Independent audio companies

[nebraskabob]

We all know the big names and usual suspects within the audio world, but I'm always keen to root for the underdog. As a result, it's my dream to build my system around products made by small, local, artisan audio companies. Like small set ups in any industry, it's my belief that what these firms lack in marketing budgets is made up for with genuine passion and a desire to provide absolute quality.

I just wanted to put the feelers out and get some opinions and comparisons on the tadpoles outgunning the koi carp in the big audio pond. Anyone got any hidden gems or next big things they want to share?

To get the ball rolling, my favourite small audio company is Ophidian Audio - a one-man band designing and producing top-notch speakers from a small workshop in Merseyside. I got to listen to some of their speakers at last years Sound & Vision and I was blown away by the sound of the Minimo range they produce. Their Prophet P2 floorstanders also impressed me massively.

 

[Al ears]

We all know the big names and usual suspects within the audio world, but I'm always keen to root for the underdog. As a result, it's my dream to build my system around products made by small, local, artisan audio companies. Like small set ups in any industry, it's my belief that what these firms lack in marketing budgets is made up for with genuine passion and a desire to provide absolute quality.

I just wanted to put the feelers out and get some opinions and comparisons on the tadpoles outgunning the koi carp in the big audio pond. Anyone got any hidden gems or next big things they want to share?

To get the ball rolling, my favourite small audio company is Ophidian Audio - a one-man band designing and producing top-notch speakers from a small workshop in Merseyside. I got to listen to some of their speakers at last years Sound & Vision and I was blown away by the sound of the Minimo range they produce. Their Prophet P2 floorstanders also impressed me massively.

That didn't exactly get a stunning review in the latest HiFi+ magazine.

Haven't heard them myself though, and that's half the problem for the small boys.

You have to be careful with posts like these or those NVA chappies will be along in a minute.

 

[jonathanRD]

You have to be careful with posts like these or those NVA chappies will be along in a minute.

And a few others I can think of - no offence to nebraskabob, but this has the potential to be a spectacular car crash *yes3*

 

[Al ears]

You have to be careful with posts like these or those NVA chappies will be along in a minute.

And a few others I can think of - no offence to nebraskabob, but this has the potential to be a spectacular car crash *yes3*

Quite so. I also meant no offence but know what this forum can get like.

I am an ardent supporter of the 'little man', my amplification is made by a small firm just down the road so to speak.

Others that I have been involved with are Origin Live, the American Schiit Audio, and the defunct EB Acoustics. There are of course many more that should be applauded and enjoyed. All too often the usual culprits are reviewed for 5 star treatment but that's always going to be the way when the smaller outfits do not tend to send out samples for reviews.

The so called 'underdogs' have a hard road to travel between pricing themselves out of the market and becoming so popular they cannot sustain the required turnover.

 

[shadders]

Hi,

Isn't that the problem with hifi forums - mixed signals.

1. The complaint from small manufacturers is that the magazines only give 5 stars or favourable reviews to those who advertise with them.

2. People who champion their purchased equipment are perceived to be a pain as whenever a suggestion is requested for a new equipment purchase, they always suggest their own.

3. Some manufacturers actively defame other designs, so if you are a small company, or single person manufacturing equipment, you have to contend with bad behaviour.

4. There are some people on this forum who have started up from nothing, and seem to be progressing ok.

5. Can a person starting their own business be a success or make a living from small volumes, given the arguments or bad behaviour of others.

I had thought of starting my own business by producing an amplifier, but from scanning the forums, there is a fair degree of animosity and clique / tribal behaviour, which seems to thoroughly put one off from even trying.

Do you have to advertise to get a good review?

If there was a loan scheme in place, which could assist the small business, what about the recent review of NVA equipment? It only takes a few of those type of responses to effectively kill the product. There was nothing positive in the review, so if the review was purposefully bad, why?, and as stated before, are there cliques in operation?

Regards,

Shadders.

 

[Al ears]

Hi,

Isn't that the problem with hifi forums - mixed signals.

1. The complaint from small manufacturers is that the magazines only give 5 stars or favourable reviews to those who advertise with them.

