I still think DMM have and always will price themselves out of most of the European and North American market, theres nothing that special about them as to why they are so expensive. Their appeal is mostly now only to die hard DMM fanatics, although if thats what they like who am i to argue.
I think the DM7080 is a brilliant bit of kit but I would still buy the Duo 2 over the DM7080 as i don't think the slightly higher specification of the DM7080 justifies the extra £300 over the price of the Duo2. That is what makes the Duo 2 a better box for me over the DM7080.
It is understandable that price does play a part for some prospective buyers. However, you cannot say the Duo2 is defacto a better box than the 7080HD. As you say you are considering the price, so, you're viewpoint is an opinion considered on the price.
Many people also consider that VU machines are too expensive.
It's a relative point as to why Dreamboxes seem expensive. To make the best they have to sink in a lot of R&D costs.
A clone manufacturer can simply copy the hardware and knock it off at a fraction of the cost. That's simply because they never bore the development costs to begin with. The same can to some extent be said of all machines/manufacturers that adopted Enigma which originally comes from Dream Multimedia.
VU is just one of the manufacturers further along that curve. They have in the past generally tried to concentrate on producing performance machines. That was their niche but they also now realise it is not possible to produce top end machines 'cheap'. Pioneering developments cost serious money.
