Yes there is some tendency to move into other categories of audio products as a specialty audio company. As tempting as that may be I think you have to be careful you do not loose sight of what made your company viable in the first place.
A good example for us is my decision to get into digital products which my partners did not want to do. A bad example is our dealers wanted us to build a lower cost and lower performace secondary line of Bryston products to compete with NAD, Rotel etc.
James
James, a heartening and expected comment showing Bryston's long-term wisdom. Compare this to the "Bryston Way."
Years ago, I bought a Roku M2000 SoundBridge digital player. It was relatively expensive when I made the purchase, and did a good job for what I wanted, which was to move from CDs to pure digitial music playing. But Roku decided to sell to the mass market. In a fairly short time, they were selling through Best Buy, stopped supporting the M2000, and now, I believe, are out of digital players altogether and have stuck to very cheap media interfaces. In short, rolling the dice on the mass market has the potential of making zillions (Apple), but the percentages are that it is more likely to result in a small company that is bought, is killed, or is compromised into making cheap, crappy products.
The Bryston Way no doubt is slower, and surely hasn't resulted in its owners becoming billionaires, but because of it Bryston has retained its integrity, has continued to make world class products, has earned the loyalty of its customers, and it has not lost its soul.
Dave
