Baetis Audio Announces Big Price Break on its Reference Media Server

The following is a press release issued by Baetis Audio.

December 15, 2015 – Many customers asked us why there was such a big price difference between the XR3 model (at $7995) and the Reference model (at $13,995).  The difference was due to a) our cost estimates on 3 years of support for the Reference versus 1 year (for the XR3), plus b) the estimated cost of the Stillpoint™ footers on the Reference, including the cost of milling our special bases for the footers, plus c) the cost of having AES-EBU on the Reference.

In the process of re-estimating these costs, we learned that some customers simply didn’t WANT the vibration-reduction footers.  Meanwhile, other customers didn’t need more than the 1 year of support.  Further, we now have some customers who have had Baetis computers for more than 4 years, and we’ve learned through empiricism that our estimate of the cost of the extra 2 years of support was too high.

So now, the Reference is priced with options that you may or may not wish to purchase.  The new prices also represent declines in certain costs in the last few months.

• Base Reference with no Stillpoints and support only for the first year = $8890
• Reference with Stillpoints = +$995.
• Reference with 3 years of support = +$795
• Reference with Stillpoints and 3 years of support = $10,680
• Support after the first year can be purchased for $45/hr.

Note also that our new cost calculations cut both ways – the price of the Revolution III has to rise by $300 to include the UPS (that previously you had to pay for separately) and to reflect increases in estimated labor time.  New price of the Revolution III is $4795.

Going forward, we will still try to sell any Baetis at a much lower multiple of the cost of production, including labor and support, than elsewhere in our industry.  And only with a Baetis can you get the best possible digital audio by avoiding USB ports and PCI cards.