Feb and Sep 2022: The Shock of DALI’s Repeated Price Rises… DENON & MARANTZ Too

There have been so many price increases in the Hi-Fi world in recent years that one’s sense of scale is in danger of going numb — and yet here we are again with another round of increases. DALI products, imported by D&M Import Audio, are to undergo a price revision from 1st February 2022 — another substantial hike. It was not so long ago, in July 2021, that DALI products saw a sweeping round of major increases, and now, just nine months on, we are facing yet another revision on top of that.

Given the state of the world, it is no doubt a combination of rising logistics costs, soaring raw material prices, and the weak yen — all compounding at once. But my suspicion is that DALI in Denmark has been pushing up wholesale prices quite aggressively. For D&M Holdings, which has long maintained a reputation as one of Japan’s leading audio importers and manufacturers with a conscientious approach to pricing, this must honestly be an extremely painful situation. They are fully aware that it is bad for sales, yet they have no choice but to comply with DALI’s price increase directives — and their press release acknowledges as much, stating that the second revision was “a decision reached after much agonising.”

Price Increases for DENON, MARANTZ, and DALI up to 2022

In the case of DALI, there was in fact already a price increase on the ZENSOR series back in 2015, which I touched on in an earlier post. As a speaker brand, DALI is less a high-end name than a manufacturer covering a broad range from entry-level to mid-high class. It is their strong value for money in multi-channel AV speaker applications, and the excellent cost-to-performance ratio of their more affordable models, that I believe has driven DALI’s strong following in the Japanese Hi-Fi market over the past several years.

【DALI, DENON, MARANTZ Price Revision Index】

　2022/9/1　DALI SPEKTOR Series, SUB Series / Sound Anchors Speaker Stands
　2022/6/1　MARANTZ PM7000N PM6007 CD6007 Network CD / AV Surround Receiver
　2022/2/1　DALI Speakers 30 Models / DENON AV Surround 2 Models / MARANTZ SR8015
　2021/9/1　MARANTZ Integrated Amplifier, Network CD / SACD Player 5 Models
　2021/9/1　DENON Integrated Amplifiers, SACD Players, Receivers, Speakers, Analogue-related and Others
　2021/7/1　DALI Speakers 35 Models
　2021/2/1　DENON Integrated Amplifiers 2 Models, SACD Players 2 Models /　MARANTZ M-CR612 NR1200
　2019/6/21　DENON Analogue Players 8 Models, Cartridges / Styli 10 Models
　2015/11/4　DALI ZENSOR Series / DENON PMA-390RE DCD-755RE

Looking at the price revisions since 2015, one can sense a genuine effort on the part of D&M’s own DENON and MARANTZ products to keep increases to the absolute minimum despite rising manufacturing costs — but the scale of the DALI price hikes, given how reasonably priced those products were to begin with, is frankly quite painful. Incidentally, the British high-end speaker brand Bowers & Wilkins (B&W), which D&M also imports, has not announced any explicit price revisions — but with B&W, the increases are baked into each new model at launch, and the markups on new releases have been quite something.

DALI’s Value-for-Money Advantage Is Beginning to Erode

Why did DALI speakers become so popular in recent years? I believe it comes down to two things: first, despite being relatively affordable compared to similarly-specced rivals, their main-line models above entry level are manufactured in Denmark. Second, in terms of sound, there is a warm, acoustic, European quality — a musicality, a joy of musical expression — that listeners have responded to. On the other hand, it is equally true that in terms of pure Hi-Fi virtues — transparency, resolution, fine detail — DALI sits neither particularly above nor below the competition, and cannot be said to have any special advantage in those areas.

Once the prices go up, DALI will find itself competing — without a price advantage — against rivals that offer not only greater musical enjoyment but also a higher level of Hi-Fi performance: specifically brands such as UK’s Bowers & Wilkins (B&W), Germany’s ELAC, Denmark’s Dynaudio, UK’s KEF, and others. When that happens, will DALI’s build quality and brand strength be enough to hold its own? If the cost-performance benefit disappears from the DALI proposition, can it maintain the same level of popularity in the Japanese market as before? Honestly, I have quite serious doubts about that.

The SPEKTOR series, popular with those new to Hi-Fi and buyers at the entry level, has also seen price increases. However, the little SPEKTOR 1 — the baby of the range and personally my favourite — has been excluded from this round of increases. That said, back around the end of 2019 when it first came out, the SPEKTOR 1 was selling at around ¥20,000 a pair, whereas now it is as you can see. The SPEKTOR 1 has such good fundamental sound quality that it can still be called excellent value even at its current price — but those who picked up the SPEKTOR series before 2020 must surely be breathing a sigh of relief at having bought when they did.

Twitter — pastel_piano: Tweets about the DALI SPEKTOR 1

DALIの小型スピーカーは自分の中では新旧のメヌエットシリーズが共に別格で、クラシック音楽の場合、ZENSOR1やPICOの品位ではやや厳しいと思ってます。Specter1についてはバランスが向上し、個人的にこれならサブスピーカーとして何とか使えるかも？という印象を持ちました。

— ぱすてるぴあの (@pastel_piano) June 15, 2018

How Much Has the Price of DALI’s Bestselling MENUET and MENUET SE Actually Gone Up?

Take, for example, the DALI MENUET — the standard version, without the SE suffix — a compact bookshelf speaker I use myself, and which is in fact playing behind me as I write this. Looking at how the price has changed over the past two years: I bought it in January 2020, when the manufacturer’s suggested retail price was ¥145,000 (¥159,500 including tax). My actual purchase price was around ¥93,000, with 25% points back. That rose to ¥187,000 with the July 2021 price increase, and now with the February 2022 revision it has gone up to ¥220,000.

I was bitterly disappointed when the MENUET SE launched in February 2020, and now the standard MENUET has finally overtaken the SE’s original launch price of ¥202,400. The SE model, being also the successor to the previous MENTOR MENUET SE, has similarly gone through its own rounds of increases: old MENTOR MENUET SE at ¥168,000 → new SE at ¥202,400 → ¥220,000 → ¥264,000. At this point, any future plan I might have had to trade up from the standard to the SE has simply evaporated. With the standard version itself now approaching nearly double its original street price, I have to be honest: setting aside musicality, at these prices, does it even make sense to choose the MENUET on purely sonic grounds any more? That is genuinely where I find myself.

Whether DALI can continue to earn the same level of regard — or indeed greater regard — in Japan’s ever-shrinking Hi-Fi market, taking into account future new products as well, is something that cannot be fully judged at this point in time. However, as long as significant price increases continue with no added value to the existing products, it seems undeniable that the enthusiasm of both prospective buyers who have admired the DALI brand and existing owners will begin to cool. Beyond watching how the market — both domestic and overseas — develops, there is little else one can do. But as one user, I can only hope that DALI in Denmark will take a long, hard look at its own marketing strategy from the ground up, before things reach a point of no return.

October 16, 2015
Et tu, DENON! So it’s an autumn of price rises rather than an autumn of the arts, is it.

Starting with the consumption tax hike, and carrying on from last year into this, all manner of things have been going up in price — not just Hi-Fi, but everyday goods across the board, leaving ordinary people feeling rather beleaguered. Every time I notice another price revision my spine goes cold, but this time it is DENON’s hugely popular entry-level models, along with the entry-class ZENSOR series speakers from Danish brand DALI — imported by DENON — that are next in line for increases.

The DALI ZENSOR 1 has been a small but punchy and satisfying speaker for beginners at a very low price, and I have featured it a number of times on this site. But the ZENSOR’s appeal, at least half of it, has always been that the price was extraordinarily low relative to the sound quality — which is precisely why it won support from newcomers, and younger listeners in particular. The ZENSOR series is, I think, fundamentally the kind of speaker that earns its praise and stands out for its cost-performance ratio precisely because it is so inexpensive — and the ZENSOR 1 going up by ¥7,800 to ¥43,800 feels like it is creeping dangerously close to a price point where one has to ask: who exactly benefits from paying that much?

