[FullRangeMan]

China thanks you for your business....and the free advertising.

Sorry for this, I apologize if this break the AC Forum rules.
As Iam a brazilian audiophile, I see Euro, US, Canadian or Chinese manufactures just as foreinger brands, I have no preference for anyone.

I just look for the best sound/build quality for the money.
Regards, Gustavo

> Never go to a psychiatrist, adopt a cat or dog from the street. On the streets pets live only two years average.

[FullRangeMan]

I don't think that point to point wiring has any advantage over a well thought out, competently designed, and well constructed PCB.

Yes, manufacturers have chosen in the past to get away from point to point wiring in favor of CHEAPER PCB to increase revenue; but that's doesn't mean all PCB construction is garbage.

A lot of companies use PCB to great success.

My personal preference are point-to-ponit hard wiring, PCB tube amps have difficult maintenance,

Afew month ago there was a report on a forum in my country of a AR VT-100 tube amp,  there was a shorted 6550 output tube and the PCB track was used as fuse and burn, the solder evaporated.
Looks a expensive repair, with point-to-point wiring this repair are much more easy.
Regards, Gustavo

> Never go to a psychiatrist, adopt a cat or dog from the street. On the streets pets live only two years average.

[rollo]

  Not for anything but US Audio dealers sell these brands. So they are making a profit, correct ?
  From experience one would be a fool to buy ant Foreign product without customer support here or Canada. What I expect is a service dept. with STOCK of parts.  A technician on staff full time who KNOWS the components inside and out.
  No 2 or 3 month repair excursions. Another question raised is the conformance to electrical safeguards and standards used here.
  If all the requirements are met, BUY if not take your chances. Grant Fidelity appears to do most of the above, so at least we have one outfit trying very hard.
  back on subject. Manley like all other Manfs does not want to raise their prices but reality in the market has forced them to do so. In a global market the fit survive, fair ? That is in the eye of the beholder. Its business, right ? Wrong ?



charles

[kingdeezie]

  Not for anything but US Audio dealers sell these brands. So they are making a profit, correct ?
  From experience one would be a fool to buy ant Foreign product without customer support here or Canada. What I expect is a service dept. with STOCK of parts.  A technician on staff full time who KNOWS the components inside and out.
  No 2 or 3 month repair excursions. Another question raised is the conformance to electrical safeguards and standards used here.
  If all the requirements are met, buy if not take your chances. Grant Fidelity appears to do most, so at least we have one outfit trying very hard.


charles

Yes, the dealers are making a small profit; however that is two-dimensional one party profit.

With a company like Manley, you are getting parts made in America, the actual product made in America, and then the dealer.

Done this way a larger portion of the American workforce can benefit from the production and sales of the product.

Obviously this seems to come at a tremendous price however. 

[FullRangeMan]

  Not for anything but US Audio dealers sell these brands. So they are making a profit, correct ?
  From experience one would be a fool to buy ant Foreign product without customer support here or Canada. What I expect is a service dept. with STOCK of parts.  A technician on staff full time who KNOWS the components inside and out.
  No 2 or 3 month repair excursions. Another question raised is the conformance to electrical safeguards and standards used here.
  If all the requirements are met, BUY if not take your chances. Grant Fidelity appears to do most of the above, so at least we have one outfit trying very hard.
  back on subject. Manley like all other Manfs does not want to raise their prices but reality in the market has forced them to do so. In a global market the fit survive, fair ? That is in the eye of the beholder. Its business, right ? Wrong ?
charles

>>....From experience one would be a fool to buy ant Foreign product without customer support here or Canada. What I expect is a service dept. with STOCK of parts.  A technician on staff full time who KNOWS the components inside and out.
You are right, unfortunately this not work for me, as I do not live in North America, here all these brands are overseas, If I was a USA resident I bought a local brand indeed.

