Sony, Best Buy Co-Develop Audio, Blu-ray Line

If you only have 800 dollars to spend on your surround sound system, you should be spending your money more wisely than on a one time 5 in 1 universal component with the bells and whistle’s of a Swiss army knife. I recommend more economical solutions for such a low budget that would deliver much more bang for your buck with less expensive component pieces. Lets be honest, most people cannot tell the difference between high definition audio and an Ipod, so if you just lower your expectations a little and spend some time, you could be amazed at how deep the rabbit hole goes. On another point, if you want the latest and greatest for your relatives that are requesting ipod docks and multiple listening stations and money is not a big of an issue, this is an ok complete and ready to plug in temporary intro level system, actually, the best available from consumer stores such as Best Buy, its a nice gesture as far as customer relations go trying to offer a complete ready to play system in a box, In conclusion, if you can go big go, but if you can just go, that’s fine to.  Ohh yeah, and as far as wireless goes, theres a reason pac bell had copper lines for so long,HARD LINES WORK…PERIOD, If you have any RFI in your home, sorry, or when the fcc sells your frequency range to xbox5000 for there wireless remote controls or something.

And Sony wonder why they lost 400 Mil last year.  Useless crap, sold at crappy places, designed by crappy stores.

Good luck getting support for your “ES/XBR’ at a high end retailer/integrator.

Is it just me, or does it seem like the A/V industry is going the way of the mattress industry? The same mattress gets labeled 4 different ways depending on which store it’s being shipped to. Sharp is already doing it with their Costco-only models, and Sony had two versions of the V4100-series LCD TV last year. What a confusing mess this will be.

Also, is there any anti-trust position to consider here? Not that I want to sell any of the current garbage that’s exclusive to Best Buy, but what if this is just the tip of the iceberg? What if Best Buy accidentally designs a good piece of equipment. Obviously that is purely hypothetical, but it could happen. So I must wonder ... are there any legal implications, or is this like AT&T;‘s bullsh!t iPhone exclusive?

You know, a real “screw the consumer” type of deal where if you want the best phone for your needs you have to deal with one particular carrier’s craptacular service? I can’t imagine being forced to deal with Best Buy’s gaggle of goons just to get a particular cool new gadget. It’s bad enough they have bastardized Magnolia’s good name, I hope they don’t ruin our whole industry!

All-in-one products target a specific market where ‘bang for your buck’ is top of the list. While $800 might be able to get you better quality hardware with seperates.. whos going to install it for free? HTIB products are plug and play and ‘good nuff’ for there target audience and intended application.

AT&T;‘s iPhone deal is unique and IMO will never happen with another single product ever again. AT&T;has probably killed 20% of their potential sales.

As far as the multiple similar products.. i have wondered about this myself. I sometimes wonder if they are infact the same exact product and the only difference is a software change that cripples specific features. Humans want options or at least thats what the marketing teams are telling us we want . That and manufacturers have to play games with model numbers so higher end dealers cant get price shopped. There has to be a “reason” who costco pioneers are not as good.

HAHA, “Reason”...so true…