I'm ok with paying a reasonable price for physical items. I also like supporting local business in my town, often a slight additional cost (it isn't that bad mostly). I recently had a local dealer order in some Beyerdynamic T1s, rather than buy from Australian based Internet business (Addicted to Audio, you've probably seen the adds on this site if you're in the region, they're good btw). In the end, I paid a little bit more, but it was more or less in line with what A2A had.
The funny thing, when he made a phonecall to the distributor (hills SVL) in my presence, the quoted price was over $1700. We were both shocked, When pressed on the matter, they dropped the price down in line with other Aussie prices. What was the deal? Did they see a small business in a small town as an easy target to gouge?
I long ago struck the HD800 off my list, due to my impression of the behaviour of the Aussie distributor, for the longest time (like 2 years), it was 2k+, even with US dollar parity, the few AU online business selling premium Senns don't seem to be permitted to sell the HD800 via an online shopping cart, almost without exception it seems like they're only allowed to list the item and invite people to contact them via phone or whatever due to restrictions from Syntec These days, the cost of a pair is closer to $1500. Heck, I even remember when the HD650 basically doubled in price locally at around the same time.
EDIT: Check out this;
http://lenwallisaudio.com/products/accessories/headphones/hd650 These days it is 'on special'. See, they're doing you a favour, you should be happy. /Sarcasm.
Australian distro shenanigans aside, I believe we should support Aussie business where possible.
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Back on the subject of Digital distribution, I've heard and read many claims that the reason for higher digital download prices is because local publisher etc, takes offence to it. And given that the sellers also have local relationships with business it seems plausible. At the same time though, at some point, digital sales didn't lead to the saving for end consumers like promised so many years ago.
Does anyone else get the impression that Digital Distribution seems totally arse backwards at times? Pay more, get less?
