Don't get me wrong, I love Oppo's products(I own Oppo's BDP-83 and BDP-105D Blu-Ray players), but, of late, Oppo's marketing strategies have taken an unusual turn, in that they abruptly discontinue a product or products before they are anywhere near ready to release a new model to replace it.
And these product discontinuations are VERY abrupt. The products disappear from all authorized dealers almost overnight (I don't know, but perhaps the dealers are asked or required to return the unsold units to Oppo). Of course, this has no effect on Ebay sellers, who either sell used units (not my cup of tea), or they scalp new units at several times the intended price.(some sellers are trying to get nearly $3000 for the [originally] $1200 HA-1 headphone amplifier)
While Oppo still offers a headphone amplifer for portable use, they discontinued their highly regarded headphone amplifer for home use (The HA-1), and there is no indication that a new model is under development. To the casual observer, it would appear that Oppo has exited from the market for headphone amplifiers for home use. But why would they want to abandon the market for this type of product when the market is growing?
As for my beloved BDP-105D Blu-Ray Universal player, it was discontinued a few months back, and so Oppo is without an audiophile-grade disc player, at least until sometime later this year when the UDP-105 is introduced.
It would almost make sense for Oppo's previous generation of products to exit the market naturally and gradually, rather than abruptly end the product availability and turn customers away, and cause Oppo to appear to be neglecting the market for certain product categories. What do you think?
