First thought: There is a huge difference in sales between certain perceptual breakpoints. A very large one of these is between $1499 and $1500. That isn't just a game people play to annoy you with change. If you float a product at both and check the numbers it is clear this is a discontinuity in human perception. You will sell far more for one dollar less. Or even one cent less. I, too, will have to give this more thought before committing at the higher price. Even though I'm sure that price is justified. However, for purposes of a potential Kickstarter, if there was any wiggle room to offer it at or below $1499 that could end up being a make or break for the campaign. Even if the campaign ends up being successful, this would make it much more so.
Second thought: Kickstarter works great to support nascent projects like this. However, turning things around, what happens if you have runaway success? If you can get several favorable comparisons against standalone DACs in the $3k+ range, it's not outside the realm of possibility. Light Harmonic Labs raised 1.2 million on IndieGoGo for the Geek Pulse DAC (much lower priced at base, but with all optional upgrades they ended up offering it approached $1k). The point is, if you ended up with 100+ orders instead of 20, could you handle that? Unless you enable limited reward levels - and I strongly recommend this - Kickstarter has no upper bound. Some campaigns have limited rewards imposing an upper bound on their commitment, and add additional limited categories with later delivery dates if the initial ones fill. This is probably your best model. The other issue with such a "runaway success" campaign is that even if your costs end up lower, Kickstarter doesn't let you modify existing reward levels to pass those savings on (or to entice additional buyers who might have been on the fence at the original price). Ergo, most runaway success campaigns end up offering additional bonuses or upgrades via stretch goals so backers get more as the project's marginal costs decrease.
I don't have clear answers, but wanted to at least bring these topics up for consideration before you go live.
