What brands have really fallen off the map lately?

Mike

Mike

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What brands have really fallen off the map lately? All good brands, many are great brands, but ones that we just don't read much about these days.

1. Devialet
2. Linn
3. Classe'
4. Manley
5. ...
 
Copland
Proclaim
Audio GD
PrimaLuna
Davis
Vecteur
Merging (a bit) in consumer
Piega (making a comeback)
 
I'd add Avalon to that list. Since the Tesseract, yes they have released new models. But they've kept the old models in their lineup without any significant updates for what seems like millenia. Good maybe for fans of established models who want a good thing left well alone, but it makes bad business sense imho. Meanwhile companies like Marten and Magico filter down technology from their reference speakers & regularly phase out old models to make way for the new. And those economies of scale in turn give those companies an incentive to invest in SOTA technology and materials science.

Where does that leave companies like Avalon? Kind of like the used car lot at the Lexus dealership. And that's a shame, because they showed with the Tesseract they can truly innovate and embrace the latest driver technology.
 
- Spectral
- Wadia
- Apogee

...the list is long.


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Yes, and the second list some junk that never got anywhere in the first place... LOL ha ha.


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Kuoppis said:
Yes, and the second list some junk that never got anywhere in the first place... LOL ha ha.


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ha...its about popularity more than quality...though at least 4 of those names have legit claims to quality.;)

Have you ever heard Proclaim speaks? Very very nice...
yes..sending you down a rabbit hole with that one. :rolleyes:
 
Also true.

Have not heard Proclaim, that good huh? They do not happen to make smallish monitors, able to compete with the Harbeth 3PSRs that is?


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Kuoppis said:
Also true.

Have not heard Proclaim, that good huh? They do not happen to make smallish monitors, able to compete with the Harbeth 3PSRs that is?


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no...sorry. i did think about that given your current quest.
heil amt aulos or aulos bookshelf, if you want open baffle dipole sound from 1khz up.

lotus Tanagra is now obsolete...but did get great feedback in its day. Company name is now Apertura...Mike used to carry them.
 
tunes said:
Hovland
Aesthetix
Tron


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Yes, Aesthetix has really fallen off the map recently. It's ironic because they recently released the Atlas Eclipse stereo and mono amps, Metis preamp and Pandora Eclipse DAC, which are reported to be outstanding components. Unfortunately, I think they priced themselves out of their target market and the new products are less than, umm, aesthetically pleasing.
 
Mike said:
What brands have really fallen off the map lately? All good brands, many are great brands, but ones that we just don't read much about these days.

1. Devialet
2. Linn
3. Classe'
4. Manley
5. ...
Click to expand...

Were any of these at AXPONIA? I'm under the impression that unless a manufacturer is a paying advertiser at one of the trade journals/sites, we might not read too much about them there. That leaves the shows for generating buzz, I suppose. I guess Munich will have some influence on whether and what we read about these and other brands.

If you mean we don't read about them on the forums, maybe their owners are the confident types who don't need to bleat and blubber about how gosh-awful wonderful their stuff is -- they know it and really don't care what others think. It'd be interesting to see if there is a statistical correlation between brand-specific threads and sales.
 
Linn doesn't do shows, at least not in the US. AFAIK, no reviews in the usual suspects over here either. I believe the last major review I've seen was for the new Klimax DS(/3) on Hi Fi+ last year.
 
asiufy said:
Linn doesn't do shows, at least not in the US. AFAIK, no reviews in the usual suspects over here either. I believe the last major review I've seen was for the new Klimax DS(/3) on Hi Fi+ last year.
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I think Linn has been a while a little in the background, while still having a dedicated audience, esp. in the UK. By some they are still considered the bees knees in streaming after launching their Katalyst architecture. But their stubborn rejection of new formats is hurting them.

Further these come to mind:

- Weiss
- DarTZeel



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Interesting thread, especially since I am not familiar with many of these names. Is this market really that big that small niche players can survive for, let's say, ten years or more?
 
And Kevin gets just about every new product PrimaLuna releases reviewed by some publication. They are kind of to the point that in their price category they pretty much sell themselves based on customer word of mouth. They are a standard recommendation in the less than 5k price range.
 
Remember when Shanling and Cayin were hot on the forums for a while after the Chinese audio invasion hit? Shanling did look good, I wonder what happened to them. Cayin may be around still, they had a million or so models, basically making replicas of vintage tube amps.
Another one was Antique Audio Labs, even sold kits.
 
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