I have fantastic speakers HPS-938 from Hyperion Sound - company that went bankrupt few years ago. They had fantastic, innovative product that won may awards 8 years in a row, but running a business is very different from engineering the product. They lacked marketing and dealer base. Closest dealer to Chicago was in Pennsylvania. Customer support wasn't there either. I called with technical question and was not able to pass receptionist, most likely instructed to dismiss all calls. I would like to keep these fantastic speakers for a long time but sooner or later they might require service. Would I buy again a "giant killer" from small company? Not likely.
Why speaker lines come and go
Here's some Monday musings:
The old LAD Starlet amplifier came to mind the other day - the one heavily advertised and reviewed in Stereophile about a decade ago or so.
http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/310/
I never owned one, but it seemed like an aesthetically pleasing, well designed piece. I looked it up over the weekend and of course couldn't find it anywhere, though I did discover that perhaps Von Gaylord had bought out LAD some years ago?
That made me think of Escalante speakers that were, like Talon speakers, out of Utah. Talon is now based in Iowa and is owned by Rives Audio, a company specializing in room treatments and acoustics. Escalante's also gone, their website static since 2009, although their Pinon or Fremont speakers will pop up on audiogon occasionally. I read on one of the forum topics here on agon that perhaps a bad review from Sam Tellig may have contributed to Escalante's dissipation, though I have no idea if that's true or not.
So my question is, more or less, what causes speakers (or other components) to come and go? Is it a matter of quality? Of market saturation in their price point? Of marketing? Why do some lines like Avalon or PSB or MacIntosh last forever while others splash around a bit, then sink beneath the sine waves? Could bad publicity in Stereophile or TAS single-handedly sink a brand?
There's an interesting site here:
http://audiotools.com/dead.html
about dead and defunct audio companies, but I'm curious as to what you all think.
regards,
simao
The old LAD Starlet amplifier came to mind the other day - the one heavily advertised and reviewed in Stereophile about a decade ago or so.
http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/310/
I never owned one, but it seemed like an aesthetically pleasing, well designed piece. I looked it up over the weekend and of course couldn't find it anywhere, though I did discover that perhaps Von Gaylord had bought out LAD some years ago?
That made me think of Escalante speakers that were, like Talon speakers, out of Utah. Talon is now based in Iowa and is owned by Rives Audio, a company specializing in room treatments and acoustics. Escalante's also gone, their website static since 2009, although their Pinon or Fremont speakers will pop up on audiogon occasionally. I read on one of the forum topics here on agon that perhaps a bad review from Sam Tellig may have contributed to Escalante's dissipation, though I have no idea if that's true or not.
So my question is, more or less, what causes speakers (or other components) to come and go? Is it a matter of quality? Of market saturation in their price point? Of marketing? Why do some lines like Avalon or PSB or MacIntosh last forever while others splash around a bit, then sink beneath the sine waves? Could bad publicity in Stereophile or TAS single-handedly sink a brand?
There's an interesting site here:
http://audiotools.com/dead.html
about dead and defunct audio companies, but I'm curious as to what you all think.
regards,
simao