Upscale Audio is up front with customers

I think Upscale is fine, and I appreciate their tube burn-in services. I’ve bought several dozens of power tubes from them over 15 years, and never had a dud.

But as far as Kevin being a "friend in the business" and "upfront"? Hah! Only as far as it doesn’t impede profits. Which is fine - he’s running a business. It’s neutral; neither good nor bad.

With the whole Tannoy kerfuffle - I feel like he was only forthcoming after the fact, when it was well & clear he had to move on from being their dealer. There’s no way he took those shipments and didn’t see they were NOT being manufactured in Scotland, well ahead of when this was actually disclosed. Then all of a sudden "hey we have these crappy B-stock models at a discount" (not even much of a discount).

Again, its his perogative to run the business as he likes, and he’s clearly very successful at it. But being praiseworthy, beyond business acumen and salesmanship? Nah.

@mulveling ... always appreciate your posts; one of the few that I read every word ... thanks

Thank you @blackbag20 , your kind words are much appreciated :)

My comment related to the video in the OP -- I assume you watched it. It is him directly telling customers about tariffs and their impact. He handled it in an upfront way and I think that’s plain.

@hilde45 I did watch the video, and I’m not sure why you chose this one for a virtual high-five to Kevin. Tariffs and price increases have been the hot topic for weeks, months - this is literally the furthest thing from "insider info". This is more like "it’s obvious, man!". New gear prices have been going up every year for a while now, anyways.

I DO like the way Kevin presents in most videos. The Raven drama was fun to watch. He was a good advocate for Tannoy for a while. I do generally like him, but I’m not drinking his Kool-aid full tilt. It's a bit strange to me that you want to advocate here without being an actual customer??

@hilde45

Same - sorry I came off as salty! There’s no accounting for some of my mood swings :)

I’m curious as to when Kevin stopped being a Tannoy dealer.

I don’t know the full story, probably few do, but there were rumors Tannoy was sort of "poached" from him. IIRC it was shortly after Upscale split out "Harmonia Distribution" for that side of things - so perhaps that rocked the boat just enough for this to happen. Anyways, it was some sort of drama, and not worth digging into further than that. Upscale ended up getting Fyne, which was probably the better move for them anyways.

Tannoy is now in a precarious position - it’s always been a hard sell into the hifi market, but they had a vehement and loyal fanbase (as evidenced by Kevin, me, etc). And now they’ve pissed off most of that core base by moving all manufacturing to China (thanks to Behringer). That said, I still hold out hope they can make good products this way. I’d be curious to hear the new Autograph 12, if it ever finally comes out.

I only ask because it was known as far back as some 20 years that all of Tannoy’s high end speaker cabinets were made and finished in China. That was around the time I went to TEAC headquarters out in Commerce, Ca. to pick up a TEAC CD player. The US rep for TEAC/Esoteric took me on a tour of the place and demo’d it for me. That’s when he told me about Tannoy.

That would be news to me, and many others. I’ve got several Tannoy speakers here with "MADE and designed in the UK" stickers slapped all over their cabinets and boxes. Some really nice quality cabinets, too. It’s known that they started farming out the lower-level lines to China a while ago. But higher-end lines (Prestige models, except for the Auto mini) were supposed to have drivers and assembly made in Scotland until recently (2020-ish). The cabinets themselves are another point of contention - I’ve heard it claimed these have long been made in Poland, not Scotland.

2000s is when I think they started shifting lower lines to China (well before Behringer). Look specifically at the early 2000s Eyris DC line (wonderful speakers), "Made in UK" all over them - after this line is when they likely started transitioning that level over to China.

don’t even worry about your perceived "salty mood". I have learned so much from your posts. Any discussion that includes your 2 cents of knowledge is gold in my book. You are a great presence in these threads.

@judsauce  Thank you too, very kind :)

The cabinetry was done at Tannoy but they were shipped to China for finishing as it could be done cheaper and better there.

@nonoise Interesting! Thanks for that info. I can’t complain about the results, either way. But it’s wild to imagine that it was cost effective to ship these speakers an extra trip around the globe, even back then.

Because Fyne appears to be cheaper and just as good?

@grislybutter As someone who has pined after and purchased Tannoys for a long time - Fynes actually appear more expensive to me (for comparable models). And what are they thinking with the driver trim on Fynes? Tannoy's drivers look so much more sexy