Bigger manufacturers v smaller manufacturers

[hybridauth_Facebook_664715932]

Hi all & happy diwali (hindu festivel of light)

We all hear sound differently so the subject of this topic is not about SQ but more of under the hood stuff, build quality, etc.

who can afford to give us more in terms of value for money ,is it?

bigger guys like yamaha ,CA , marantz, rotel, arcam etc or smaller guys such as Creek, sugden, vincent, abrahamsen, etc.

 

[matthewpiano]

I think Cambridge are hard to beat in this respect, with Yamaha, Marantz and Onkyo very close by.

 

[Blacksabbath25]

Hi all & happy diwali (hindu festivel of light)

We all hear sound differently so the subject of this topic is not about SQ but more of under the hood stuff, build quality, etc.

who can afford to give us more in terms of value for money ,is it?

bigger guys like yamaha ,CA , marantz, rotel, arcam etc or smaller guys such as Creek, sugden, vincent, abrahamsen, etc.

for me I would say I like the big guys like Yamaha ,marantz and so on they have been about a long time they make good quality hi fi that's well refined and lasts and would say they would have more money to research new stuff with then the smaller companies do and you end up with a quality product that's well made all so they make amps , CD players that most people can afford to buy on the street I like that hi fi for every pocket

 

[iQ Speakers]

Cambridge are good at features and software ie streamers. As for the sound quality of amps I think think the smaller brands offer a far better sound, certainly Abrahamsen.

 

[chebby]

... the smaller brands offer a far better sound, certainly Abrahamsen.

That suprised me.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_664715932]

... the smaller brands offer a far better sound, certainly Abrahamsen.

That suprised me.

that surprised me too, lol

 

[Blacksabbath25]

... the smaller brands offer a far better sound, certainly Abrahamsen.

That suprised me.

that surprised me too, lol

you watch lol abrahamsen this abrahamsen that and so on lol

 

[CnoEvil]

I suppose it brings into question whether you assess "value" by how many features a product has, or how shiny its knobs are. This debate has been going on ever since I have been into Hifi, which has been nearly 40 years.

 

[iQ Speakers]

Well you did ask! The Vincent Is also good.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_664715932]

Well you did ask! The Vincent Is also good.

yes, i can see those Japanese capacitor.

I find under the hood stuff of Tucana 2 and yamaha a s3000 very very impressive

 

[iceman16]

Well you did ask! The Vincent Is also good.

and this one

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_664715932]

Creek evo 50a

yamaha a s3000

tucana 2

 

[Jota180]

It's a romantic notion that the plucky small manufacturers are all better than the huge manufacturer. Companies like Yamaha, Sony, Pioneer, Marantz etc have the resources to hire the best engineers and scale of operation to buy components far cheaper than companies dealing in smaller numbers. The resulting kit can be sold cheaper too so all things being equal the big guys can sell similar specced things cheaper. The patent count of a company like Sony must be mind bogglingly huge. Some lead us into a new world, others follow and the big corps have certainly done more than their fair share of leading.

Where the big guys can go wrong is trying to cover every single base and can spread themselves too thin but I wouldn't doubt they're more than capable of producing top quality kit.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_664715932]

It's a romantic notion that the plucky small manufacturers are all better than the huge manufacturer. Companies like Yamaha, Sony, Pioneer, Marantz etc have the resources to hire the best engineers and scale of operation to buy components far cheaper than companies dealing in smaller numbers. The resulting kit can be sold cheaper too so all things being equal the big guys can sell similar specced things cheaper. The patent count of a company like Sony must be mind bogglingly huge. Some lead us into a new world, others follow and the big corps have certainly done more than their fair share of leading.

Where the big guys can go wrong is trying to cover every single base and can spread themselves too thin but I wouldn't doubt they're more than capable of producing top quality kit.

fair comment and a very contribution to the topic.

 

[chris_bates1974]

Don't forget that with the big boys, you are paying for their massive staffing costs, distribution costs (often worldwide), marketing costs and theirs and dealers margins.... I'm sure there's other stuff too... But with the smaller guys quite a bit of this is removed, but you areaying for a product that is probably a little more "bespoke".

Or at least that's how it seems to me!!!

 

[ID.]

In theory the bigger companies should be able to provide better value due to economies of scale, but in reality there are many factors that could change this, and that's without even going into customer perceptions of quality and value that are only loosely linked to actual value.

