I find this to be an interesting thread. I remember when Bill Conrad and Lew Johnson, Jim Winey, even William Johnson were tiny companies not knowing whether they'd survive. As someone else mentioned already in this thread, all these were small companies once. Yes they were. I took a chance and bought some gear from the fledgling CJ in the late seventies - two of those pieces I still own. Heretical! Buying old fashioned TUBED gear in the age of transistors.
In the last couple of years I've restarted my a ...
Er, um ...? "The DVV"? Last time I looked, I was still a living creature, kind of breathing polluted air and tweaking myself stupid.
I guess Imiglykos, semi-dry Greek wine helps me make it somehow. And Tabasco, of course, life in the universe is impossible without Tabasco.
As for the mass producers not being in the high end, I beg to disagree. One will get you ten that if the current masters of mass production, the likes of Panasonic/Technics, JVC, Sony, etc ever decided to seriously get into it, they would drive smaller guys right out of the business.
Why? Simple. They have the wherewithall (commonly known, as "dough", "bread", "moolah", "geld", etc), the research labs, the engineers and the manufacturing prowess to do it quickly, efficiently and successfully, from any but one aspect - their image. Would you pay $10K+ for a JVC? Or a Panasonic preamp/amp combo? Yet you are ready to dish out the bread for a Krell, Levinson, etc.
Precisely what keeps them in the game now is what speaks lodest against any such effort they have or may make. Let me remind you that all of them, bar none, have at one time or another actually tried for it, and all of them, ALL of the, failed more or less miserably. Just as most high enders who tried to get into the mid section of the market also failed miserably.
That's like asking people who make Yugos to make a Cadillac, and asking the Cadillac people to make a Yugo. Each can do what's asked of him, but neither would be competitive. The big car version of the Yugo would cost more than it offers, and would soon die. The small Cadillac would be technically better made than any of its competitors, but would end up costing far too much to be anything but a joke in that segment.
So it is with audio companies. For years, Technics was showing around a hand made preamp/power amp combo, with laser trimmed resistors, super duper components inside, and nobody knows if they ever sold a single combo. But it sure made them look good, because what it was really doing there was shouting - lookee here, we can do that, we can do that, ain't no big deal. So Joe Schmuck looks at it, is duly impressed, but since he can't afford it, he buys a garden variety receiver and goes home happy. And a few thousand more like him.
JVC (a subsidiary of Matshushita, who own Panasonic, Technics, Akai, JVC and a few more) also tried it, did reasonably well, but in the end, gave up. They just couldn't make the sonic grade when compared to specialist products in the same price bracket. Actually, they looked better than 99.9% of the high end, the problem was they didn't sound like high end, and at those prices, looks will carry you only so far.
What we can expect to happen is for totally new companies to start appearing, because sooner or later, the audio industry will take its que from the auto industry. Just as Toyota created Lexus, as GM created Saturn, as Daimler-Chrysler created Smart, each trying to hide their true origins, so the audio giants will start up small, dedicated divisions. And that may just help make the high end interesting again, because the high end is in dire need of truly NEW ideas, fresh thinking. Its' too stale and mouldy now. And we need it to start rocking again, because it's the high end which can and does drive the big boys to new fields, new ideas and truly new products.
Cheers,
DVV
