Plus one
Total agreement.
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Is It possible āTravel Back In Timeā to get a downgrade?
For example.
Send back my two Oladras get a full refund and then upgrade my old K50 Mk1 (s) to Mk3.
Knowing the upgrade K50 MK 4 (the new Oldara) is on the horizon at a fraction of the cost.
I always thought the fancy Oladra case was overpriced. 
All Joking aside.
My second Oladra purchase was close to the upgrade announcement the first not that far away so I really think the choice was taken away from me.
āSoā Is there āREALLYā no concession for the new Oladra owners?
It is unfortunate but whilst K50 and other owners have been offered very attractively priced upgrades (which will do nothing other than engender customer loyalty), Oladra owners are struggling to come to terms with the upgrade work done for their $4k compared to say what Gen2 K50 owners are getting for their $4k.
The Oladra upgrade is the only one which does not require it to be returned to Antipodes, presumably because the work carried out is not as extensive as the other upgrades and yet the price charged is the same in many cases. This does not sit right with wanting to keep existing Oladra owners on board. After all, it is they who have probably funded much of the R & D work which has culminated in these across the board upgrades.
I still hope that Antipodes will reconsider the cost of upgrade to existing Oladra owners. Merely tagging it to the difference in retail price of the Gen1 and Gen2 Oladras completely misses the point. For all I know that price increase might be largely due to unavoidable price rises in labour, materials and bought in components.
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I have a theory, but Oladra owners arenāt going to like it. It could very well be that the gen 1 owners got a price break already as the initial price was set below the target margin that Antipodes set. The price adjustment is thus somewhat baked into the upgrade price because the upgrade price is the price difference between the original Oladra and the revised Oladra. It could be that simple.
Another possibility is that we arenāt talking apples to apples when we consider the phrase āupgrade server engineā and āupgrade player engineā. The Oladra has a more expensive server engine than whatās found in the K50. The upgrade is likely costlier. Antipodes doesnāt talk about these engine upgrades most likely because they want to protect their intellectual property. But I am not sure itās correct to think that upgrading the server engine is the same activity across all models.
I drive a Mazda CX-30 with the upgraded engine option. Even an oil change at Mazda costs me more because of that choice. Better oil is used.
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@markcole makes a very good point about the sq of the original K50, which I have. While listening to music last night I said to myself, I just canāt see how they can make this better. I have a very resolving system with multiple switches all With quality LPS and quality isolation, vibration, and power from dedicated power lines so feel the system is clearly up to the task to get the most out of the K60. But, I still sprang for the 6k upgrade believing Antipodes when they say it will have an audible improvement in sq. Although Iām still not happy having to pay that much, itās still better than selling it and buying an upgraded product. In contrast, I used to have a Marantz home theater processor. Every time there was an upgrade, I had to sell my unit and buy the new one. No manufacturer upgrade pathway. No longer have any Marantz products.
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Do you still use an AV processor? If so, does that unit have an upgrade path, what brand is it & what do you think of it overall?
Apologies to the forum for this not being Antipodes related, but Iām in exactly in the above situation with my second system, though not with Marantz. To make matters worse, most of the Japanese brands have discontinued making processors & now only make receivers & I donāt require their inbuilt power amplification. I also donāt want to drop a large amount of cash on a processor that has no upgrade path. At least the Japanese processors werenāt exorbitantly expensive.
I think itās the norm in the mass market consumer electronics industry to not protect investments except maybe beyond one year. It really depends on what the new technology is. This is also true for SmartTVs, like my LG OLEDs. At least though with TVs, one can easily add a streaming device thatās more apt to be kept up to date.
Several years ago I purchased a Marantz SR6015. I am very happy with it. It has every bell and whistle I could want. I made the move to it from an Onkyo receiver because of eARC and because I hoped for a sound quality improvement. I got both. It also supports 8k out of just one input but I have no plans for 8k anytime soon.
The newest Cinema series receivers just gained DIRAC. This isnāt being offered as an update to mine, which might disappoint some owners but Iām not too bothered by it as I pretty much expected that my receiver wouldnāt be kept up to date. Thatās just the way it is in that industry at the price point I selected. I wouldnāt hesitate for a minute to recommend Marantz.
There are a few pricier brands that may do more to keep oneās investment current, like Arcam or Anthem. But their receivers with equivalent capabilities tended to cost a lot more than what I spent on my SR6015.
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I have a Trinnov Altitude which I like very much. I can get software update over the internet ( had at least two so far with the last upgrade quite significant) . Havnt had to do any hardware update yet but Trinnov claims everything is modular so hardware upgrades are easily done. There is supposedly a new Dac upgrade but timing not announced yet
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@kennyb123 & @Lxgreen : Thank you both for responding, if I have any further questions Iāll make them by way of personal message so as not fill up this thread with none Antipodes related material. 
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Just so excited to get my K50 upgraded. I very much appreciate how you all are going about your business.
Having to shop for the right USB cable and sell my AES cable are the only downside of this process.
