This is a question from "caesar" that was posted in a different thread. I have moved it because it is off topic from the other thread. I believe that "caesar" wants to talk about pricing practices - ours specifically. Let's see if we can have an adult conversation without a decent into chaos, with the end result being the shutdown of thread. I have high hopes.
Hello Caesar. I am not sure if your comment is a passing quip of if you are serious. However, we are more than happy to talk about pricing if you like - our's and the audio industry's if you like. Just for reference all prices quoted will be US$.
I am also not sure if you think the Sigma is over priced or the Denali Series is under priced? When we price our products we do so based the BOM (bill of materials) +R&D recovery, +labor, +packaging, times a standard markup formula that brings us to a US Retail price. We do not price products based on its relative performance compared to competitive products. We do design some products to a specific price range or category. We always use the best materials possible within the constraints of a given price range. The result is that most of our products significantly out perform our competitors products within the same given price range. I am sure Grant would be more than happy to talk about the industry's (specifically cable companies) pricing practices in a subsequent post.
RE: Sigma Power Cord
The Sigma is our reference top of the line power cable. I was NOT built to any price constraint and is therefore our current best attempt at a state-of-the-art power cable. There are three models that range from $2500 to $3500. The Sigma competes with other power cables that cost over ~$7.5K with some priced between $10-20K. If we participated in the "luxury" pricing game - or to say it another way, "charge what the market will bear" then the Sigma should be priced at about $10K and it still wouldn't be the most expensive on the market. We have some distributors (you can guess where) that ask us to put higher retail prices on our reference products. They say this is because certain VIP customers will not consider our product because it is not expensive enough to be considered. In other words some people buy based on cosmetics and retail price. You can understand this to a certain degree. Why would a person shopping for a Mercedes price shop a Honda priced car even if the Honda was actually superior. They will compare to similarly priced cars like a BMW, Jaguar, Audi etc. Unfortunately, some cable products are not priced like cars and are not based on a BOM and standard markup. So the buyer needs to do some research and some listening - sometimes outside of a narrow price range. There are some gems and relative bargains to be had if you do some research.
RE: Denali Power Conditioners
Unlike the Sigma, the Denali Series is not our top reference product and it WAS designed to a specific price range target. Our goal was to create a power conditioner that uses some of our technology from the Triton, some from the Typhon and some from our sister company that is producing medical power conditioners. Further, we wanted to make a product that competes or exceeds the the performance of the best power conditioners on the market but make it affordable to the 99%er audiophile. This product was not built for the VIP's but for a working guy that loves music and audio. We have learned a lot about manufacturing efficiency in the last 15 years. And we are leveraging our medical division's volume production. Many of components used in the Denali series are shared by our medical products. So our audiophile products benefit from the medical product's volume.
Why did you (Caesar) link the price of the Sigma with the price of the two outlet Denali? There is a very comprehensive review about the Denali Series that has just been published in AudioStream by Steve Plaskin. Perhaps you read that? If so, Steve used a Sigma cable and an Alpha cable in the review. We recommended that the most appropriate cable to use with the Denali, given its price, would be a VENOM-HC at $295 or an ALPHA-HC at $1250. I told Steve that in my opinion that there would not be a significant enough difference between the ALPHA and SIGMA when used with the Denali. That is because the Denali has such a high level of noise reduction and DTCD performance that it tends to marginalize the power cords effects from the wall outlet to the unit. It does not however minimize in any performance impact of the cables going from the Denali to the components. You will notice that Steve confirmed that the ALPHA was near the performance of the SIGMA however he did say that if you are using very high power amplifiers that the difference between the two levels of cables was more apparent.
If you want to compare apples to apples: Let's compare our reference stack which consists of the HYDRA TRITON, TYPHON and DPC-6. This is our 3 component reference power conditioner which Steve also has and used for comparison with the Denali series products. The cost of that stack is about ~$18 - a pretty penny to be sure and not exactly for those on an audio budget. I would definitely recommend the Sigma power cords when using our reference stack.
