There is no demand for low end or midrange AVPs since the vast majority of HTs use passive speakers, and splitting amplifiers and AVRs makes things more annoying to set up which is the exact opposite of what most buyers want.
Well, we could say that there is no demand for AVRs/DACs either (or passive speakers) as most of the consumers just use speakers they have in their TV (or just watch/listen everything on tablet/phone), or if they go fancy they buy some wireless speakers (active) or a soundbar (active as well).There is no demand for low end or midrange AVPs since the vast majority of HTs use passive speakers, and splitting amplifiers and AVRs makes things more annoying to set up which is the exact opposite of what most buyers want.
You could, but you'd be wrong If there is demand the products will be made. If there is demand, there is competition. If there is competition, prices will drop. Clearly, none of these factors is a thing with AVPs. Compared to AVR's the market is tiny. The AVR market is small compared to soundbars. That's just economics 101.Well, we could say
Low-end definitely not. Mid-range providing AVP sound processing that matches the 8015 or 8500HA, definitely.There is no demand for low end or midrange AVPs since the vast majority of HTs use passive speakers, and splitting amplifiers and AVRs makes things more annoying to set up which is the exact opposite of what most buyers want.
We can definitely approach this on low end too, e.g. eARC input on cheap DAC that can only process PCM.Low-end definitely not.
You could, but you'd be wrong If there is demand the products will be made. If there is demand, there is competition. If there is competition, prices will drop. Clearly, none of these factors is a thing with AVPs. Compared to AVR's the market is tiny. The AVR market is small compared to soundbars. That's just economics 101.
But wouldn't that impact low cost AVRs? Denon has an AVR that costs $299. Does it not do the same decoding (not processing just Dolby Atmos decoding) as the 8500HA?
Are Toroidals smaller in general than EIs? I didn't know that.
I don't want to turn this into an EI vs toroidal discussion as I agree that a proper EI design can sound as good. The Sansui 9090db settles that argument in a way that nothing else can.
Having said that, EIs are generally found in cheaper gear. You can find an Denon EI AVR for $300 - I've never heard of anything with a toroidal at that price point. You look at anything aspirational it's all toroidal Musical Fidelity 8xi (dual toroidals), Dan D'Agostino Momentum (massive single toroidal). I remember looking at pictures of smaller audiophile stereo amps (not the known brands) and they all had toroidals except for one that actually had 2 of them. But yeah, I'd take Sansui sound over a toroidal any day.
I found this one:What is the soundbar to AVR market and how has it changed over time? Does anyone know that?
Low-end definitely not. Mid-range providing AVP sound processing that matches the 8015 or 8500HA, definitely.
The hometheatre in a title is a niche already. But also you might want to invest on things where you think the ball is moving, rather than what current marketshare shows. Yes economies of scale will most likely not apply early on.I found this one:
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There are some more comprehensive reports out there. All paywalled though.
Thanks, I'm actually surprised that Home Theater had such a high market share but this is about the time Atmos was introduced. I'd love to see the new numbers during the Atmos era.The hometheatre in a title is a niche already. But also you might want to invest on things where you think the ball is moving, rather than what current marketshare shows. Yes economies of scale will most likely not apply early on.
I have similar suspicions. At the least it made ht even more of a niche market than it was before.I suspect Atmos has all but killed Home Theater which I foresaw the day they announced it.
Anyway, I don't see AVPs as being cheaper to manufacture than AVRs that include pre-outs in the first place. Yes, you drop some components, but you also drop economy of scale since fewer people will buy the product. And the software development costs remain the same, and are probably the majority of overhead at this point.
I'm not saying $1,000 although Emotiva's MC1 certainly showed it can be accomplished at that price point - sure it's a 1st attempt but the next one will be much better, I'm sure.The 8500HA has an MSRP of $6K, there are processors much cheaper than that so I'm now confused what exactly you're asking for? I thought it was an AVP under $1K? There's just no reason to make such a thing.
I was using "midrange" to describe things in the ~$2K range like the Denon 4000-6000 series type stuff.
There is no reason for even the most fancy RCA cable to cost more than about $20 and most of that is going on the connectors and cost of termination. Anything more expensive than that that is snake oil.You keep forgetting that good quality RCA cables can be hundreds of dollars. Buying an AVR saves tons of money that way.
But more seriously, it is probably more efficient to skip the AVP because the economies of scale are better. Amplifiers are pretty much all the same at this level, and good enough for most applications. And think about stocking AVR and AVP, writing instructions, providing service and support.
Having said this, there is definitely a market for a high quality $1200 AVR. But as a company, I would be afraid to go after it because it would be trivial for someone like Denon/ Marantz to eat my lunch if it worked out to be profitable. As you correctly point out, there is a very low barrier to entry for those folks.
That was a joke. Hence the emojii. I completely agree with you.There is no reason for even the most fancy RCA cable to cost more than about $20 and most of that is going on the connectors and cost of termination. Anything more expensive than that that is snake oil.
Yeah but they use the same software for a long time. They also share it across their entire lineup so it's not model specific. It's not like they have to build a new app for each model every year from scratch. I'm sure Marantz and Denon share the same software and hardware for the menu and for storing information so the economies of scale are huge compared to the old days. Same for Pioneer, Onkyo, and Integra. If anything, it was probably more difficult to write the software in the old days as software development has advanced massively and you can have graphical web user interfaces as opposed to building a screen app from scratch and placing things at X and Y positions and building custom controls.You're paying for the (software) development cost. Modern AVR's have a LOT of features. Developing, licensing, integrating and testing those (making sure they don't interfere with each other) is a lot of work. And when you get to the high-end AVR's with niche functionality - they are not selling a large number of them. So the development cost is split over a small number of units.