OK, here are some news for you rgarding products and the company;
NEW PRODUCTS:
1. yes, as already somewhat discussed, there will be an Extreme version of the Tempest. There are 2 stages, a. a mymetal shielding transformer, and b. the topline SL board. Prices are $ 200. & $ 300. each.
2. We'll have new finishes for the speakers soon. Silver-metal, rd, dark blue, and canary yellow.
3. Digital amp:
the first amp out will be a dual mono with 2 x 500 W for $ 1,500.
Later this year we're looking at a pair of 2x 1000 W monos for $ 1,995. / pair. We're also looking at other, different configurations utilizing the digital amp, but no decision yet, just too many ideas and not enough time or money
Anyway, 2 K will be the upper level for the stereo setups. As for HT, yes, there will be at least a channel unit, maybe even a 7 channel piece. We'll see, but that will be lat this year.
BNow, to the technology. As I stated bfore, I personally hav bi reservations about digital amplification, especially in the areas of harmonics, tonality, and emotional qualities. Some of the best digital designs that I have heard use the ICE power modules. Our first prototyps had those as well, and worked quite good. However, we finally came up with a different design, and I'm happy that we did. Instead of the digital class d and t output stages we'll use class A/AB in the output stage and yet still achieve > 86% efficiency or so. I just like it much better, and don't want to get into technical discussions of pros and cons of each design. Just not interested, and there should be enough variations out there by now to satisfy anyone who's looking for a digital amplifier. As for me, I'm purely judging with my ears.
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ODYSSEY:
The great, great news here is that as of now we hav a world wide network in place. Some partners are already up and running while others finish up their sits and showrooms within the next month or so.
We currently have the following odysseyaudio.com countries:
odysseyaudiomx.com for Mexico = Eduardo
odysseyaudiohk.com for HongKong = Barry
odysseyaudiogb.com for Great Britain = Matthew
odysseyaudiobr.com for Brazil = Moyses
odysseyaudioau.com for Australia and New Zealand = Bhaskar
odysseyaudiosg.com for Singapore = Alex
odysseyaudiopr.com for Puerto Rico = Hector
We also add Scandinavia, Poland, and other countries soon.
The fantastic news especially for our international members at AC is that regardless where you live in the world, you'll pay the exact same cost for any of our products. The Khartago will be $ 750. whether you're in the US, any of the above countries, or any other country odering directly from us. I believe that this is a completely new setup for the customer. You can buy the units from any of the countries above locally and there's no importer or distributor penalty for you whatsoever. Of course the customer still has to pay the individual shippin and taxes, but that would amount to the exact same cost as buying directly from us.
However, now the customer in any of these countries has the opportunities to either listening to demo units or at showrooms. This is possible because of several )to me) important facts. Each one of these guys I would consider a friend, and it's not based on any old distribution principles. They are truly part of Odyssey. While some have other poducts as well because of the nature of audio being their sole livelihood, others are hobbiests and do that as a part - business with our full support. We all have friendships and passion and enthusiasm in common, and I love it.
Lastly, especially for our international customers (even in Chinese, for example), but of course also for all of our existing customers and AC'ers, we have our own odyssey discussion forum. this doesn't mean that we will quit AC, of course not, but we'll have it in addition to AC. It's already running, but Eduardo has to make some final adjustments ????
Lastly, I'm still nowhee near finishing up the updates on the web site. We have pics of the different production processes and parts details, but I also have to go to Dr. Photo, still. In time I will post them all.
Anyway, that's it for now.
Late,
Klaus
