Murahachibu wrote:Units are on backorder here in Japan as well. I was wondering what's going on as well. I was quoted August for factory shipments...
It's got to be one of the following:
1. They are selling boatloads of these things. Have line capacity running at 100% 24-7 and they still can't keep up with their orders.
or
2. They stopped production for some reason (i.e. specification change), sold off all of their inventory to their distributors, and are waiting for an official release date to announce the new whatever and ship out new units...Summer NAMM? Doubt it.
or
3. They are having some kind of production, supply or labor issues and have had to slow down or stop production to remedy it.
or
4. More financial issues and the company is in serious trouble.
Hmmm. Maybe #3?
Pretty weird...I wonder what's going on
I'm willing to bet that it's #3 as well. It's not only the complete units that are running short, but some parts as well. I called up VST on Friday to see if they had the black housing kit for the 1k and Nick told me that Akai won't have them until sometime this month. Those kits were sopposed to be in alot sooner. Since it's only cosmetic, it's really not a problem for me. As for other parts in stock, I'm not sure what else may be backordered besides the CF reader. That's not good for those who need a replacement. I needed to replace my CF reader last year and nobody had them here in the states at all. I ened up with a B-Stock replacement MPC which I wasnt happy with, but that's a another story I've told here already. I'm still wondering why after a year has gone by that Akai
still hasn't shipped any CF readers to the U.S. yet.
Nym - I'm not sure what kind of impact the fire in Japan had over the lack of production. That was 7 months ago. I would imagine it put them behind, as the popularity and demand for the 1k had grown tremendously since December '05.