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Quote:
Originally Posted by poppachubby
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I'm sure the owner has all kinds of eccentric ideas about audio, but when it comes to business, it would appear he's missing out. If somebody is willing to spend a megabuck on an AN tuner, build the damn thing and take his money!!!
Or buy an OEM's product and relabel. Like Lexicon, right?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Feanor
Or buy an OEM's product and relabel. Like Lexicon, right?
Ummm.... I think that's a bit of a stretch from the point PoppaC was making... I think he was really just referring to a small company expanding workers to deliver goods, they know how to make... And not just repackaging competitor's cheaper products and selling at inflated prices, as Lexicon has done with the OPPO BR Player and Bryston Power Amps....
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RGA
The thing is Peter is a multi-millionaire and has other things he's interested in that take up a lot of his and his design team's time that may not result in making money. Building new microphones for the recording industry and a completely new A to D converter to improve the sound of the actual recordings. New mixers, etc.
The bigger a company gets the less control the owner has overseeing everything. I agree - I wish they would increase production and I know they're working on it.
Problem is that trying to be involved in so many areas is exactly what a bigger company is capable of doing... You can't expand to have such a massive product line without actually... well... expanding.
And since all the existing AN products have already been designed, tested and sold to satisfied customers, then he doesn't need to do much overseeing of them... he just needs competent persons to follow his design instructions and assemble them... And then he can focus his time and his top designers attentions on new endeavors...
You can expand without losing all control of a business...
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Agreed and I know Peter is working on some things - he has for example outsourced production of the zero series to a second plant in Lithuania and apparently a third is being looked into for other things.
Unfortunately some stuff just takes a lot of time to build. It's not like this stuff is made from molds and slapped together on assembly lines.
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There is another problem with expanding a small company in that its products (and I can say this is definitely the case for Odyssey), are not exactly static because they tailor to the customer's requests. It's what gives the smaller shops a notch up on the competition, but also makes reviewing a bit risky since what the reviewer reviewed isn't necessarily the same product another customer might get.
For example, I asked Klaus to custom configure something for me, use different components and add ports. No problem (if you're willing to pay extra, of course). But is that the same one that 6moons and other sites raved about? Weeeelll not exactly. Smaller shops can do this, but good luck trying to get Arcam, Integra, or even Conrad-Johnson to do this - you'd have to be a lot more important than I am or be willing to pay much more than I can afford. I suppose you could also 3rd-party mod your gear, and that is always a good option, but again, these have nothing to do with the standard product line that reviewers have to review.
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Nightflier
You raise an interesting advantage with small companies in that you can get what you want. Odyssey is online but you can order it the way you like it and then wait. This is similar in some respects to laptops. You can walk into a big box chain and buy a laptop that may give you what you want but chances are far better that if you buy your laptop from XoticPC that you will get a vastly better computer AND for a lower price - but perhaps more importantly you will get exactly what you want.
In the case of Audio Note or perhaps Teresonic you can audition the products and then if you like it you can purchase the product the way you want it. The AN E comes in over 20 different wood finishes has several different cabling and driver choices. I see a similarity in Odyssey's approach and Audio Note's approach in that you can buy the "same" amplifier in terms of design but you can "beef it up" in terms of parts quality. The M3 Preamp for instance is exactly the same design as the M8 preamp - the difference is in the parts quality inside the units and the resulting sound. In a sense there is a "kit builder" element to the companies in that they take a platform and have various supercharged editions of those units and how far you want to take it is up to you.
I am less enthused by after market modifications because why would one think that some guy in a basement can do a better job than the manufacturer? Unless of course the manufacturer is on board with the outside modder.
I think a lot of products out there could be better with a similar approach of upgrading the level of parts inside. Sort of like those cars that had V4, V6, v8 options. With the big companies you don't generally get any of this - you can buy the Arcam integrated amp at $800 or the one at $1500 but you may be paying for stuff in the second one that is unnecessary such as more power instead of a better power supply. I notice that Teresonic does the same thing with several different Lowther drivers.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ajani
...And since all the existing AN products have already been designed, tested and sold to satisfied customers, then he doesn't need to do much overseeing of them... he just needs competent persons to follow his design instructions and assemble them... And then he can focus his time and his top designers attentions on new endeavors...
You can expand without losing all control of a business...
While many businesses are interested in ever-expanding, this doesn't necessarily apply to all small businesses. I know a number of craftsmen who are only interested in continuing what they are doing right now. They don't want to add production, people, gain new sales or otherwise expand.