Seems like a great product, but why does a sigma cord cost more than the 2000t model/ almost as much as the 6000 rectangular model?
Is this a matter of audiophile luxury pricing (nothing wrong with that , if this is the case) or is there an underlying economic logic behind this?
Hello Caesar. I am not sure if your comment is a passing quip of if you are serious. However, we are more than happy to talk about pricing if you like - our's and the audio industry's if you like. Just for reference all prices quoted will be US$.
I am also not sure if you think the Sigma is over priced or the Denali Series is under priced? When we price our products we do so based the BOM (bill of materials) +R&D recovery, +labor, +packaging, times a standard markup formula that brings us to a US Retail price. We do not price products based on its relative performance compared to competitive products. We do design some products to a specific price range or category. We always use the best materials possible within the constraints of a given price range. The result is that most of our products significantly out perform our competitors products within the same given price range. I am sure Grant would be more than happy to talk about the industry's (specifically cable companies) pricing practices in a subsequent post.
RE: Sigma Power Cord
The Sigma is our reference top of the line power cable. I was NOT built to any price constraint and is therefore our current best attempt at a state-of-the-art power cable. There are three models that range from $2500 to $3500. The Sigma competes with other power cables that cost over ~$7.5K with some priced between $10-20K. If we participated in the "luxury" pricing game - or to say it another way, "charge what the market will bear" then the Sigma should be priced at about $10K and it still wouldn't be the most expensive on the market. We have some distributors (you can guess where) that ask us to put higher retail prices on our reference products. They say this is because certain VIP customers will not consider our product because it is not expensive enough to be considered. In other words some people buy based on cosmetics and retail price. You can understand this to a certain degree. Why would a person shopping for a Mercedes price shop a Honda priced car even if the Honda was actually superior. They will compare to similarly priced cars like a BMW, Jaguar, Audi etc. Unfortunately, some cable products are not priced like cars and are not based on a BOM and standard markup. So the buyer needs to do some research and some listening - sometimes outside of a narrow price range. There are some gems and relative bargains to be had if you do some research.
RE: Denali Power Conditioners
Unlike the Sigma, the Denali Series is not our top reference product and it WAS designed to a specific price range target. Our goal was to create a power conditioner that uses some of our technology from the Triton, some from the Typhon and some from our sister company that is producing medical power conditioners. Further, we wanted to make a product that competes or exceeds the the performance of the best power conditioners on the market but make it affordable to the 99%er audiophile. This product was not built for the VIP's but for a working guy that loves music and audio. We have learned a lot about manufacturing efficiency in the last 15 years. And we are leveraging our medical division's volume production. Many of components used in the Denali series are shared by our medical products. So our audiophile products benefit from the medical product's volume.
Why did you (Caesar) link the price of the Sigma with the price of the two outlet Denali? There is a very comprehensive review about the Denali Series that has just been published in AudioStream by Steve Plaskin. Perhaps you read that? If so, Steve used a Sigma cable and an Alpha cable in the review. We recommended that the most appropriate cable to use with the Denali, given its price, would be a VENOM-HC at $295 or an ALPHA-HC at $1250. I told Steve that in my opinion that there would not be a significant enough difference between the ALPHA and SIGMA when used with the Denali. That is because the Denali has such a high level of noise reduction and DTCD performance that it tends to marginalize the power cords effects from the wall outlet to the unit. It does not however minimize in any performance impact of the cables going from the Denali to the components. You will notice that Steve confirmed that the ALPHA was near the performance of the SIGMA however he did say that if you are using very high power amplifiers that the difference between the two levels of cables was more apparent.
If you want to compare apples to apples: Let's compare our reference stack which consists of the HYDRA TRITON, TYPHON and DPC-6. This is our 3 component reference power conditioner which Steve also has and used for comparison with the Denali series products. The cost of that stack is about ~$18 - a pretty penny to be sure and not exactly for those on an audio budget. I would definitely recommend the Sigma power cords when using our reference stack.
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