New owners

[Barry]

   This is a funny place to begin a “vent” on AV, but I hope it makes a point. There was a very popular restaurant in my neighborhood that opened in 1955. It had huge lines every morning for breakfast and every evening for dinner and it was one of my most favorite places to eat when I moved here. The owners, or parents of one of my neighbors, so I heard the inside story. 45 years after they opened they wanted to retire and they sold their business. They work with the new owners for a couple of months and told them what worked what didn’t and how much people enjoyed the little things. That man fresh bread, fresh rolls, fresh jelly and great gravies. The new owners immediately changed the style of the restaurant to look more like a German ale house, complete with waitresses in uniforms. They change the menu and everything and were out of business in 18 months. I wondered then why would anyone take over a successful business and so radically change it.
 
I was an owner of Mark Levinson equipment and that’s exactly what Harmon Karman did when they bought the company. They close down the Levinson manufacturing plant, fired the engineers, shut down the repair depot and try to do everything out of there existing facilities. It didn’t work.
 
I had Thiel speakers. They were very good mid range speakers that look terrific. When Mr. Thiel passed new owners came in and gutted everything. You wonder why they bought it.
 
Sadly, I had the same thing with Krell. I bought there 707 processor feeling that they would be around forever and they would update things like Levinson had. It’s a long story that most of you know but D’Agostino leveraged the company to an Asian concern, started his own new company, divorced his wife and left her Krell, and had the Asian company take over. They were more interested in making car radios and they were high-end stereos and the company deteriorated greatly. Sigh, they no longer make their own products and their 4K switcher didn’t work. My unit went back to them five times. But they never updated their software either because all their engineers had left. And exec at the company says that they will no longer make their own products but they will be importing them from Asia, as they did with their 4K switcher.
Again why would anyone, any company, by another company that they wish to gut and change radically?
 

[Barry]

       Let me put in one of the funniest incidents I had buying a piece of equipment. About 2006 Blu-ray was coming to home-video. Also were Dolby true audio and DTS Master sound and 3D. I wanted to upgrade. So months in advance I made an appointment with “Sound By Singer” in Manhattan. Manhattan is a place no one should go to unprepared.
 
When we got there Mr. Singer did not have the Krell unit up and running. Also he said that the new sound, new 1080P video and 3D were not yet put in this model, but would be soon. I had no need to get it at this time because it did not offer me anything new. Mr. Singer then wanted to show us a DVD player that upscaled to 1080p, which was rare at the time. We didn’t want that either because we wanted to get a Blu-ray player when that came out.
 
So we thank them and headed for the door. Which he blocked. Honest to gosh, he would not let us out unless we physically push them out of the way. When we walked back to the showroom he came with us but every time we went to the door, and it was five times, he stepped in front and blocked it. He kept telling us how important it was to order the Krell, that it was back to ordered, that thousands of people will be wanting it.
 
So here is how we made our getaway. We actually told him we would buy the Krell and he went over to write up the purchases. We then said that we had to think about the DVD player because we hadn’t planned for it financially. We casually mentioned that we would go to lunch and come back and give our decision on that. So as he was writing we darted for the door, left, and never came back. I must’ve gotten then 10 phone calls.
 
I did buy the Krell but at another dealer and only after the new stuff was put in

[David Vaughn]

You should write a book about your shopping experiences. Netflix could adapt it into a huge moneymaker! Call it something like "Barry's Adventures."

[tripplej]

Thanks Barry and yes, a netflix original called "Barry's hifi misadventures!"

lol

[TRainH2O]

You should write a book about your shopping experiences. Netflix could adapt it into a huge moneymaker! Call it something like "Barry's Adventures."

No doubt. Barry has some of the most entertaining AV stories, in a totally disturbing kind of way. :

[David Vaughn]

Thanks Barry and yes, a netflix original called "Barry's hifi misadventures!"

lol

Now that's the name!