MPC X, MPC Live, MPC One & MPC Key 61 Forum: Support and discussion for the MPC X, MPC Live, MPC Live II, MPC One & MPC Key 61; Akai's current generation of standalone MPCs.
By d2ba Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:56 am
Is the audio circuitry different to MPC-LIve --that is the burning question (most important) whether you get a boost in sound quality ?
By jpeg Thu Jul 13, 2017 10:31 am
does not look like much in there; these devices should be alot cheaper, a guy in th eother post mad a comparisson to xbox or playstation 8GB of ram and a faction of the price of the live.

how da hell da live on have 1GB given how cheap ram is; also look how cheap hard drives are and they only put 20 GB
By Tripn3o3 Thu Jul 13, 2017 11:04 am
Ill-Green wrote:Word, it would be nice feature to like a post.

Did you see internal pics of the Live?


The FCC haven't released the internal photos yet of the Live, will keep an eye out for them.
By Tripn3o3 Thu Jul 13, 2017 11:18 am
jpeg wrote:does not look like much in there; these devices should be alot cheaper, a guy in th eother post mad a comparisson to xbox or playstation 8GB of ram and a faction of the price of the live.

how da hell da live on have 1GB given how cheap ram is; also look how cheap hard drives are and they only put 20 GB



I hear what your sayin, doesn't look like much inside!
I wonder how much it actually costs to produce an MPC X, £450-500?
Then Akai sell on to retailers for maybe over double the price £1100, then retailer sells them on for another £500-£600 on top = £1700?
Don't know how it works.. :hmmm:
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By MPC-Tutor Thu Jul 13, 2017 11:19 am
jpeg wrote:does not look like much in there; these devices should be alot cheaper, a guy in th eother post mad a comparisson to xbox or playstation 8GB of ram and a faction of the price of the live.


The same can be said for any pro audio gear, but MPCs are notoriously overpriced if you only consider what's inside. It was suggest to me a few years ago that an MPC Studio contains something like $30 of parts (based on assumptions that they'll get discounted parts when buying in bulk). Actually it might have been $25.

I think it's unfair to compare these to a proper mass market device like an xbox, MPCs are ultimately very niche products and less price driven compared to a game console. Anything labelled 'professional' is instantly more expensive.

The board they've used (Radxa Rock2 SoM) is available in three configs, they used the 2GB RAM/16GB drive version, there was/is apparently a 4GB/32GB version. I say 'was/is' as it would appear even the 2GB board is discontinued, I can find no one selling this so I assume Akai probably had them made specially for them (if so, custom config was apparently an option). The original board seems to have sold for around $99 on Aliexpress, but big orders would see significant drops in that price.

But the Radxa site does seem dead, no news updates for 2 years, forums not accessible, dealer links dead or lead to discontinued listings.

http://wiki.radxa.com/Rock2/som
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By MPC-Tutor Thu Jul 13, 2017 11:26 am
Tripn3o3 wrote:I hear what your sayin, doesn't look like much inside!
I wonder how much it actually costs to produce an MPC X, £450-500?
Then Akai sell on to retailers for maybe over double the price £1100, then retailer sells them on for another £500-£600 on top = £1700? Don't know how it works.. :hmmm:


You have to remember that pricing is not just based on material costs. Akai have to pay for all the development costs, licensing, marketing, etc, both historically and ongoing. In the UK the pricing also includes 20% VAT. I have no idea what wholesale deals a box shifter store like GAK or Guitar centre would be getting, but when you see people stating they got 25% knocked off the price of a Live you'd have to assume they are making a tidy profit to afford to drop the price by so much so easily.

I remember when the Touch was released at £499 I asked a few UK stores for a 'best price' and immediately managed to get £430 from one of them, no haggling, that was their first offer. I just completed a 'ask us for a better price' form on their site.
By Tripn3o3 Thu Jul 13, 2017 11:42 am
Just had a look @Tutor at the Radxa looks like 2015 they discontinued them...

You have to remember that pricing is not just based on material costs. Akai have to pay for all the development costs, licensing, marketing, etc, both historically and ongoing. In the UK the pricing also includes 20% VAT. I have no idea what wholesale deals a box shifter store like GAK or Guitar centre would be getting, but when you see people stating they got 25% knocked off the price of a Live you'd have to assume they are making a tidy profit to afford to drop the price by so much so easily.

I remember when the Touch was released at £499 I asked a few UK stores for a 'best price' and immediately managed to get £430 from one of them, no haggling, that was their first offer. I just completed a 'ask us for a better price' form on their site.


Ahh yeah, I didn't think to factor that in, Makes sense that..
Definitely making a nice prof off this they've got to be..
Managed to bag my MPC X for £1290 with a discount (still waiting on it like everyone else (UK/EU) :-D
crazy times with the price fluctuations.