Sefu

Thanks Z, keep us up to date Yeah apparantely the 400 should be available in conjuction with the 100s. The HD5 is said to be coming next week and I was told in multiple colours...

Joel Turner idea sounds pretty cool. Just further to Z's post I've been told the 2G models will be available in Sept, but knowing Sony they probably have some sort of stuff up so Oct is more accurate. Now if you guys want the "old school" Hi-Md units its time to act now as Sony have no NH1s left in their warehouse and very slim stock of the NH900. So whatever NH1 is left in the store will be the last of them, I doubt Sony will be getting more NH1. There are too many NH600 in stock, so Sony may try to push these out and hopefully with a lower price. I imagine if Sony get rid of all the current line as quickly as possible the 2G units will come in quicker.

I was more referring to legality and moral issues for a retailer to bring in imports, especially big name products. It can be done but you will be frown upon and many customers are aware of grey imports which in the end can possibly give you a bad name. We been there and I know some stores that are doing it now, its not something easy to deal with as most of these stores do not care about your warranty, they care more for their profit more than anything. Yes its a generalization but the majority of grey importers are importing for the bigger dollar with little care about the customer after the purchase. Private imports, I really couldnt care. I do it on a regular basis if I cant get the product locally, for example I purchased a PSP last month because I couldnt wait until September. If I had a chance I would get the Xbox 360 when its released but due to PAL and NTSC I have to wait for at least a euro release which is prob around the same time as a Aus release Edit: I also hope for a price drop, well its expected since the rest of the world has lowered their rrp and i think the new units are made out of japan to save cost?

I thought I gave a pretty good explanation on the pricing difference from us to the rest of the world, I suggest to go through them again Plus again, you guys are comparing prices from Sony RRP to street prices in the US, there is hardly any dealers that sell at RRP. To be fair compare with proper AUS street prices with rest of the world street prices, yes even with street prices we are more expensive but there are other factors, again read my post. If Sony were to make $50 profit, where does this leave their dealers who are the bloodline for Sony distributing their products? Sony get their products out there because of their dealers, dealers need incentive to sell Sony products, without incentive Sony will be doing all the legwork. You can say Sony is a manufacturer/distributor, they do very little direct sale and this is their game plan. Again read my post, there are both advantages and disadvantages to distributing and direct sales. Cheaper sources like imports? Not so easy, been there done that. The major problem is warranty.

Correct, purchase 20 Hi-MD blanks for $99AUD and get a free 24 MD rack Thanks for your praises

Credit card is not the only option, we have COD for the cautious customers and I am sure many people can vouch our creditbility. Thanks Zathura for the update

Ok I shouldnt of said anything but what I said is not confirmed and a estimated guess from a few factors and sources I have. Don't quote me. I will keep my mouth shut now and have my fingers crossed hoping I am correct

I'm meant not to say anything but the 2G models look good for Australian release soon. It might be within the next 1 or 2 months.

Thanks for that atrain. You can also try our eBay auction http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...5768036773&rd=1

Thanks Zathura for clearing that up, I was late to this topic. But that helps clear things up on my side Definately keep in touch if you hear of more news, whether it be public or private. The RRP is simply a figure and should only be used a guildline price. Myers, Harvey Norman and Sony Style/Central love to use these prices. These guys target "mum and dad" customers who do not know where else to look. Now I think there are both advantages and disadvantages of using the RRP system, the obvious disadvantage is what you said; there is not set price. But I think there is a major advantage to this system; there is more flexibility in pricing. Each store will have their own pricing to compete with each other to draw in the customer. Now since everyone is competing you have more power as a customer to bargin from one to store to the other. This is something you cannot do with Apple products. Because Sony relies on its dealers to sell their products, they need to offer a atractive profit for them before they are willing to stock the Sony products. It is illegal to force a business to sell at a particular price. The only way around it is to use Apples strategy; that is selling the product to them at a extremely high price which is close to the RRP thus you have to sell it at RRP to make money. This is one reason why all Apple pricing are pretty much the same and you are unable to haggle the pricing and the reason why Myers, Kmart exclude ipod products when having a store wide sale. Now if Sony was to take the same approach as Apple (selling at extremely high prices) then they will lose support from their dealers. Sony do not do much direct sales. Now because Sony rely on their dealers, there is a wider spread of Sony gear out there. More dealers equals more competition equals price wars Sony and Apple use different strategies with getting their products out there. Apple mainly do direct sales while Sony rely on dealers. I think both approaches have benifits.

