I have a slightly different perspective. Almost all manufacturers are passionate about what they do. They do what they do because they believe its best. Some take the less is more approach and others take the more is more approach. But guys, these are, for the most part, small companies in every sense of the word. The men and women that work there are as passionate or even more so, then us. I spent 25 years dealing with fortune 100 companies, so dealing with audio manufacturers has been an eye opener, but for the most part, a breath of fresh air. So nice to deal with people rather than procurement systems.
Magico and Audio Research are two organizations that are just amazing from top to bottom. They have their sh!t together. They both run like well oiled machines.
There are very few "bad" products I can recall. The Vitus RI-100 is one (this is not a shot a Vitus because all their other products are superb). But the RI-100 is a stinker. My Hegel H30 catching on fire a couple years ago is another. I know there have been some digital challenges with companies primarily focused on amps and preamps (i.e. Mc). Aside from that, it really comes down to flavoring.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk