Price increase November 1st

[DaVinci Media]

Martin Logan announced a price increase on almost all models effective November 1st. Rapidly Increasing costs to produce credited for the increase.

 

[Feltran]

How much of a price increase are we talking about? Or did they say?

 

[greg_slo]

my sources say 7-8%
(sorry ML if this wasnt public info right now)

 

[Craig]

I'm not surprised, it seems as if the cost of everything is going up significantly.

 

[Feltran]

I'm not surprised, it seems as if the cost of everything is going up significantly. It's apparently the cost of doing business regardless of what business you're in. One of the side effects of the economy turmoil.

I'm surprised. The amount of money people have is going down, and everywhere I go everything is on sale.

 

[psychoacoustic]

Plastics are oil driven but it could be said....

The overall supply/inventory levels of raw materials should be high as sales/manufacturing/shipping demands are low

The low raw material demand provides leverage for improved pricing.

Shipping is also a soft market with high capacity and most common carriers scrambling for something to ship

Diesel increased .80/gallon but the carrier will receive off-sets and not 1-1 incrementals. {i.e delivered cost increases .01 for each .08 increase}

But... if demand for the speaker is high then cost increase occurs. ML overall sales must be up and thats a good thing. {If given the choice, I would rather give additional $ to ML then the oil companies}

 

[FISH_MAN]

I would not think it matters much

people do not buy 5k+ speakers who are worried about 7% one way or the other people either buy or they don't. martin logan has got to keep up with inflation.what I would be worried about is what if this crap economy drived them out of biz "no more panels?" how bad would that suck!

 

[amey01]

people do not buy 5k+ speakers who are worried about 7% one way or the other people either buy or they don't. martin logan has got to keep up with inflation.what I would be worried about is what if this crap economy drived them out of biz "no more panels?" how bad would that suck!

That's not something I have not thought about. But with so many 'Logans out there in service, and with so many high-end companies, I'm sure someone would take over the manufacture of them to ML's specs. Not ideal, but I don't think it's worth worrying about.

 

[FISH_MAN]

not really worried

well if they did go out of biz it makes no sense that anyone else would build the very thing another company went out for building! and for sure not to exact spects for a backwards compatible product.and anybody else with a working pair osf cls is not going to sell you his panels to make your speaker work again!

 

[mrmike]

At least for us in the States the price increase at 8% will be no where near the increase we saw in European goods the last couple years.

 

[DrJRapp]

Actually, I believe that ML is raising prices not to cover rising manufacturing costs but to cover the costs of development of future product. A very large part of the cost of a CLX must be the development costs, and that probably carries through for everything in the line. My ML dealer tells me that sales are down quite a bit, therefore the only way to recoup development costs is to increase prices to insure the future evolution of the line. As someone already mentioned...when you are buying a $5-10K speaker then an added $3-700 isn't that big a big deal.

 

[Craig]

I've seen post on the Audio Asylum of other audio manufactures raising their prices as well. Audiogon.com just raised thier fees substantially a few days ago but I have no idea what overhead cost that could be attributed to. All Audiogon is, is just a basic listing website that runs on its own so what reason is there for them to raise the fees so much other than to squeeze more money out of the sellers. There are a lot folks on the Audio Asylum very unhappy about it and looking for alternative places to sell their audio gear.

The free listing on this website is really a great service. I plan to use it more and Audiogon much less. Granted it doesn't get as much traffic but I'm not desperate to sell anyway.

 

[DrJRapp]

Very soon every provider will be feeling the pinch of higher unit costs combined with lower sales volumes.

 

[SteveInNC]

... with so many high-end companies, I'm sure someone would take over the manufacture of them to ML's specs.

Not necessarily to ML specs: a number of years ago, Rubbermaid bought the Calphalon brand (pots and pans) from Commercial Aluminum. They then proceeded to turn out a whole series of crap knock-offs and "new" lines in the series, totally killing the respected brand name. Singer sewing machines is another exmaple: they were a respected brand, but are now pretty much crap masquerading under the marque's previous reputation.

 

[FISH_MAN]

My ML dealer tells me that sales are down quite a bit, therefore the only way to recoup development costs is to increase prices to insure the future evolution of the line. As someone already mentioned...when you are buying a $5-10K speaker then an added $3-700 isn't that big a big deal.[/QUOTE]


oh so true is this but a path too the dark side and a slippery slope that is.
what's the saying "what we don't make in volume we will make in margin" or is it the other way around lol. this is a complicated subject but in the end you can't defy the laws of supply and demand no matter who you are.