FRED MANTEGHIAN BLOG

Because we're about to become a socialist-driven economy where the majority of the population pay no taxes themselves yet demand the minority do so in their stead, I thought it would be a good time for one last economics lesson about capitalism. In particular, the law of supply and demand and in super-particular, the case of the Pioneer Kuro plasma supply chain either drying up or giving the appearance of drying up which, as every good oil executive knows, is practically the same thing!

Since Pioneer announced they were bowing out of the plasma manufacturing game (atta-boy, quit while you're ahead – WAY ahead – of the competition), I've been tracking Kuro prices. The 60" Kuro comes in two or three (four actually) versions, but let's just deal with the two most common, the non-Elite PDP-6020FD and the Elite PRO 151FD. The non-Elite can still be had at Costco warehouses for $4,000, but with tax, it would be a couple of hundred more than that, or double if you live in California. On the other hand, Amazon would ship it for free and not charge you tax, so it could stand to be a little higher than that $4,000 figure and still clinch the sale.

Before the announcement, I watched the PDP-6020FD do a slow crawl-down on Amazon from $3,800 to $3,600. Within a few days of Pioneer's announcement, it had climbed up to Costco's ask, but was still a decent price. Then a week later it was $4,300 and a week after that it crested at $4,700. It's settled back to $4,300 as I write this, but that's still $700 more than when it looked like Kuros would be made forever.

The Elites were higher to begin with on Amazon, around $4,700 as I recall. Then they hit $5,900 just last week. Again, sanity has prevailed and they're back to $4,700, making them just a $400 premium to the PDP-6020FD. It's definitely the better value, both from a performance perspective (it can be ISF calibrated) and from a future panic-gouging eBay listing perspective where it has higher resale potential (but that's a capitalism lesson for another day).

Not to sound like a lying car salesman, but once these babies are gone, they're gone! At least, that's what I told my wife when I bought my Kuro last week. Film at eleven!