Ajani

It depends on what is considered small. Audio Note is not a good example really because they're not small. They only do 5% of their business in North America. They have over 700 products and many of them are not even listed on the website. When I went to CES I asked peter why he doesn't make a Tuner. He said "we make tuners" - I said "then why is it not on the website?" he replied "then people would want them and we'd have to build them." They can't keep up with their order book as it is.

I understand the argument you're making that when we review stuff that is hard to find that it doesn't help the average audiophile living in smaller towns that don't have access to such gear - but it "should" be about the better gear out there not how many retail outlets carry it. All of the writers at Dagogo heard the stuff in the United States and I am in Canada. There are AN dealers in BC, Alberta and Ontario (though only Soundhounds carries enough stock to show it decently) - and even they can't get stock.

Reviews can actually do a disservice to some makers because good reviews can generate a lot of interest and possibly a lot of sales. But if you are small company and demand heavily outstrips supply or the ability to supply then companies tend to move into larger buildings and hire more people. This put Reference 3a out of business when they were just called 3a. They moved Daniel Dehay lost the ability to oversee large production and the quality suffered heavily putting them under. The second time around he made sure to do it right under the Reference 3a name.

The problem too is that reviewers don't know what is available in your town. PMC is pretty big here but may not be in your city. Paradigm is big in North American and practically non existent in Europe. Audio Note is very big in Russia, Poland, Sweden, Croatia, Vietnam, Denmark, Britain, etc.

I believe there are only 10 dealers in the U.S. but one of the biggest and best is Audiofederation who are also the distributors.

On to a more general note - review sites can be valuable to put stuff off the radar on the radar. Anyone can go and audition a B&W - big deal - why does anyone need a review to tell you what you heard for yourself. I see the review being able to tell you about a Trenner and Freidl loudspeaker company making a speaker that can stand with anything. Until CES I had never heard of them before even though they've been around quite awhile in Europe making highly regarded products.

Heck Sugden is hard enough for most people to find and audition and they've been around for over 40 years.

Reviewers are also in it partially for themselves. I want to spend months with stuff I like and would consider buying - I don't want to spend time with the B&W 705 which I think is obscenely overrated - just because every town is selling it.

I think though that Dagogo and other sites review mainstream stuff as well. Generally though I find the mainstream stuff is a significant step down across the board from the smaller makers who have passion and often cost no concern approaches over choosing a price point and then making something to fit it.