Good point Skyther. I am going to speculate here about Apples pricing. The iPod is now seen a the benchmark product, for a portable audio product to compete in the US it must match or better the pricing. This is because the US is a extremely competitive market. You will be eaten alive if you do not follow Apple in pricing. We have seen Creative do some slashing and overnight releases of their Zen Micros and iRiver has matched pricing with their H300 series in the US. Now in Australia and other countries, from what I have seen, the big boys have not followed the pricing of Apple all that much, they make a small attempt to compete but not as aggressive of what happens in the US. It might be because the dealers are reluctant to make so little and these guys have little resourse to sell direct to the public like Apple do Another reason why possibly Apple can have similar pricing worldwide is because their dealers make a tiny profit of around 8%, while Sony are a bit more generous and can make triple to 4 times the amount if you sold RRP. So that means Apple make the majority of the profit while the dealers get small change. With Sony there is a bit more flexibility and sharing among Sony and dealers. I imagine a lot of sales from Apple are direct from their stores, and little from their dealers, on the other hand the majority of Sony sales are from their dealers. Who buys from Sony Style? So I think the way they distribute the product could also make a difference in pricing. lightbulbjim, I think Hi-MD is one of the best recording formats around especially on the field. We have many customers dumping their NetMD and pre NetMD units for the extra functionality of Hi-MD. These guys definately do not need mp3 playback. I can tell you now that the main reason people buying Hi-MD units are for the recording functionality and yes, beleive it or not, there is a huge base of customers after these. The majority of our stock are Hi-MD units. Thus the reason I am finding it hard to believe the rumor. Sharp and other manufacturers will not be back. Well I doubt it very much. There is no hard facts of MD dissappearing in Aus yet, I think I rather wait. Where was the original source from? Was the guy working at Sony HQ or Sony Central/Style? I hope it does not happen as we be needing to import again

My previous post on the 2nd page compares our pricing with a Singapore eStore. It shows our pricing is cheaper with the lower models and with the higher models we are slightly more expensive, but technically we are cheaper if you add in the tax etc. We also have the bundle pack (sorry to repeat). I think it is extremely difficult for any store in any part of the world to compare pricing with the US market. As mentioned above the US market is much fiercer, more competitive and that is due to a larger market, larger consumers and many more products to compete with. If we in Australia had the same demographics then I would be worried. It's not only people on this board that buys MD, we have radio stations, uni students and many customers in the professional industry that rely on this technology. There are advantages and disadvantages of purchasing off shore. The obvious is cheaper (well in the US), get the technology faster but the bad thing is no support and in some cases less accessories are included. I think the US RH10 does not come with a remote to slash the prices down? I don't have a problem with importing, in fact I'm scoring myself a Japanese PSP because I cannot wait, but I do feel that the Australian pricing for MDs are more inline and competitive with the rest of the world. Sorry I'm not trying to start a flame war, I feel I need to defend the Australian market. We live in this country so why not support it?

I didn't see the original post with the reason why Sony Australia would not bring in the 2nd gen units. I don't see why Sony Au would not. If they did not bring them in then they would make a major lost as they are removing a large part of their walkman line up. Generally we see new units come in around July. I think it would be a stupid move if Sony removed MD from their line up, especially considering that Hi-MD is doing a lot better now, with MP3 support it just adds a firmer product. I think its too early to call anyway

I would probably of done the same thing. To be honest with you we don't sell many MDP, therefore we are unable to negotiate a better deal. We will probably eventually get rid of them off our site totally and concentrate whats available in the Australian market. MDR are far better sellers in Australia. We stock many many more MDR compared to MDP. Yeah I guess we all know who that "eStore" is I didn't want to mention the name because it may of looked like I was bagging them.

Oh, I think if anybody should be complaining its New Zealanders. I was told they had to pay $15NZ per Hi-MD disc.

Thanks for that. I just wanted to put a opinion from a store side of things. I just wanted to point out that the assumption that Australian prices are not a total rip off, they were back in the day but the general assumption should be gone now. Things are getting better. Now if you compare our prices with the US pricing then I do agree with you, however I think the main reason of the pricing is the fierce competition over in the US. There are so many more stores and so many more consumers. These stores have a lot more competition in the US compared to Australia. I imagine the mark up in the US is horrible and these stores are making money on QTY. The only way for Sony to compete in the US is to match or better the price of the iPod. Consumers in the US are very price concious and you can say they are a lot more "tighter" From what I've seen a lot more accessories are taken out of the US sets to make them "cheaper" Just my 2 cents about the US market, I don't know all that much about it, I'm just making points from what I have seen.

