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sound devices media prices in UK


daniel

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Paid some pretty hefty prices for media over the years. Needing to use approved media and wanting as much piece of mind as possible, the Sound Devices branded CF and SD cards make good sense but why such a large price discrepancy across territories? Eg. The only listed UK price I can find for the 32gb CF and SD cards are £84 ($109) and £54 ($70) respectively vs US price $65 and $40 respectively. So it'll cost me nearly $180 to get SD branded cards in UK vs just $100 in the US. And judging by how few of SD's official UK suppliers list their branded media, it's expensive for them too(?).

 

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I think there are 3 factors at play:

first you'll have to compare NET prices, so the SD card is 45GBP vs 40USD to start with. then there are quite unstable currency exchange rates and the pound is really weak atm, so sound devices probably doesn't want to adjust pricing every few months if the pound gets stronger again. and lastly, sound devices traditionally always have been quite a bit more expensive over here in europe. in germany it got a bit better since they have a service center here, but the UK is still stuck with the high prices :/

 

chris

 

ps: I was considering to get the approved SanDisk 64GB card myself which is like 36EUR NET atm, but considering this is a one time expense it seemed foolish to try to save 30EUR on such a critical piece

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How do they compare to suppliers in Europe? They should be very similar as the import costs are the same. The price discrepancy will be down to Shure UK as the UK distributor. 

 

Because the UK is still in Europe (for the moment anyway) and the European single Market exists we can buy from European dealer without issues of tax - you may pay more in postage though. If any dealer refuses to sell them to you they are breaking European competition law!!

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In my experience it really depends on the company..

 

companies like Zoom and Blackmagic seem to be pretty much on par in the EU and US.  other companies like Sound Devices, Zaxcom, Lectro, or Schoeps are cheaper in their home market then on foreign land (which makes sense as distribution is more complicated). and then there is the odd ball like Sennheiser, which is actually a lot cheaper in the US then in Germany, (the difference being so large that they disallow the US sellers to ship to europe). 

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The Audiosense site is good (thanks Constantin) and 1 of the only to list them with a price.

I was interested to see Sound Devices sell cards on Amazon.com but not Amazon.co.uk.

We are talking about SD and CF cards. I'm not sure about the comparison of media to hardware but I hear what you're saying (mike), about whinging.

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16 hours ago, Constantin said:

I bought mine at Audiosense in Belgium 42,80€ for a SD card. The equates to 50$... It's not too bad and they have a very good online shop, something I really like. 

 

+1 for Audiosense

They have a very good online shop for EU market.

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yes, it's unlikely sound devices started a card manufacturing plant : ) (the CF cards are nearly certainly the Delkin because they are made in USA)

the one upside of buying the one with the sticker for me was that I'm sure that the manufacturer hasn't changed something behind the scenes while still keeping the same label.

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I think it would be very unwise for sound devices to abandon 3rd party media completely, if only for emergency purposes.

just imagine you loose/break your cards in the middle of an oversea trip - pretty easy to source a sandisk card locally in most parts of the world, but international shipping from a SD dealer could take quite a while.

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Didn't SD have the feature of (7 series) recorders checking media, I guess there was good reason to not include it on the 6 series - maybe it wasn't reliable. I think having branded media is a good idea (even at a premium price), your client can't accuse you of buying cheap/bogus cards (if something goes wrong) and it's harder to muddle up incompatible cards (eg sandisk variations). If SD can offer cards on amazon for a consistent price across North America having something similar for Europe would be nice (and help when explaining the cost of the client keeping the card). I have no idea the complexities behind this and there may be many good reasons why this is not possible. I notice many of SD's listed resellers don't list (and I presume stock) their SD cards, maybe because it's not viable.

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21 minutes ago, daniel said:

 I notice many of the SD's listed resellers don't list (and I presume stock) their SD cards, maybe because it's not viable.

 

Just to add from my previous post regarding Audiosense: they seem to have very good stock-keeping abilities or whatever. In the past I ordered the little thumb screws for my Lectro belt clips. I needed them urgently, but no one had them in stock. Except Audiosense. Two days later they were at my door. Same with the SD cards. I ordered them two weeks ago and next day even (express) I had them. (I promise they don't pay me)

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  • 11 months later...
On 9/5/2017 at 11:57 PM, Lancashire soundie said:

Sounds like Sound Devices are sticking a sticker onto normal memory cards and charging a premium for it.  I'd just buy whatever cards they say are compatible from Amazon and spend the difference on beer.

 

I know it's an old thread, but it's worth pointing out that nowadays the computer industry generally sucks. Which means that most manufacturers will just change spects at random and simply won't care about problems. Especially in low prices stuff like memory cards, mostly purchased by clueless people who won't realize that they have been scammed.


To add insult to injury there are plenty of counterfeits. So, SD marketing their own rebranded but certified cards makes a lot of sense. And I am sure that it's not only a certification issue, but a contract binding the original manufacturer to stick to the agreed specifications. Right now I am using a pair of Sandisks with my MixPre 3 but knowing that SD sell their own media I will get a couple of their cards. 

 

On a side note, in the early 90's I designed a multi track recorder for telephone conversations (stock market, 911/112, etc) and you would be surprised at which amount of utter crap I tested just searching for industrial card computers. Finally I had to stick to very expensive cards (3x price compared to the average in that cathegory) in order to achieve uptimes of one year without reboots.

 

So, it makes sense and even though my beans don't depend on the reliability of the cards I will happily get theirs. 

 

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