Chinese tube amps are a great low price options, but I must say many or all chinese amps do not have the protections a tube amp must have for safe operation, as B+ fuses, output tube fuses, micro processed tube monitoring, etc

I think it is mandatory to install these protections before use a tube amp, and this represent a cost.
In fact I was surprised this unprotected amps are allow to sell in USA.
Regards, Gustavo

> Never go to a psychiatrist, adopt a cat or dog from the street. On the streets pets live only two years average.

[Diamond Dog]

 
   Manley like all other Manfs does not want to raise their prices but reality in the market has forced them to do so. In a global market the fit survive, fair ? That is in the eye of the beholder. Its business, right ? Wrong ?

No doubt Manley (like everybody else) is under pressure from increases in labour costs, materials costs, etc. but in my experience those pressures don't lead you to increase prices by nearly half in one go. The company I work for reps some of the greediest, top-heavy manufacturers in our industry but even they wouldn't go this far. It's easy to give in to the temptation to keep prices down by trying to endlessly absorb price increases but you can back yourself into a corner doing it. To let that get to the point where you're forced into this kind of price increase would have to raise questions about who's making the business decisions down there - or they're making a move up-market. WAAYYY up-market... Or some combination of the two. Either way, glad I got my Manley when I did.

D.     

[doug s.]

i had a rogue magnum 99 preamp. for less than a month - it was truly an unpleasant experience in my system - extremely coloured, way too over-bloomy, microphonic; and truncated low bass and upper treble (due to its inability to drive long ic's cuz its actual output impedance was at least 15 times greater than its rating).  i am not familiar w/their other gear.

i owned a pair of manley mahi mahi's - absolutely killer amps, imo.  a good deal for retail $2500.  and even better at used prices, which is how i obtained mine.  i'd still have 'em, if i didn't have several other tube amps in the 5-45 watt range, and didn't have to sell them to get another mesa baron i was lusting after.  but, at retail $4600, i really don't see how the mahi mahi's will be selling much...  i could see $3k or even $3.5k for these, but over $4k is simply not realistic.  too bad - manley gear is really nice, imo...

doug s.

[face]

She should have gradually raised prices, then there wouldn't be this drama.

[R_burke]

She should have gradually raised prices, then there wouldn't be this drama.

EveAnna never does anything half heartedly.  I own Mahi Mahi and love them dearly, but not sure I would pay upcoming prices for them, at $2,500 they were a no brainer

[Gopher]

That is a major price increase and I can't imagine it will be well received.  It will stimulate the used Manley gear economy for sure, but I wouldn't be likely to pony up the dough for an increase like that.  There is the factor that MSRP is rarely paid when purchasing through dealers and usually SOME deal can be cut, but thats a huge bump.

Ideally, I'd love to support the domestic economy, but I don't have enough money for this hobby to worry about much more than my own selfish enjoyment.  Accordingly, I go where the best value is.  Sometimes that is a US made product like my speakers (Zu) or turntable (Well Tempered) but more often than not, the biggest bang is coming from China and I'm not shy about using the GOOD Chinese products.   Sure some of them are junk and not suitable in SQ or construction quality, but there are a large number of them who nail sound, build AND aesthetics, and more impressively, do it for a fraction of the domestic cost.

[Freo-1]

That is a major price increase and I can't imagine it will be well received.  It will stimulate the used Manley gear economy for sure, but I wouldn't be likely to pony up the dough for an increase like that.  There is the factor that MSRP is rarely paid when purchasing through dealers and usually SOME deal can be cut, but thats a huge bump.

Quite right on this.  It does not seem that the significant price jump would help the company with sales volume.  This could backfire easily.

[Vulcan00]

I must agree with Gopher and Freo-1. I have been looking to make a change or add a amp to my system.  Manley has been on my mind as evidenced by several post asking questions on the qualities of the snapper mono blocks.

