I also think sales volume has a lot to do with pricing, the more you sell, the more you can sell at lower prices!
I just did a not a very non scientific comparison on projected/educated gessed sales volume of AVP vs AVRs (D+M models only) based on customer reviews, while it won't be accuate at all, it might still give us a rough idea.
Amazon.com, Crutchfield.com and Besbuy.com customer reviews on the following:
Amazon Crutchfield Bestbuy
Marantz AV7706: 33 12 26
Marantz AV7705: 12
Marantz AV8805A: 1 12
Marantz AV8805: 15 9
Marantz AV8802A 14
Marantz SR7015: 60 18
Marantz SR8015: 59 24
Marantz SR6015: 73 55
Marantz SR5015: 258 158
Denon AVR-X3700H 584 50
Denon AVR-X4700H 408 102 221
Denon AVR-X6700H 239 26
Denon AVR-X8500H 53 17
Denon AVR-X8500HA 12
Denon AVR-A110 12
Denon AVR-X3800H 16 42
Marantz C50 16 18
Marantz C60 258
Marantz AVR-X2800H 445
Not totally scientific, won't be accurate, but one can still draw some projected sales volume comparisons that seem to show:
- AVRs out sell AVPs by a wide margin
- Denon sells a more more AVRs than Marantz did
- Customers seem to care more about prices than gold plated connectors and HDAMs
They probably did what I did, checked prices in countries outside North America and realize that Denon's are better values here mainly because Marantz US and Canada's list prices are ridiculously high relative the Asia and Europe's, I wonder if that has anything to do with the tariff/import duties differentials, as shipping costs shouldn't differ by that much, they all have to be shipped from Vietnam and Japan. South East Asian countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore do enjoy lower shippping costs and import duties though. Still the price differentials between D and M in European countries are much lower than that in the US and Canada, like 1/3 to even 1/4 in some cases.
I thought I would check out Yamaha too and found:
CX-A5100 15
RX-A6A 27
RX-V6A 91
So it's the same scenario, Yamaha sells tons of AVRs especially the lower models but I doubt they sell that many AVPs at all. In fact it is hard to find places (online ones) that even bother selling Yamaha AVPs.
Same for Anthem, AVRs out sell the AVPs by a wide margin if you add up the MRX540, 740, 1140 review to compare with the AVM70 and 90 reviews.