate premium
ON TOP OF an
already-premium price (I am referring to excessive the price-hike from ZX1 $750 to ZX2 $1200)
3) Being expected to pay $1200 for a DAP with a rediculously-meagre 15mw+15mw power output, when almost nothing else on the entire market, be it $29 or $2500 has such low output. Yes, it's efficient, but it's also selling customers short.
Then they would serve their brand, and their customers, much better by producing TOTL product at a
fair price, rather than treating their customers as though they are too stupid to realise that a bit of goldplating and a few fancy capacitors do not cost $450 extra, to mass-produce.
It's transparently obvious.
A premium brand
that will stand the test of time is
not built purely upon price.
So far.
Just because they've managed to get away with it for all of 2 - 3 years does not mean such a money-grabbing business approach will stand the test of time.
Yes, sadly, you may be right.
A company with as great a heritage as Sony should have the integrity to realise that the integrity of their products is not seperate from the integrity of their business approach, and will shine-through without the need to resort to overpricing, to impress the small minority who are impressed by overpricing tactics.
.