I’ve looked a bit around and found the following prices for the MAX525 at de.digikey.com:
MAX525BCPP+
1+ 29.56000
25+ 22.30440
50+ 19.30820
100+ 14.30170
Prices are in Euro without VAT / Shipping costs.
Has anyone found better prices?
When we do a groupbuy and reach the 100 pieces breakthrough this would mean
ca. 17 Euro for one MAX525 including 16% german VAT (19% in 2007!).
maybe you can start ordering free sample directly from Maxim…that could be cheaper 
Can you find the shunt too?
Can you find the shunt too?
No, but AFAIK there are replacements for this (not 1-to-1).
I think one of them is the LM-385, but so far I’ve not builded any MIDIbox project
so I don’t have any experience with them by myself.
@samples:
I see: If everybody is ordering samples, no one will be interested in groupbuys for this chip.
That’s no problem if you need only 2 chips.