Currently living in Montreal, Canada. Was in my local B&O shop over the weekend and was shocked at some of the recent price hikes (not sure how I missed it over Christmas but apparently the changes took effect in Nov 08). On average the price hike is about 20%. There were some surprises though.

Beolab 3s, which is what i was in the market for, jumped 38% from CAD$4,000 to CAD$5,500. I am also now finding price differences of up to 10% between B&O stores in the same country (previously unheard of) with some products more at store 1 and less at store 2 and vice versa.

Of course, much of the price hike is being blamed on the CAD/USD exchange rate which has dropped over the last year back to 'normal' levels of about CAD$1.00 = USD$0.82 (Canadian stock is sourced from Chicago). However, prices didn't go down when the CAD dollar was on par with the USD and now that we are back to typical I would think the margin has simply returned to typical, so I'm not sure I buy the argument that this is the source of the hike.

I'm interested in hearing from other members both in Canada/US and internationally about the impact of recent prices changes to them locally and tips they might have for getting the best deal.

Thanks.

Paul.

I was told last week by my dealer the Swedish prices will rise 10 % due to exchange rates 1st of June.

The SEK (Swedish crown) has dropped heavily against DKK (Danish crown) a lot so I was expecting this. DKK is fixed to €, SEK isn't.

Actually I was about to order a Lintronic box, but I couldn't force myself to do it with current exchange rate.

Hi Paul:

I am over on the West Coast here in Vancouver and I share your same problem and we only have 1 dealer and I recently even have some intention of going over to Toronto or Montreal to see if there is better deal!

Unfortunately, I guess the reality is  that there isn't much option when it comes to us folks in Canada as my understanding is that the dealers here in Canada would need to purchase equipment from US where they then purchase it from Denmark. (So there basically our dollar needs to do 2 exchanges)

The price list here changes quite frequently depending on the exchange rates and I am shocked to hear that over on the East coast that there wasn't any price changes during the period where our currency was stronger than the US? I remember the price was quite on par with the US prices.

I recently made some purchases and would suggest discussing with the dealer to tell them that of your intention of purchases and your list of items so that they can keep an eye out for price changes, demo units, last minutes cancel from other customer or B&O promotion (i.e. the recent BEO5 promotion).

But if you are saying that between different dealers have different prices, you might be able to use that to some advantage. (So there might be a trip for me to Montreal afterall)