Tara Labs Under Fire

earlmarc · « **on:** 7 Oct 2004, 06:06 pm »

Tara Labs cable company in currently under investigation by the Federal Government for allegedly claiming that their cables are made in the USA when in fact they may have been made in China.

Robert C. Schult · « **Reply #1 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 06:09 pm »

Nothing more fun than beating a dead horse with a little stick! This has been all over the net for about the last month. Where have you been?

earlmarc · « **Reply #2 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 07:10 pm »

No fun intended. I wasn't aware. Sorry that you're sensitive about the subject.

Robert C. Schult · « **Reply #3 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 08:48 pm »

Hi Earl.

Na...not sensitive. I just get tired of seeing how apparently ready too many folks are to be part of what tears down. Doesn't make a difference to me if it's in audio or otherwise. On the other hand, it doesn't happen often enough where someone is praised for doing good. Somebody screws up and it's like a huge wagon train of "See, I told you so." or "I knew "they" were shady." Somebody does good and you're almost lucky if you see the bandwagon go by.

Not sure what your motivation is for posting about Tara Labs. If you care to, only you can judge honestly your intent and what it served.

Cheers Earl!

electricbear · « **Reply #4 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 09:05 pm »

While Taras business practices may be somewhat questionable just about every cable company have their cables made outside of the US. The only difference is that the other companies don't stamp their cables with " made in the US ". Tara should simply have put " assembled in the US " . All this should not detract from the fact that " made in the US" or not, the cables that carried the Tara name are excedingly fine and I'd be happy to use them in any of my systems.

DVV · « **Reply #5 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 09:23 pm »

Quote from: electricbear

While Taras business practices may be somewhat questionable just about every cable company have their cables made outside of the US. The only difference is that the other companies don't stamp their cables with " made in the US ". Tara should simply have put " assembled in the US " . All this should not detract from the fact that " made in the US" or not, the cables that carried the Tara name are excedingly fine and I'd be happy to use them in any of my systems.

The quality of their cables is not under investigation, but their trade practices are.

I agree with you, while they may be less than honest in trade, this does not mean their products are poor, and should not be automatically implied.

Personally, I think Levinson's amps were grossly overpriced, but they were still great amps, and I still have vast respect for their engineers. Just an example.

Cheers,
DVV

DVV · « **Reply #6 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 09:31 pm »

Quote from: Robert C. Schult

Hi Earl.

Na...not sensitive. I just get tired of seeing how apparently ready too many folks are to be part of what tears down. Doesn't make a difference to me if it's in audio or otherwise. On the other hand, it doesn't happen often enough where someone is praised for doing good. Somebody screws up and it's like a huge wagon train of "See, I told you so." or "I knew "they" were shady." Somebody does good and you're almost lucky if you see the bandwagon go by.

Not sure what your motivation is for post ...

Robert, I have gone on record countless times for bashing the audio industry for what I feel are rip-offs, one way or another.

But I must agree with you, good deeds do tend to go by completely overlooked, which is of course a great pity. We cannot get the industry back into sane waters if we do not have a reasonable balance between criticising and endorsing, because that is a very basic human need, to be acknowledged for a job well done.

And just as we have shady people, so we have truly gifted people. In no particular order, we do have James Bongiorno, Dick Sequerra, Paul McGowan, John Curl, Dan d'Agostino and others, to name but a few. These are all very creative people who do try, even if some of their products don't work out the best.

Those who work will make mistakes, but the greatest mistake of all is not to work at all.

And we are handed some nice surprises here and there. My favorite example is my own Yamaha CDX-993 CD player; I would never expect to see such a product, with such a build and such a non-digital but very analog sound from a mass manufacturer, never famous for their CD players, and at such a reasonable price too. But I did see it, I did hear it, I did buy it, and need I add, I did tweak it.

Cheers,
DVV

earlmarc · « **Reply #7 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 09:31 pm »

Mr. Schult, I side with your generalization. My motivation was to share this information with other members of the circle. I read numerous audio forums and have not seen this infromation mentioned. I could have overlooked it. I know of this information from the current issue from Bound For Sound. I've known from professional and consumers reviews that Tara Labs is a reputable company who has been on both a positive and negative bandwagon. I find it admirable that you come to aid a competitor in a time of need. I will add that I don't sympathize with a company or person whose negative publicity is a result of fraud. Further, no one can say that Tara Labs hasn't received positive publicity for their products.

Sincerely,

earlmarc

Marbles · « **Reply #8 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 10:44 pm »

It was even discussed here:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=12938

nathanm · « **Reply #9 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 10:46 pm »

So the government is pissed that these guys have a sticker on their product that says Made in USA and they're actually made in China? Yeah, so? So is EVERY product Americans buy!

This reminds me once again of that age old "scandal" where the pop act Milli Vanilli were exposed for lip syncing their shows. Oh the horror - how dare they deceive us! What ever will we do for entertainment now!?

The scandal (or "brilliant $cheme" depending on who you are) here is getting folks to drop 2 months salary on a dressed up strand of copper for their fucking stereo. If I were to think there's anything criminal going on here (which I don't) it would be that, and not where this stuff is made. How bored is the government these days anyway? Those guys need a hobby - maybe hifi?

OBF · « **Reply #10 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 11:16 pm »

I'm not a liberal who thinks the govt needs to save us all from everything, but if there was no enforcement of labeling requirements it would not be good for consumers. If it's ok to make a product in China and then label it as made in the USA, with Caveat Emptor for the buyer, would it also be ok to blatantly lie about what's in food products? Or say a car has an airbag when it doesn't? It would seem the govt should have bigger things to worry about, but I don't see why "made in the USA" shouldn't mean made in the USA.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #11 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 11:39 pm »

I agree- if you're gonna lie about your cables, at least have the courtesy to lie about the things cable makers usually lie about (ie the sound & performance, plus the Paradigm Shattering Technology they utilize). If you label a country of origin, that label better not be false. That's fraud, pure & simple.

