Price hike coming on the Synthstorm Deluge
In an unusual move Synthstrom Audible has announced that they are raising the price of their Deluge portable synth/sampler workstation to $999 to reflect that it’s more awesome than the current pricing suggests.
Epic development
Synthstrom says that the amount of work that’s been poured into the device since its release in 2017 has turned it into an epic machine that goes well beyond the original remit. It’s currently at firmware version 3.1 and since release they’ve added a huge list of things including live processing, arranger view, multisampling, disk streaming, resampling, live looping, probability, pitch detection, more polyphony, workflow and file management enhancements and lots lots more. All of it was made available to existing users for no extra cost.
There’s more to come as well with developments such as Wavetable Synthesis, MIDI mapping and MPE support in the pipeline.
And so, as of February 1st 2021 the Deluge price will be raised from $899 to $999. Any orders placed up to midnight on the January 31st will lock in the old price.
Fair enough?
Price changes are not unheard of although the trend tends to be downward. Raising a price is difficult however with a machine as unique as the Deluge it’s not as if you’re going to lose customers to a competitor. I’ve not seen this approach before though – saying that they must raise the price because the machine is too awesome to be $899. Usually a company would cite increased costs or changes in market and restructuring, although they do talk about the costs involved in software development which probably gets to the heart of it. Maybe New Zealand firms are just a bit more ballsy than the rest of us? On the other hand it could possibly be a slightly cynical move to shift product now to release cash from a warehouse full of unsold machines.
All we do know is that the Deluge is a fabulous machine that’s genuinely admired and Synthstrom has built a great reputation on its support and continuing development. Is it worth an extras $100? I’d say so, yes. What do you think?
More information
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4 responses to “Price hike coming on the Synthstorm Deluge”
No problem with this. Deluge is worth it even for 100 more and if after February 2021 it came with improved screen (very unlikely) I definitely would buy another, while keeping my first one.
Absolutely worth it!
The Teenage Engineering OP-1 comes to mind as another company that’s done this.
I’m highly tempted to buy one of these, and, I’m sure it’s worth every euro/dollar etc. However, what companies forget when announcing these price rises is that an extra 100$ is fair enough, but then there’s the import and export fees which also go up. In this case Synthstrom could make their product more accessible by working with a company inside Europe. This could help keep the costs down. Working with a company such as Thomann or Juno may help absorb some costs which can be helpful for the buyer in the long run.
Out of interest, this small increase means I think, if I’m not wrong, that now a machine at 999$ (approx: 825€ at present) imported into the EU will come to a total of approx. 1088€, a difference of about 213€.
The calculation for those interested –
Total value: €875 (825 + 50PP)
VAT to be paid(21): €183.75
Custom duties: €30
→ All costs combined €1088.75