Totem The One vs. Usher "Tiny Dancer" Be 718

Gundam91: Uh-oh. People like Stehno will be blasting you for bashing NuFarce, the best electronics ever.

Anyway, it's really foolish to show gear at events that draw hundreds of dealers and audiophiles and not spend the extra effort to ensure that your gear sounds as good as possible. This hurts Usher and its U.S. distributors. I continue to be impressed by companies like Totem. Thanks.

9rw, Stehno can blast me all he wants. One of the guys at NuForce is a friend of mine. I think they make good products. But in this case, there was no synergy between the two products, or it could be with something else in the system. Just reporting what I heard.

FrankC

I'm amazed at the assertions bloggers make regarding companies and organizations they know nothing about, besides hearsay.

So, let me set the facts straight.

Regarding showrooms at CES, the U.S. distributor, MusikMatters, has nothing to do with room setup. Usher/Taipei sponsors the CES show and handles in room equipment choices and system setup in the two Venetian Conference Hall rooms. There is one additional Usher room in the Venetian Tower that is done jointly with Oracle Audio. This room is equipped and set up by the MusikMatters and Oracle manufacturer's rep..

The RMAF rooms are set up by the Oracle/MusikMatters rep with the addition of Exemplar Audio and Audio Design and Marketing in the main Lupine demonstration room for 2008.

Usher being mentioned as a small, and I guess (guaging by tone), naive company, is also a misnomer. By "audiophile" product standards, Usher is a very substantial company with revenues between 15 and 20 Million annually. They are the largest audio retailer in Taiwan with 10 locations, and have just expanded their manufacturing capacity with the addition of a new 10 million dollar facility in TaiChung. Believe me, Usher is not at the mercy of its U.S. distributor MusikMatters. Musikmatters gives Usher/Taipei input and suggestions and sometimes they use them and sometimes they don't.

The assertion, "most of the distributors and importers are more focused on selling stuff and making money..." is funny and ironic. My contention is that if more audio companies concentrated less on being audiophiles and more on running their businesses there would be more successful companies. It goes without saying that you need a great product to build a successful company.

Stan Tracht
Partner
MusikMatters, Inc.

"My contention is that if more audio companies concentrated less on being audiophiles and more on running their businesses there would be more successful companies. It goes without saying that you need a great product to build a successful company."

I think Bose would prove you right on the first point, but not on the second.

Stan: It's not really clear what you're saying. Based on the reports of the bad sound in the Usher room, perhaps Usher needed to concentrate more on being audiophiles -- and making sure its speakers sounded as good as possible. Without that, it will not be a successful -- except in the case cited by Soix.

Regardless, what do you think accounted for the bad sound reported? I would think that MusikMatters and Usher/Taipei would make sure that at an event as widely attended as the CES that everything would be set up correctly.