gofar99 Messages: 1949 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi All, I nearly passed on this reply... But couldn't. I figure we fit into the small company slot. It would be nice to get some sales from the Fest, but not essential. A lot of our business is by word of mouth so exposure is as valuable as sales. For me personally, as long as we don't go broke and have to sell out, I'm happy. I'm a diy designer/builder at heart.
I can certainly see why any system costing over 10K would be a turn off. To be honest my personal system would retail for more than that. Even audiophiles need to eat. With our tube line of gear, it is hard to convince someone that an amplifier that delivers 10-20% of the power and has distortion figures 5-10 times worse is really worth paying 5 times more than a SS one from a big box store. A big part of the reason we (Oddwatt Audio) do kits is they are less costly to do in the relatively small quantities we market. Pretty much anyone who knows which end of the soldering iron gets hot can put one together in a matter of hours. Since we started as diy folk, kits seemed to be a way to make it possible for others to get excellent sound without breaking the bank. One of our goals is to make it possible for a budding audiophile to experience tube sound at something reasonable in cost. I'm looking forward to the LSAF as an opportunity to both show off and see what else is around.