 

[Al ears]

Well you did ask! The Vincent Is also good.

and this one

This is porn, and you know it! Kindly refrain from posting pictures of naked amplifiers.

 

[Al ears]

Well you did ask! The Vincent Is also good.

and this one

Double post for some reason, sorry.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Don't forget that with the big boys, you are paying for their massive staffing costs, distribution costs (often worldwide), marketing costs and theirs and dealers margins.... I'm sure there's other stuff too... But with the smaller guys quite a bit of this is removed, but you areaying for a product that is probably a little more "bespoke".

Or at least that's how it seems to me!!!

Not necessarily. Whilst the big boys do have far more people working for them, so higher running costs in that respect, they do sell far more kit on a global scale, so to say that a big chunk of the cost of the big manufacturer's kit is wages, I disagree. The larger manufacturers tend to design products for a global market, which is why you don't generally see DAB radios in receivers for example. Smaller manufacturers tend to be more niche and can provide for specific areas or needs.

 

[drummerman]

It's a romantic notion that the plucky small manufacturers are all better than the huge manufacturer. Companies like Yamaha, Sony, Pioneer, Marantz etc have the resources to hire the best engineers and scale of operation to buy components far cheaper than companies dealing in smaller numbers. The resulting kit can be sold cheaper too so all things being equal the big guys can sell similar specced things cheaper. The patent count of a company like Sony must be mind bogglingly huge. Some lead us into a new world, others follow and the big corps have certainly done more than their fair share of leading.

Where the big guys can go wrong is trying to cover every single base and can spread themselves too thin but I wouldn't doubt they're more than capable of producing top quality kit.

According to Andrew Everard it is Devialet of France that has, over the last three years or so, attracted and systematically hunted down some of the leading audio engineers (and by the look of it, designers too).

I don't think that for example Sony's Audio Division (to name only one) is blessed with endless resources and buying power, that is not to take anything away from the company. I am sure they work to tight budgets too and their Audio products are probably selling in far lesser numbers these days (as opposed to twenty years ago) than even some perceived small companies that exclusively deal in hifi and have specialized so ... cyrus, rega, naim etc. . Looking at some of their (Sony) latest high end items, from speakers to amplifiers, they are not exactly cheap or offer anything that others, smaller manufacturers included, don't.

If you are talking about AV and TV's, that is probably another story.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_664715932]

According to Andrew Everard it is Devialet of France that has, over the last three years or so, attracted and systematically hunted down some of the leading audio engineers (and by the look of it, designers too).

I was wondering why they were so expensive.

do they sound as good as they look?

 

[drummerman]

According to Andrew Everard it is Devialet of France that has, over the last three years or so, attracted and systematically hunted down some of the leading audio engineers (and by the look of it, designers too).

I was wondering why they were so expensive.

do they sound as good as they look?

No idea but they generally only get very good reviews. PaulMiller uses some in his reference system too.

There are some lucky users on here.

Being unneccesseraly pedantic ... I don't like the shiny look.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_664715932]

According to Andrew Everard it is Devialet of France that has, over the last three years or so, attracted and systematically hunted down some of the leading audio engineers (and by the look of it, designers too).

I was wondering why they were so expensive.

do they sound as good as they look?

No idea but they generally only get very good reviews. PaulMiller uses some in his reference system too.

There are some lucky users on here.

Being unneccesseraly pedantic ... I don't like the shiny look.

you have shiny hair

 

[radiorog]

Larger companies can probably source components cheaper, but larger staffing numbers requires tens of millions in the bank to insure against things like mass redundancy, to name but one cost. So larger companies need to MAKE MONEY, smaller companies might just want to make HiFi.??

 

[Blacksabbath25]

The smaller companies still have staff to pay , rates , cost of martials, water, electricity,rent , advertising and so on just like the big boys do just that there staffing is a lot smaller that's all . Still making the same kind of things the big boys are making but at a much smaller scale that's all . I bet some of the components are just the same as the big boys use as some of this components are made in places like China . I bet the only thing that's made in this country is the case work and then paying staff to put the components in that's it . Do not get me wrong I think it's good that the uk still make things like hi fi but look at arcam based at Cambridge near ware I come from they do make some good stuff but I think they made better amps ,cd players in the 1990s but see they have moved some of there business abroad now which my opinion is that there amps and CD players are not so good as they used to be but this is only my option on this matter