This move to increase the selling price by such a large amount  has affected my feeling to select the Snappers. One might advise me to make the purchase now avoiding the price increase. Or purchace used, there are even two sets of snappers now presently on Audigon which I have been considering. This would provide for advantage should I wish to sell sometime in future IF      the snapers say where they are now in terms of reputation and appeal .

My feeling is with the price increase, the price/value ratio of the snappers will be to high to compete with simular amp equipment.
I think this a serious mistake Manley has chosen.  The option to increase prices is this much, at this time will lead IMO to more investments in lower price / simular feature,  import  audio equipment, unfortunitly.

Harrison

[wushuliu]

My bet is Manley will do just fine. They are going to lose one type of buyer, but will probably be embraced by a wealthier one, particularly since Manley is well-established and reviewed and American-made and unique in chassis design, which pretty much hits all the marks for those with more money than time to research for bang for the buck. This is the future of things. She/they probably faced a dire choice: lower materials/costs to compete w/ Chinese gear, or maintain the quality (or 'improve' for added value) and appeal to wealthier patrons. We all have to eat. More power and luck to her.

Hopefully all this will encourage more people to support smaller designers like Nightshade, etc. Eschew the fancy aesthetics for well-made stuff that 'just works'. Buy local as it were.

[dangerbird]

Good point sir. 

[doug s.]

i agree, that manley gear price increases wouldn't seem so outta line if it had been done incrementally.  doing it all at once does induce sticker shock.

i have had an interesting and polite email exchange w/eveanna; she has simply stated that it must be done due to costs, and that she's hoping for the best.  she mentioned that their pro-audio gear had similar price increases in december and it didn't stop them from getting a huge increase in orders for the beginning of this year.

and while audiophile electronics is a completely different market than pro-audio , the home-audio biz makes up only ~15% of manley's sales.  my concern is that the likely hit in sales of their home gear will cause manley to get out of the home-audio biz, (similar to what mesa boggie did); eveanna assured me that, even if sales go down, they will continue their home audio line; because, in her words: "...it is fun and interesting to develop, and so much thinking that goes into our hifi gear cross-pollinates into our pro audio offerings and vice versa."

and, the reality is, that, while $2500 mahi mahi's and $4250 snappers seem a good deal to us audiophiles, it's still absurdly expensive to regular folks.  $4600 for the mahi's and $7250 for the snappers is not ridiculous when compared to other top a'phile gear.  and yes, imo, the manley gear does compete sonically at the top levels.  it was yust a relative bargain before, now it is not so much...

doug s.

[Diamond Dog]

Doug, you've nailed it. And my smug factor has increased exponentially because I was fortunate enough to be able to pull the trigger on my Manley when I did. Manley gear was a stupifyingly good deal at the old prices - now it's only good value for money ( only ? ) - hopefully that will be enough because they are a great company and Eveanna and her crew are quality people. Best of luck to 'em in navigating these trying times ! 

D.

[SteveFord]

It's bad for us but it sounds like she put the price hike off as long as she could.  I'm sure that this was not an easy decision.
I'd rather bite the bullet with the price than see the product design cheapened or turned into a Designed In America (Made In fill in the blank here) deal. 

[Indiansprings]

I wonder if the VTL stuff is going to follow suit.

[kingdeezie]

Not sure if the VTL stuff is going to follow suit, but Manley's customer service is pretty top notch so far in my limited experience.

I have a pair of used Manley Neo Classics where a tube blew a resistor, and today was able to get a hold of Paul to discuss the problem, and the parts department to get the resistors overnighted to me without problem.

Very pleased so far, considering I am not really a customer.

Hopefully they are around for a while despite this price increase. 

[bunky]

I wonder if the VTL stuff is going to follow suit.

VTL is a totally seperate company owned and operated by David Manley's son Luke Manley.Manley labs is owned and operated by David Manley's ex-wife Eve Anna Manley. both VTL and Manley Labs were founded by David Manley who was a Audio Engineer from South Africa. both companies reside in Encino California