Top brands that have no respect
- Thread starter Randy Myers
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Randy Myers
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Another thing that I have been thinking is with how unbelievably expensive many of these pieces have become; people are afraid to try an un-known brand which I believe is making it even harder for brands to penetrate other markets.
I hear people say that all they need to do is more marketing. I do not believe this statement makes sense for smaller companies. Marketing is extremely expensive, especially for smaller companies. Renting a room at Audio Shows is quite expensive, then adding banners or advertising in various places around the show is very expensive, completely beyond the reach of anything but the largest companies.
Realizing benefits from marketing is also something that is very hard to judge and it all cuts into the bottom line. Smaller lesser known companies many times cannot afford these added expenses. Even though they may build the best of the best they are an unknown in a sea of thousand of brands... Without dedicated dealers to bring customers to these products how are they supposed to build a name and reputation.
With B&M stores becoming fewer and farther between what is a smaller company to do? What is a customer supposed to do when there are no dealers within reach for them to even look at different brands... Seems very much like a catch-22 to me. Again, it makes me think, why are there so darn many manufactures
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I hear people say that all they need to do is more marketing. I do not believe this statement makes sense for smaller companies. Marketing is extremely expensive, especially for smaller companies. Renting a room at Audio Shows is quite expensive, then adding banners or advertising in various places around the show is very expensive, completely beyond the reach of anything but the largest companies.
Realizing benefits from marketing is also something that is very hard to judge and it all cuts into the bottom line. Smaller lesser known companies many times cannot afford these added expenses. Even though they may build the best of the best they are an unknown in a sea of thousand of brands... Without dedicated dealers to bring customers to these products how are they supposed to build a name and reputation.
With B&M stores becoming fewer and farther between what is a smaller company to do? What is a customer supposed to do when there are no dealers within reach for them to even look at different brands... Seems very much like a catch-22 to me. Again, it makes me think, why are there so darn many manufactures
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still-one
Active member
It has always puzzled me as to why new players to the market feel they can/should price their products at the same levels as established brands with a history for service and support. IMHO you need to earn that pricing premium.
hifinutt
New member
Vitus is pretty popular in Uk , quite a number use after changing from naim perhaps
Another thing that I have been thinking is with how unbelievably expensive many of these pieces have become; people are afraid to try an un-known brand which I believe is making it even harder for brands to penetrate other markets.
I hear people say that all they need to do is more marketing. I do not believe this statement makes sense for smaller companies. Marketing is extremely expensive, especially for smaller companies. Renting a room at Audio Shows is quite expensive, then adding banners or advertising in various places around the show is very expensive, completely beyond the reach of anything but the largest companies.
Realizing benefits from marketing is also something that is very hard to judge and it all cuts into the bottom line. Smaller lesser known companies many times cannot afford these added expenses. Even though they may build the best of the best they are an unknown in a sea of thousand of brands... Without dedicated dealers to bring customers to these products how are they supposed to build a name and reputation.
With B&M stores becoming fewer and farther between what is a smaller company to do? What is a customer supposed to do when there are no dealers within reach for them to even look at different brands... Seems very much like a catch-22 to me. Again, it makes me think, why are there so darn many manufactures
Great post. As for auditioning prior to purchase or not, there is no chance in hell that I would have bought blind something as expensive as my Octave amplification. Fortunately I have a dealer just 45 min from home.
I only take a risk if either the component is not so expensive (my Yggdrasil DAC) or, in the case of my expensive speakers, I had already ample experience with the lower model. And in both cases, I had return options.
In the absence of B&M dealers, a brand that does not have a return policy has no chance, not with me and probably not with many others.
Class A amps are not out of vogue. Pass labs, Ayre, Boulder, Gryphon all make class A amps. Vitus has limited dealer network in USA. It's about spreading the words out. Few years ago, Gryphon made a comeback to US market and it has gained good momentum. Slowly and steady their dealer network is growing. Great product:congrats:
NekoAudio
New member
Another thing that I have been thinking is with how unbelievably expensive many of these pieces have become; people are afraid to try an un-known brand which I believe is making it even harder for brands to penetrate other markets.
I hear people say that all they need to do is more marketing. I do not believe this statement makes sense for smaller companies. Marketing is extremely expensive, especially for smaller companies....
Without dedicated dealers to bring customers to these products how are they supposed to build a name and reputation.
With B&M stores becoming fewer and farther between what is a smaller company to do? What is a customer supposed to do when there are no dealers within reach for them to even look at different brands... Seems very much like a catch-22 to me. Again, it makes me think, why are there so darn many manufactures
I can chime in with some direct experience on these three points: many manufacturers, pricing, and marketing/distribution.
