Yeah, this player has some nice parts in it; HQV for video, and Burr-Brown/Wolfson for audio. I seem to remember that the MSRP on it mentioned at CEDIA was going to be rather steep though, like just under $1K.
But do they really think that at this point in time with the "conflict" still unresolved that there's going to be much of a market for the product? I know that high-end audio/video manufacturers make up for lower volumes (compared to mainstream products) by offsetting them with high prices- but if there's anything that the BD/HD debacle has shown is that even audiophiles are shying away from spending lots of money on players. From many of the posts on this site, which in my opinion generally represents the upper 5% of the market, I've come to the following 3 conclusions:
1) The PS3 has been a savior for Sony, otherwise nobody would be buying BD players due to the high prices.
2) HD has been rescued because of Toshiba's willingness to risk bankruptcy by dropping their prices to such low levels that people are stupid not to pick up a player even its just to hedge their bets (and many audiophiles on this site who bought the $98 player already had a BD player)
3) Many folks are waiting to purchase the BD-5000 as a dual player to enter the market. Everything I've read on that player has been overwhelmingly positive, and it's being priced at $800.
Taking all of that into account, does Integra really believe that a market exists to sell a $1,000 HD-only player with the main selling point being high bit-rate streaming audio??? I'd like to think I'm more intelligent than J6P, but I just don't see it!