Whether this is still just about within the limits of what most people can accept, or whether it is already pushing it — I think it is genuinely a close call. That said, DENON products (note: including those it imports) tend to carry fairly generous street discounts, so one would hope that actual selling prices do not rise quite this much. It is true that DENON has, until now, kept DALI’s import prices remarkably reasonable compared to other distributors, and so one supposes there is little choice but to absorb the rise in costs driven by exchange rates and the like.

DENON PMA-390RE and DCD-755RE to Increase in Price

On top of that, of all things, the entry-level CD player DENON DCD-755RE and integrated amplifier DENON PMA-390RE — models that have arguably done more than any others to make Hi-Fi accessible to young people with limited budgets — are both going up by ¥4,000.

The thing about these two models is that they have long been sold at something like half the list price as a matter of course — a perpetual bargain-bin kind of situation — which rather begs the question: what exactly is the list price for? It is a bit like wearing a skirt so short it barely qualifies as a skirt at all — at which point, why not just do away with the manufacturer’s suggested retail price altogether and set a sensible figure from the start. Or better yet, quietly adjust the trade price behind the scenes and spare everyone the unpleasantness. I find the whole thing rather puzzling, to be honest. In any case, this is ultimately a ¥4,000 increase to the list price only. The impact on actual street prices is unlikely to be significant, and I would expect the products to remain good value going forward.

［PMA-390RE successor model: PMA-600NE］

To say something in DENON’s defence: watching these lower-end models over the years, I have always had the sense that selling at those street prices, there can be very little margin in it at all. As for build quality — well, there are moments when I wonder whether older models were perhaps built a little better — but in terms of sound, I do think each minor revision has brought genuine improvement.

［DCD-755RE successor model: DCD-600NE］

Which is precisely why, speaking as a DENON user, this round of increases feels like products that were already priced too low are finally going up a little — and that is not entirely unreasonable. But still — if prices must go up, I would much rather they left entry-level models alone, since those serve as gateways to Hi-Fi for newcomers, and instead doubled the prices on the high-end models and let the wealthy and the booming new-money markets of the world shoulder the burden. The idea of applying what amounts to a regressive tax to musical culture is something I could really do without these days — how is everyone holding up?

DENON DA-300USB D/A Converter

As usual I have drifted off into generalisations that have rather little to do with DENON specifically (and highly opinionated ones at that), but let me collect myself and return to the subject of Hi-Fi. The DENON product I am most seriously coveting right now is the hi-res capable DAC DENON DA-300USB, with its built-in headphone amplifier. This is actually a PC audio USB-DAC for which DENON took the digital circuitry from the DCD-1500RE and released it as a standalone unit.

Strictly speaking, the power supply is a simplified AC adaptor rather than the dedicated supply found in the standalone SACD player DCD-1500RE, so one would not expect identical audio quality. Even so, with a Burr-Brown PCM1795 DAC chip with DSD support and the latest Advanced AL32 Processing on board, and given how compact it is and how flexibly it can be used, the DA-300USB strikes me as a product well worth taking seriously — price included. And beyond PC audio via USB, it also has coaxial and optical digital inputs, meaning it can also serve as a standalone DAC to upgrade an older CD player to 32-bit quality. The design, too, is quite unlike conventional DENON styling — refreshingly different, with a faint hint of stylish Showa-era retro modernism that rather appeals to me.

In short, the DA-300USB is something I am genuinely considering purchasing for PC audio use — a product packing cutting-edge digital performance at a very strong price-to-performance ratio, in my view. I wonder what everyone else thinks? — best to act before the price suddenly goes up one day. Just saying.

Category: Denon / DENON
Category: Denmark / DALI

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