That wouldn't be quite as bad as lying on food labels, where the lie could kill a lot of people (eg, not disclosing the presence of peanuts or tree nuts- as little as one nut or even less can cause fatal allergic reactions, and often does).

dado5 · « **Reply #12 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 03:20 am »

Much ado about nothing.

This is just the DOJ/DOL out for some publicity by finding an easy mark in a purveyor of what most Americans would consider to be frivolous luxury goods. They clearly are not protecting Mr. J. Sixpack or J.Q. Public (the intended audience of their little drama), because they would never buy this stuff. For the folks who do buy these wires "made in America" has almost no impact. Made with silver or Teflon does, but made in the USA just don't enter into it.

Tara was trying to guild its marketing lily to get that little step up on that other Oregonian cable maker and other competitors. If I were them, I'd fire whoever was giving the marketing advice. Personally I think labels that said "Cyro treated field-canceling quad-heilx non-resonant" would have moved more inventory.

Rob

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #13 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 03:29 am »

Lots of people buy American when they can. At any rate, fraud is fraud any way you look at it. You may personally not care, but that doesn't change the facts.

NOTE: I don't care much where my cables are made, personally. I think they make cool cables, but I'd never spend very much for any cable. YMMV, obviously.

nathanm · « **Reply #14 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 03:49 am »

Now if "puffery" were a crime, cripes, half the industry would be in the clinker!

There wouldn't be enough FBI agents around to make the arrests!

markC · « **Reply #15 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 04:04 am »

Speaking of Klink..."Take This Man To The Cooler" !

dado5 · « **Reply #16 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 04:22 am »

I would argue that it is not fraud. After all, they did put the sticker on here in the States. The point is that "made in the USA” is nonsense anyway. Any distinction of where a product is made is ultimately arbitrary. The general concept of the final stage of consumer good assembly occurring inside the US is vague and open to any number of interpretations. Not to mention it does not tell us where a product is 'made'. In reality any given good is produced from processes and materials around the globe, each equally essential to the final product. So these cables are just as much made in Peru (copper), UAE (petroleum), Aruba (refinement), South Korea (plastics), Germany (wire looms) as they are in the US (or China if you agree with the Feds). Leonard Reed's "I, Pencil" is a great illustration of this.

IMO, Tara is guilty of little more than shortsighted marketing. The real fraud here is with the Feds for making a crime out of an economic myth and then selectively enforcing it. As is typical, they set up the pansy for the easy knock out and make sure the press is there to cover it. When we look outside of our audiophile world we see that Tara is only a big fish in a very small pond. Almost no one, on the American consumer scale of things, buys these cables. Why go after them? Why not GE or Viacom or Raytheon or Bechtel or AT&T? To state the obvious: because these guys have capital and the lawyers to spend it on.

Rob

[url]http://www.libertyhaven.com/thinkers/leonarderead/ipencil.html

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #17 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 04:28 am »

That smacks of bullshit to me, no offense meant. Slapping a sticker on something doesn't qualify as manufacturing a product under any definition anywhere. Whether their marketing is "shortsighted" is hardly relevant, nor is it in any way obvious.

You may not know what "made in America" means, and maybe I don't either, but someone in the 'biz should know. That tag may not mean a thing to you (well, actually it must not mean anything to Tara, either), but it does to some people. "Shortsightedness" aside, Tara must realize it has meaning to some demographic or they wouldn't have risked the wrath of the feds by including it.

That said, a trial will actually determine what, if anything, they're guilty of. They still have the legal presumption of innocence. I sincerely hope they have a different legal strategy than the ol' "everyone is doing it" defense. That one doesn't work very well.

DVV · « **Reply #18 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 06:46 am »

Quote from: Rob Babcock

...
You may not know what "made in America" means, and maybe I don't either, but someone in the 'biz should know. That tag may not mean a thing to you (well, actually it must not mean anything to Tara, either), but it does to some people. "Shortsightedness" asid ...

Rob, I think I mentioned this in the last discussion about Tara labs. According to the info given me by the US trade attache in the Belgrade US embassy, "Made in USA" requires that 51% or more of the final value of the product in manufacturing and/or assembling terms must be performed on US soil.

A very reasonable definition, if you ask me.

Cheers,
DVV

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #19 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 08:23 am »

I agree that seems reasonable. Perhaps I entered this whole conversation in the wrong frame of mind. Speaking strictly for myself, dishonesty is a pet peave of mine. I'm the guy who chased a guy 5 blocks across town when I discovered he left $300 at the ATM. I'm the guy who went back to the Western Union office when I realized they changed my $20 bill as a $100- I gave the extra $80 back. When people try to decide how white lie is or rationalize that others have lied worse, I just shake my head.

Why would any professional person carry on a lie for years? Ask Wayne of Boulder Cable if he's comfortable with "white lies" about his products. Or Robert of Ridge Street how much he's comfortable with with regards to misrepresenting his products [note: Robert thinks the Tara thing is much ado about nothing- I respect his opinion, but I'm concerned that they may have lied, not how badly they may have lied]. My guess is they'll tell you they live by their reputation. And there reps would take a major hit if it was ever shown that they materially dissembled about any facet of their business dealings.

End of rant. I still Tara makes cool cables, but if the evidence shows they lied, I'll never respect them as a company so long as they labor under the same management. Mabye I'm naive, but I still expect honesty from a business, and I value that above the product they produce.

Disclaimer: I'm from the Midwest. We still cling to Crazy Notions here.