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At their price point they were not common. I don't know the franchise deal. With some manufacturers, to get the license you had to buy a set amount of product, which could have included the higher priced spread, or could have been simply a dollar amount, made up from the lower ends. Much easier to sell five or six cassette decks or CD players than one two thousand dollar amp that few had read about.Really? It was special order over there? Any Sony ES dealer here could get it, or had one on the floor. (for the few years it was in production before the TAN-80es came along) Here it cost AU$2399 RRP.
I bought mine, as I recall, from an outfit called Sound Advice. It was a special order item. Later, during the twilight of two channel (everyone back then at that time was interested in home theater) I also special ordered a Yamaha AX-592 amplifier and TX-950 tuner. Because the dealer didn't stock them, there were no discounts. On the other hand, you could always get a 'home theater' receiver 'on sale' back then. and they had twenty in the box, in the storeroom, so you could take it with you.
On a related note, Sound Advice (no longer in business) made a push to get into the 'tweako high end' market. They started in South Florida, hiring marketeer Steve Zipser as a consultant for their high-end business. I remember them carrying Arnie Nudell's Infinity line--the tall speakers with the EMITs finished in rosewood, but don't recall the other stuff.
Zipser was a notorious/popular commenter on the old Usenet high-end board, rec-audio-high-end. Steve operated a business called Sunshine Stereo out of his house, and claimed the superiority of boutique brands. One day Tom Nousaine and his ABX partner (Steve Mackie?) flew down to Miami, hooked up the machine to Steve's home stereo (Nelson Pass mono class-A monsters), and then Zipser proceeded to become confused when asked to identify his special gear from a ten year old Yamaha integrated amplifier.