I'd make the observation there are two ends to the business spectrum. Some people start a business to make money. They don't care if they sell speakers, toilet bowl plungers or widgets. At the other end are those who get into a business because they truly love their craft and a business simply gives them the means to pursue doing things exactly the way they want.
Certainly lots of businesses are someplace in the middle.
I'd imagine Peter at AN knows what his options are, and he's probably doing things just the way he wishes. That can be frustrating for his retailers who'd like more product and faster, but they can always drop the line and move to another product if things get too bad.
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The bottom line is that we will never be able to get a totally objective review for a number of reasons.
1-We all hear things differently and have our own personal tastes.
2-Different reviewers use different amps, preamps, speakers, cable's,
listening environments, etc. How can you properly evaluate Brand A
amp when you are using Brand B preamp and Brand C CDP as well
as different music? And some other reviewer is evaluating Brand A
amp and using Brand X preamp and Brand Z CDP.
It would be nice to see some standardization. For example, when evaluating an NAD amp, then do so using all NAD equipment. Once you have done that, then you might want to do a review with the NAD amp with some higher end preamp to get a frame of reference.
The bottom line is to just use a review as a starting point and take it with a grain of salt.
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What would make reviews more useful? When it comes to speakers, much better measurements. Speaker reviews are often tedious to read, they go on at length about how various samples of music sound, but I find myself skimming through those parts. Not that I'm not interested, it's just that I might not know those tracks, and even if I did, do I trust their subjective opinion? What would really be useful would be some real measurements - the kind that aren't typically shown. Impulse response and polar response out to 90 degrees in small angular increments. Harmonic distortion broken down into components and shown at small and large signal levels.
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Here's another item that's not often well covered: build quality as it relates to sound. Lots of articles will give a quick overview of good build quality, but very few go into why that might matter (this is especially important for analog gear). That is one of the things that draws me to Audioholics because they do take the cover off and talk about the insides. Most reviewers in magazines (Stereophile is notorious for this) will take the manufacturer's word for what's inside and then move onto how their own esoteric music (that no one else owns) sounds on said piece of gear.
Speaking of music choices, there should be a number of well known top-quality recordings that are used in this industry as standard baselines. Everyone owns at least one Diana Krall or Norah Jones album, likewise everyone probably has a copy of Carmina Burana, or Beethoven's 5th. Can't this industry settle on a few well recorded ones and use those for auditioning? I have my own favorites, but I wouldn't mind switching to someone else's if it will mean I can go to the point 2:45 minutes into their favorite auditioning track where they said they heard such and such.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nightflier
Here's another item that's not often well covered: build quality as it relates to sound. Lots of articles will give a quick overview of good build quality, but very few go into why that might matter (this is especially important for analog gear). That is one of the things that draws me to Audioholics because they do take the cover off and talk about the insides. Most reviewers in magazines (Stereophile is notorious for this) will take the manufacturer's word for what's inside and then move onto how their own esoteric music (that no one else owns) sounds on said piece of gear.
Yep, it would be nice to see more exploration of build quality and reliability in reviews...
Quote:
Originally Posted by nightflier
Speaking of music choices, there should be a number of well known top-quality recordings that are used in this industry as standard baselines. Everyone owns at least one Diana Krall or Norah Jones album, likewise everyone probably has a copy of Carmina Burana, or Beethoven's 5th. Can't this industry settle on a few well recorded ones and use those for auditioning? I have my own favorites, but I wouldn't mind switching to someone else's if it will mean I can go to the point 2:45 minutes into their favorite auditioning track where they said they heard such and such.
Have to disagree there... I don't own any of the above... I'd rather see reviewers try out all different types of music on gear.... How it performs on one or two specific genres, is only relevant to persons who primarily listen to those exact genres...
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Even if they talk about a track you know and often listen to, you might not have the same listening impression if you heard the system they are reviewing. I remember listening to some large panel speakers that many considered the best of a number of speakers demonstrated. I thought they had no special features, were generally average and in terms of their distortion at moderate levels, awful. Female vocals were heavily distorted, yet somehow a number of others appeared not to notice. For me that was the beginning of my suspicion that I shouldn't trust other's subjective impressions too much. Not that I automatically assume I'd disagree - just that I take these things with a pinch of salt. More recently I had a short listening session with a female friend. On a reference track I played my system with different active crossover settings. Each time I asked her what she thought, comparing one to the others. I avoided biasing her comments by saying anything first, and each time her comments matched my impressions precisely. I was intrigued, as it showed me that a person who isn't an enthusiast can easily pick up on relatively subtle changes and notice the same things we do. I'm a little suspicious that many enthusiasts learn to hear things with their minds as much as their ears, and in so doing don't quite have the fresh honesty of a person with no real expectations.
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