Hi Antun
Yes one of the issues we have always faced is as an industry how do we get more people into quality audio and in this case into our brand.
One of the ideas I had was the BAWD product as I see it as a way to entice customers starting out with a quality unit at a price point most can afford?
best
james
Hi James!
Yes, absolutely! Like in any industry, it is difficult attracting new customers/clients without losing your identity and 'doing what everyone else does'.
Different companies utilise different business strategies. One of the them is to create a new line of cheaper products under a different brand name, to avoid 'cheapning' the main brand. In such scenarios, the marketing is still based around the 'main' brand. That endeavor however is an expensive one.
However, you mentioned the merging with a manufacturing company (I forgot the name, sorry), but perhaps having access to advanced SMT machinery might speed up the process of design and manufacturing. Bryston could also design and manufacture components and/or entire devices for other companies. It has been doing that for years but now it could be more efficient. Not many people are aware of this but very few HIFI companies have the ability to design and manufacture their own PCBs and populate them with all the necessary components. So, this 'access' gives Bryston an edge. This, I think, is a safer business as the flow of money is likely more constant than to depend strictly on manufacturing your own products.
One area Bryston could expand it's portfolio into are active monitoring solutions for studios. It's clear that the days of amplifiers and passive speakers are coming to an end (not that I welcome it). Bryston is a specialist in amplifier tech and obviously quite capable in speaker design as well. I don't know how that would incluence Bryston's relationship in UK, PMC being a distributor and all of that, but I have been disappointed far too many times with the quality of monitoring in most sutdios. In the pro segment, approaching high-profile mixing and mastering engineers, especially in mainstream musical genres, might prove an effective tactics to reach out to new clients. The generous warranty period would be pretty much a total shocker in this segment of market. With that, monitor controllers (a fancy word for a preamp) could become a part of that portfolio etc.
Cheers!
Antun