And now it's Castle making a comeback

[James105]

They used to be really well respected back in the day, I had a pair of Durham 900's. beautiful in both sound and looks, they're in my mothers front room right now.
I had a NAD 114 and 2x912 power amps mono blocks or stereo,and they had bi wire/amp terminals.
I spent alot of time switching and switching, but thats another can of worms.
I'm glad to see them back even if the price 15x what my 900's cost

 

[matthewpianist]

Is this a bad thing? VAG uses the same platforms for numerous cars across the brands. Thus a Seat Leon is a VW Gold is an Audi A3. Audi is a premium brand but cheaper than Mercedes as it is a Golf in a posh frock. Nowt wrong with that, Mercedes ain’t cheap. VAG can spread development costs over multiple brands, we all win.

If boutique hifi brands get swallowed up, they can share infrastructure and technology to produce better products. I’ve had numerous electronic brands from +/- boutique brands fail soon after the warranty expires: Arcam Solo Movie, Chord Mojo, Audeze Sine. My Japanese big name company products are bomb proof, as are my Sennheiser headphones.

I don't disagree. I've had 2 Skoda Fabias, 2 Seat Ibizas and a VW Polo (basically all the same car). My sister is on her 3rd Ibiza, Dad is on his 5th VW-Group Skoda - a Scala, which is essentially an A3. Across all those cars we've experienced top-notch reliability, and wherever you look below the surface all the parts are branded as VW Audi. I used to work at a VW dealership and I know quite a bit of what goes into these cars.

I've got nothing against big companies, I just think there's always that danger of losing some of the character. VW brands have started to do that, and although IAG are very good at visual differentiation between their various brands my experience is that the sound isn't dramatically different, and I find little in the sound presentation to remind me of how the brands once were. I had the QUAD Artera Play and Artera Stereo, and although very capable and beautifully made, they share nothing in common with the sound of older QUAD gear.