PS Audio Revises Marketing to a Direct Sales Only Model

It seems that there are fewer and fewer "brick and mortar" high end audio shops and many of them have branched out into other things to stay current.

I have been a PS Audio customer since I bought the DirectStream DAC, just after it was introduced.  I also have their DirectStream disk and P15 power unit, and haven't had much of a need to contact them for support, but when I do, the response is always very timely and excellent.

I think that, with their 30 day money back policy, they should do well with this new business model.

Shipping....$95 ground to ship with $2k insurance from Boulder to Rogue Audio (heavy preamp) in Pennsylvania.  I think it was $55  shipping without insurance.
Insurance is $$$. (Imagine the cost for shipping a $12,000 PSA power unit back to them .....wow). All just to try it for a month?  Maybe $25/$1000. If they charge to ship it to you, too, You’re out <$200 just for a $2000 unit for a trial.

Agree with michaellent, shipping long distance high end, heavy, hi-fi is fraught with problems. In the local dealer model, the dealer ensures the delivery is made without damage, and is there for any issues. I have done both long distance shipping and local dealer, and will always pay more for dealer peace of mind rather than be stuck with damaged gear and begin the long process of contact and resolution.

Also the supply chain for online has a serious flaw for high end heavy gear, which is your paid for possession is in the hands of a minimum wage courier with little or no interest in delivering your package intact. Having experienced 22kg tube mono-blocks delivered with smashed tubes having been packed well but dropped and miss-handled. Time to live amplifiers was two months to replace tubes after the supplier didn’t want to know, meaning I absorbed the cost even though sent ’insured’. You try claiming, mostly its not you but the supplier that insures and they (insurers) always argue or make it as hard as possible. Damn sure my overseas supplier claimed and kept the payout! Even if you do get a payout its weeks before you have a live unit. Plus you are on your own with any other faults save repacking and re-posting and more weeks without your paid for equipment. Nope, dealers for me going forward, I don’t resent their margin and to me its a form of insurance.

The most successful direct retail companies seem to be the ones that go for high value. Examples are Emotiva, Shiit, and Tekton. It will be interesting to see how PS Audio approaches this because they are somewhere in the middle. Their gear is fairly expensive but it is also high quality.

There has been a fair amount of PSA discounted new gear on the market. I own a PerfectWave II DAC and a PerfectWave transport that I bought for about 50% of retail. I also see quite a few PSA pieces that are fairly new on the used market going for around 50% to 60% of MSRP. I don't know how many people actually paid the full retail price for new PSA gear. Paul is really good at marketing so I'm sure he's got this figured out but it's hard to imagine that he's going to be able to hold firm on the current MSRPs if he goes to a direct market mode.