I thought I would post my thoughts from a retailers point of view, I disagree on some of the points that have been posted. First all, it seems like everyone is comparing Australian RRP vs Rest of the world street prices. The only people who sell at RRP are Sony Style and Harvey Norman. After selling these units for around 5 years I can tell you the pricing and deals and much better now than 5 years ago. When NetMD was introduced the RRP for the N1 was $899, The N707 was $599 and N505 was $499. Compare it to todays RRP of the current units that have long superseded the above units NH1 RRP $699 NH700 RRP $399 NH600 RRP $299 And with the current units they come with a bonus pack which is damn good value. Ok lets do some comparisons with real street prices. I will compare our prices (thats only prices I know off the top of my head ) with a Singapore estore. The Singapore eStore price does not include postage, taxes and duty (legally have to pay but many people avoid it) Nor does it include any type of Australian warranty Singapore eStore MZ-NH1 @ $486AUD MZ-NH900 @ $416AUD MZ-NHF800 @ $409 MZ-NH700 @ $359 MZ-NH600 @ $286 Just to make it clear, the above prices do not include shipping, taxes and duty (10% GST + 3% duty) Our price MZ-NH1 @ $599 MZ-NH900 @ $499 MZ-NHF800 @ $429 MZ-NH700 @ $349 MZ-NH600 @ $259 Our prices include 10% GST, to get the price ex GST divide our price by 11 to get the tax If you were to pay taxes and duty plus the freight the total cost will far exceed our prices and lose warranty and no bonus pack. If you were to "avoid" taxes and duty (at your risk) you would only make a saving on the top 2 models, the saving is around $60 - $70 (assuming shipping was $40 - $50). On the lower models its much cheaper to get them here, even if you went to SG and picked it up. And plus you get the bonus pacK! Personally I would pay the extra $60 for the bonus pack and for the local warranty. There is nothing worst then sending back your unit overseas for repair which takes who knows how long. There is suggestion that Sony and/or retailers are exploiting customers. I don't think thats the case. Sony and retailers are around to make profits, if they did not make profits they would not be around to bring us new products. Sony and/or retailers are free to charge whatever they like as long as they feel the customers see it as value. There have been a few MD advertisements and usually in prime time TV. But Sony do not advertise as much, as for instance Apple. Not sure why but its common of Sony not to advertise that much. Maybe it has sometime to do with the short life cycle? The Bonus packs are not tied into the pricing. The prices of MD are much cheaper now with the bonus packs compared to last years models without the bonus pack. The only people making a loss from the bonus pack is Sony themselves. It looks like they added the bonus packs to stop imports. To sum it up I don't think Aus prices are as bad now. They are more inline as described above and come with a better deal from the rest of the world. The Hi-MD blanks found in Australia are the cheapest found anyway in the world. You cannot beat $4.95AUD each! If this doesnt show commitment then what does? Remember our GST is 10%, Asia has GST of around 3%

How about eBay? We have them for GBP3.79 each. They are shipped from Australia. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...5761241774&rd=1

Hi, I thought I let you guys know that we are receiving a large batch of Hi-MD blanks on Tuesday, so the drought is over! I am happy to ship them out worldwide, I have organised a special deal which is found on T-Board http://www.minidisct.com/forum/showthread....&threadid=25973 I am offloading them for $8.50AUD each which is around $6.40US (Check XE for exact rates) and shipping is $4.40AUD for up to 3 pieces. Ausseis are welcome to order on our website Any questions let me know

No limitations. You can format the older disc in Hi-MD mode from the unit or from Sonic Stage. It gives you roughtly 300mb storage and you can record whatever mode is available

Yep same bonus pack, it comes with the Sony Quick Charger + 4 Batteries and HiMD Case

I have a shipment coming in tomorrow but its gone from pre orders. I think there is another shipment coming in mid week. Fingers crossed because we have been waiting over 3 months now. For the record we have the NH700 for $449 with the bonus pack

Believe or not but Sony Australia have improved, they have slashed $100AUD off they RRP in the last 2 years. The main reason for the price difference is market size, our 10% GST and the duty attached to bringing these units in. We live in a expensive country! Our Hi-MD blanks are on par with the US though, RRP for the Hi-MD blanks are $9.95AUD while in the US they are around $7 which is roughly the same. Audiocubes look very expensive for Hi-MD units, it works out cheaper to buy them here in Aus

Its the remote port

Ok I get ya now Umm I think there is a program called sound forge which is excellent at editing but it will cost you a lot of money. Im not too sure of any free ones. At present we dont have a shop front, mainly dealing online and over the phone.