[ICOM] IC-7600 at Tokyo Hamfair 2008

[Mel Martin]

Small increases in performance are expensive when you are trying to 
improve on the 756 ProIII.

I'm pretty sure that the the 7600 is an updated 756PIII not a downgraded 
7700 and will replace it eventually. The 7800/7700 try to be as good as 
Icom can make them, and small increments in performance start to get 
expensive. If you are content with 95% performance (good enough for 
virtually all of us) costs can be quite a bit lower. Take, for example, 
the digital preselector... not useful except in rare circumstances, but 
expensive to implement. Check the pricing on the Yaesu preselector modules!

The ProIII may stay in the lineup for a while because the price is 
artificially low. Icom has recouped the development and startup costs... 
and although the price hasn't changed much in $, it's actually dropped 
significantly in terms of the Yen. The 7600 will allow Icom to re-price 
their mid-level offering and at the same time eke out a bit more revenue 
from the ProIII which right now is a bargain for the performance level.

I would guess at about $3.5k since that would be the price point that 
Icom would be aiming at thought they might start a bit higher. As 
production cost fall and startup costs are amortized over the next few 
years it may start to fall to the point it will completely replace the 
ProIII.

BTW, they seemed to have left room for an eventual IC-7500 at the 2.5K 
price point...

Re:  $4k speculation...
 >
 > With the IC-7700 streeting at ~$7,000 does the IC-7600 look
 > like enough of a downgrade of the architecture to warrant a
 > street price as low as $4,000?