Why would you have to do this? The reclocker will be gaining the benefit of the new power supply - as will both the server and player engines. AES will thus be gaining a significant boost! That USB will gain a new output only means that those of us already on USB wonāt be the only ones who donāt have a reclocked output.
Because it will output higher sample rates than the AES output and my DAC responds well to native streams.
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Good reason and exactly why I have wedded myself to USB.
Please could Oladra owners have some response to a perfectly reasonable post?
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Also just to mention that it is inevitable that some portion of the retail price rise of the Oladra from $25k to $29k will be accounted for by increased costs of manufacture and components due to inflation. I donāt think it would be creditable to claim otherwise. So by tagging the upgrade cost to be the same as the increased price of the Oladra existing owners are being asked to retrospectively top up what it would have cost if their Oladras were to be made from August 2023 onwards instead of what it cost when their Oladras were actually made.
This is why I do not think it is an adequate explanation to say we are only being asked to pay the difference in price between the Gen1 and Gen2 Oladra. The bulk of the Oladra such as the expensive (but very nice) machined aluminium case is not being changed out and nor is much of the rest of the Oladra .
Lets guess at an inflation based price increase of the original Oladra of say 8% which comes to $2k which is a perfectly reasonable figure. That means that the portion of the price increase due to the circuit enhancements is $2k. Of course the actual figures will be different but this āback of an envelopeā calculation would indicate that the upgrade price should be in the order of say $2k.
As mentioned earlier, it does not seem credible to be asked to retrospectively pay for todays materials costs when our Oladras were made when the costs were significantly lower.
Of course it is likely that most Oladra owners are wealthy enough to pay the $4k asked for upgrade price without having to sell a Ferrari but that is not the point. Indeed I have already paid a deposit to my dealer to get me on the list for the upgrade but that does not mean that the explanation for the cost of the upgrade sits happily with me and I would like to think that after reflection Antipodes will decide on a different upgrade figure for the Oladra.
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Well said. I never thought we are being asked to pay for inflation costs for a product we all ready purchased.
I cannot see any logic in cost for the upgrades when it comes to the Oladra when the K50 Mk2 for 4 k gets more upgrades for the same money.
This being the new power supply, server upgrade, new feet.
Looking at the costs its 2 k for a new mother board, well the K50Mk1 gets two mother boards thatās 4 k, case work and power supply, USB 2k so 6 k in total give or take ball park.
K50 Mk2, 4 k as only one motherboard and power supply.
Oladra should be 2K as all I see is the motherboard (USB output cost ?) I must have missed something ?
Personally I feel the 4 k is steep in extra cost as I cannot understand why it should be so much compared to the other upgradesā¦
There is even a quote saying each computer is 2k so @MarkCole please could you explain.
I have no issue with companies making profit, if its more because the Oladra is a flag ship product so be it.
I thank Antipodes for giving us the option of upgrades and the service on the forum and back up on hardware, second to none.
Premium parts for a premium product.
The device is getting a new back plate, new USB and Player engine upgrade.
On discussion with our service providers we are moving OLADRA upgrades to New Zealand to ensure a consistent level of quality and care.
Again I will say, if you believe that the upgrade or the price of the upgrade is not for you, then do not proceed.
On the other hand, proceeding lifts the performance of the OLADRA both on USB and Digital outputs.
Hi Mark thank you for the response.
For me its not about the price or the lift in upgrade SQ.
For me itās about value of the upgrade compared to the K50 which seems disproportionate for Oladra owners.
Further more.
ā1. A K30 update will install dual triple-cascade power supplies, improved Player engine, and the new USB output.ā
For a cost of 3k .
Again more upgrades than the Oladra (this being the power supply) and cheaper by 1k.
The Oladra is 4k for without a new power supply.
Wish I have kept my K50 x 2 now and just went with an upgradeā¦
I am still surprised us Oladra owners are expected to pay more for upgrading.
No one likes to see his investments being devalued, so the Antipodes upgrade policy is very welcome and we all appreciate it.
However, having 3 generations of K50 in less than 3 years, and 2 generations of Oladra in one year time is hard to understand.
I can see that Antipodes wants to keep their models at the edge of the technology, but these fast changes are not good for clients that are paying big bucks for their audio sources and see their products being undervalued at each new generation, and this is happening at a very fast pace.
No one wants to buy a brand newly launched Ferrari or a Porsche and see it outdated one year after.
When we buy an Oladra of a K50, we are at the same level in audio industry, like Ferrari or Porsche are for cars.
In the other hand, in a few years time, our upgraded Antipodes will be facing competition of the new owners when it comes to sell on used market. New owners will be able to offer more competitive prices on used units, than we, the āoldā clients.
Since you already had you profit with our original purchases, I really donāt see why the upgrade cost is not the difference from the current retail price and the original retail price of our units.
Yes, this would be a cut in your profits, but as I said above, you already had your profits on our inicial purchase, so this would be the fairest way to everyone.
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