ASIC market is insane right now. S9s on eB going for triple retail and up. A few resellers on Amz same thing. Bitmain is selling out months before they're built, people w/$$ buying lots, 10, 50, @1600, resell @ 4-5k ea. If you see one for 1600 be very VERY suspicious, unless you too have enough $$ to bulk buy direct and it's the manufacturers site. I Expect the logjam to break in February/March but even if I'm right it's soooooo far away. Cheapest s9 I've seen last 30 days was 3800 USD. Good luck and be careful, scammer count goes up with bitcoin price.
I heard you ^_^"
I have never (successfully) been scammed here, you can see scammers coming miles away, in hordes, and even if they dont look it, escrow is gold.
We'll see for prices, i also saw bid wars on S9 PREORDER for Jan batch going to 5k USD. WTF.
I seem to see a few china suppliers that would sell to me, but i'm thinking of staying away from Bitmain ASICs. I would buy it from a shop that guarantee the service for the 3 months, because i've only had bad personal experiences with them in that regard, and the forum is overflowing with Bitmain Warranty horror stories.
Personally i may be more inclined to buy ASICs for other algos but that's a discussion for another board.