The price of Neodymium been rising
very rapidly recently, with driver manufacturers quoting prices that are only good for one day. The result is, some of the drivers I use have gone up dramatically in price.
Neodymium is critical to the new generation of lightweight, powerful magnets that enable significant advances in military technology, wind power, electric cars, medicine, computer hard drives, flat-screen displays, space technology, cell phones, and probably more. China produces 93% to 97%of the world's supply, having crushed all of their competitors with low prices. Now they are raising their prices, and have said that they will stop exporting neodymium and other rare earth metals by 2014.
Effective immediately, the Rhythm Prism and Planetarium Gamma will each go up by $300 per pair, to $2800 and $2600, respectively. This does not affect orders already in place. Unfortunately the narrow cabinets of these models do not allow enough internal clearance for a larger-diameter ceramic magnet.