It's relatively easy to design and build a new product in your spare time. Somewhat more difficult and moderately expensive to do it "right" (e.g. robust design, manufacturing, safety, etc.). It's at least an order of magnitude more difficult and expensive to run a full-fledged OEM business with everything it involves because you can't really do it by yourself anymore.
As a result, the easiest way to make the entire effort worth it is to charge a whole lot more than what it costs to actually manufacture a product. Even discounting the time and money put into designing it in the first place. At a high price point you don't need to sell very many, it makes it possible to start working with dealers who want to get a large return on their investment for a relatively unknown product, and you will need lots of profit to reinvest in growth.
If you don't set your pricing very high, your product can easily end up being perceived as lower quality and you need to move a lot more product to generate revenue (which is already going to be hard being new and unknown in a crowded field of existing products) and there's less incentive for a dealer to add your product line.
The other option is to create really inexpensive products which still have high markup but something unique, to appeal to the larger budget crowd. But in that case you're not designing products with the best quality in mind, but rather with the business in mind first.
Or you do it like Schiit. Their Yggdrasil DAC is probably at the upper end of what their usual crowd can afford, thus not perceived as too cheap by them, even though in audiophile terms it is quite cheap: $ 2,400. It is extremely high quality, while using a cost effective chassis, and can compete with, for example, dCS (I've heard it numerous times directly against a Vivaldi DAC). Most of the regular 'high end' audiophile crowd would probably overlook it because of its price.
They are factory direct, and dependent on high sales, which they have. Mike Moffat, their designer of Theta Digital fame, once explained (when the DAC was still 100 dollars cheaper, at $ 2,300): if they would go over dealers, the DAC would cost double, at $ 4,600. But he says if you double the cost, you quarter the sales. Which means you cannot buy parts in bulk anymore, and the $ 2,300 DAC would become a $ 6,000 DAC.
My Octave preamp though is distributed over dealers and hand made on order. I have no problem with that either, and was willing to pay the hefty $ 15K price tag. The quality is more than worth it. The result though is a curious situation where a $ 2.4 K DAC drives in my system a preamp of more than six times the price. Makes sonically total sense, and better than a $ 15K DAC driving a $ 2.4K preamp
. To get the max out of the DAC's incredible performance I use an MIT AES/EBU cable from my CD transport that is almost as expensive as the DAC, and more expensive than the CD transport that feeds it.
NekoAudio
New member
They started out with low-priced products, and moved a bunch of product sufficient to feed their business growth. Their higher-priced products only came afterwards.
Any idea, besides Vitus what other ultra high end brands are popular in Europe? How well known are MSB, Boulder and Dan D'agostino in Europe and asia?
I meant both. How well Ch precision, Nagra, Gryphon, Soulution, T+A represented in Europe? How well American brands such as Boulder, Dan D'agostino, Wilson, Rockport, Avalon compete with European brands in Europe?
True.
Popular and for sale everywhere in Belgium:
B&W, Focal, KEF, Monitor Audio, Elac for speakers.
Naim, Accuphase, Hegel for electronics
On demo - selected places:
Wilson Audio, MBL, Burmester, Verity Audio, YG, Magico, Avantgarde Acoustic, Vimberg/Tidal, Boenicke, Martin Logan, Luxman, Esoteric, MBL, Merging NADAC, Kii, McIntosh, Estelon, Linn, Lyravox, Mola Mola, Vivid Audio, PMC, Ayre, TAD, Sonus Faber, Dali, Gryphon, JBL, Mark Levinson, Piega, T+A, Auralic, Amphion, Analog Domain, ...
I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of them...
B&W, Focal, KEF, Monitor Audio, Elac for speakers.
Naim, Accuphase, Hegel for electronics
On demo - selected places:
Wilson Audio, MBL, Burmester, Verity Audio, YG, Magico, Avantgarde Acoustic, Vimberg/Tidal, Boenicke, Martin Logan, Luxman, Esoteric, MBL, Merging NADAC, Kii, McIntosh, Estelon, Linn, Lyravox, Mola Mola, Vivid Audio, PMC, Ayre, TAD, Sonus Faber, Dali, Gryphon, JBL, Mark Levinson, Piega, T+A, Auralic, Amphion, Analog Domain, ...
I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of them...
W9TR
Active member
Anyone know how large the high end audio business is in yearly turnover? Just curious.
GUESSING $10-15 BILLION including heapdhones. Excluding headphones, maybe $2 billion.
Keep in mind home theater and custom installation is huge too. So the number could be much higher.
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Keep in mind home theater and custom installation is huge too. So the number could be much higher.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
BlueFox
New member
Is that a worldwide number? Also, are you saying headphones are an $8-$13 billion dollar market?
Just for Headphone that is huge huge number.