2. People who champion their purchased equipment are perceived to be a pain as whenever a suggestion is requested for a new equipment purchase, they always suggest their own.

3. Some manufacturers actively defame other designs, so if you are a small company, or single person manufacturing equipment, you have to contend with bad behaviour.

4. There are some people on this forum who have started up from nothing, and seem to be progressing ok.

5. Can a person starting their own business be a success or make a living from small volumes, given the arguments or bad behaviour of others.

I had thought of starting my own business by producing an amplifier, but from scanning the forums, there is a fair degree of animosity and clique / tribal behaviour, which seems to thoroughly put one off from even trying.

Do you have to advertise to get a good review?

If there was a loan scheme in place, which could assist the small business, what about the recent review of NVA equipment? It only takes a few of those type of responses to effectively kill the product. There was nothing positive in the review, so if the review was purposefully bad, why?, and as stated before, are there cliques in operation?

Regards,

Shadders.

I very much doubt the little tiff / bad review regards a certain company is likely to damage its future ( although you might not think so judging by the performance of it's owner) as It has been going since 1982.

To do any significant damage you would need a series of bad reviews from those in the profession / magazine critics rather than someone on a small forum such as this.

 

[DIB]

I definitely have no intention of getting involved in all this ongoing NVA nonsense, but all I will say is that they do produce exceedingly fine amps.

.

 

[andyjm]

I definitely have no intention of getting involved in all this ongoing NVA nonsense, but all I will say is that they do produce exceedingly fine amps.

It is virtually impossible for a one man band to compete in anything but simple analogue amplifiers and loudspeakers using drivers built by others.

Even then, economies of scale mean that whatever is produced will be expensive.

The high software content in anything 'smart' (CD, streamer, DAC, receiver etc) mean that any realistic development is out of reach in this area.

Good luck to anyone who tries, but I certainly wouldn't hold out much hope for anyone going down this route.

 

[Mammy Nun]

You have to be careful with posts like these or those NVA chappies will be along in a minute.

(Cloth-Ears)

Correct.....

Try this nebraskabob.

http://www.nvahifi.co.uk

 

[jjbomber]

We all know the big names and usual suspects within the audio world, but I'm always keen to root for the underdog. As a result, it's my dream to build my system around products made by small, local, artisan audio companies.

REL subwoofers. Set up by Richard E Lord, a classically trained musician, who built his own speaker as he wanted a better sound for himself. The rest is history.

 

[Mammy Nun]

These are nice........

http://www.electricbeachaudio.com

 

[jmjones]

At the Northern HiFi show this year, I took a listen to the Kralk audio speakers with PAW base unit. The bass unit is built into the stand. I was very impressed by both the sound and novel concept. The price of the speakers has jumped by £100 over the last year though.

Take a look at the HiFiPig website for a review.

http://hifipig.com/kralk-audio-bc30-loudspeakers-and-paw-stand/

Small plug for the HiFiPig website - it lists reviews for the "usual contenders" but also seems to do a better job at listing items from smaller companies. Worth a look.

 

[Al ears]

You have to be careful with posts like these or those NVA chappies will be along in a minute. (Cloth-Ears)

Correct.....

Try this nebraskabob.

http://www.nvahifi.co.uk

I guess this might help when you listen to some systems, and it's cloth-eared by the way.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Good luck to anyone who tries, but I certainly wouldn't hold out much hope for anyone going down this route.

Everyone has to start somewhere, including companies that are now worldwide names.

 

[jmjones]

I certainly have some experience of buying a "pig in a poke" on the technology front.

I bought a Pinnacle Audio Folio (there's a review on this site somewhere), which at the time was a "start-up" company. It did exactly what I wanted at the time, cost a packet and was then superceded by things that cost a fraction of the price within two years. It's in the attic now. Unsurprisingly, the company making it went bust - not much service support.

On the other hand, the amplifiers and speakers I'm using have been in my possession since the 90's. Serviced a couple of times, still great performers, and can be kept running by independent specialists. More surprisingly, Tag McLaren went bust. I was beginning to see a pattern.

Buyer beware on the "front end" of players, etc., but there are many options on the speaker/amplifier arrangements.

 

[andyjm]

Good luck to anyone who tries, but I certainly wouldn't hold out much hope for anyone going down this route.

Everyone has to start somewhere, including companies that are now worldwide names.

Yes, but it was a different world when they started. When Julian Vereker started selling amps in the early 70s, multi layer circuit boards were a pipe dream, CAD auto-routing of PCBs science fiction and surface mount devices unheard of. One guy with a soldering iron could make a competitive product.

To my mind, the interesting new companies are not some guy trying to re-invent the transistor amplifier (again) in his basement, but the innovative companies like MiniDSP out of Hong Kong.

 

[manix]

I think the biggest problem and it has been described by the others on this thread is we have simply gone past the tipping point that a tiny 1 or 2, heck scratch that 10 man team can deliver electronic hi-fi gear that has either had the delevoplment, knowledge, manufacturing capability to compete against a reasonable manufacturer.

Speakers are no less of a problem. With the giants having teams on CAD & analyisis software you simply can't compete with just past knowledge, craftsmanship and guess work.

 

[Diamond Joe]

More surprisingly, Tag McLaren went bust. I was beginning to see a pattern

I thought McLaren just weren't making any money from this investment so they flogged it to IAG who resurrected the name Audiolab. McLaren certainly didn't go bust, they forgot how to make a Formula 1 car but they didn't go bust, although they do make some very nice road cars.

 

[jmjones]

That's right Joe, funnily enough I'd upgraded from Audiolab 2-channel to Tag McLaren, and one of the big selling points was it had a system remote. Then out came the new Audiolab kit.

 

[Macspur]

How about Boggit of this parish who is doing a sterling job with his IQ speakers and even more so with the Nord amps!

www.iqspeakers.co.uk

Mac

www.macsmusic.blogbubble.net

 

[jonathanRD]

One guy in a small workshop above Audio T in Cardiff.

http://nytechaudio.com/

I briefly heard the pre/power combination fed by a Rega Saturn-R and driving some Rega RX3's. Whilst the RX3's may not have done them justice, this combo did sound better than with any of the amps that I heard in the preceeding demo (Naim 5Si, Arcam A29, Rega Elex-r & Elicit-r). Mind you the toal cost for the combo is £2.5K.

 

[Al ears]

One guy in a small workshop above Audio T in Cardiff.

http://nytechaudio.com/

I briefly heard the pre/power combination fed by a Rega Saturn-R and driving some Rega RX3's. Whilst the RX3's may not have done them justice, this combo did sound better than with any of the amps that I heard in the preceeding demo (Naim 5Si, Arcam A29, Rega Elex-r & Elicit-r). Mind you the toal cost for the combo is £2.5K.

Crumbs, have they been rejuvenated? a mate of mine had one of their original amps in the late seventies. Good on that may, I'll have to investigate.

...I did, not exactly cheap but then again I wouldn't expect them to be and I guess you get what you pay for.

Let's see now £2.5k of lookalike Japanese mass production or a pretty unique made to order by one man home-grown setup.... hummm!

You can probably see from my signature which way I would go.

 

[jonathanRD]

One guy in a small workshop above Audio T in Cardiff.

http://nytechaudio.com/

I briefly heard the pre/power combination fed by a Rega Saturn-R and driving some Rega RX3's. Whilst the RX3's may not have done them justice, this combo did sound better than with any of the amps that I heard in the preceeding demo (Naim 5Si, Arcam A29, Rega Elex-r & Elicit-r). Mind you the toal cost for the combo is £2.5K.

Crumbs, have they been rejuvenated? a mate of mine had one of their original amps in the late seventies. Good on that may, I'll have to investigate.

...I did, not exactly cheap but then again I wouldn't expect them to be and I guess you get what you pay for.

Let's see now £2.5k of lookalike Japanese mass production or a pretty unique made to order by one man home-grown setup.... hummm!

You can probably see from my signature which way I would go.

At the end of my demo session, Gareth at Audio T was just itching to get me to listen to this combo. He said that they absolutely loved it!