New Esoteric P02 D02

You find nothing on the USA site beacuse the USA Esoteric staff, except for the service department, has been laid off. When I called in for some pre-sales information on the P-02/D-02, I was told that Tascam has taken over sales and marketing for Esoteric and all other CE in the USA. Then I dug a bit deeper by speaking with a freind in Japan, ...it seems that Esoteric Company is now only a small sales team to sell Esoteric into the Japanese market. The global Esoteric Company no longer exists. My friend currently works for another Japanese CE company so I guess that is how he found out? Sounds like what they did in the 1990s for the USA customer. Make a spash and then leave the market. Buyer beware.

Really? But they are very active in releasing new products, the company is very active. More than ever I would say.

Do you mean that they closed the US branch of Esoteric? If so what are they planning, going partnership with a local importer?

In Europe they never had an Esoteric Company per se. They work through official importers by country, or set of countries. Their units get serviced if needed directly in Japan. This way of working here is very good. Service is great. Only downside are the long waitings from and to Japan, although never needed service in my case in all the Esoteric i owned in the past. Once I ask for a new P03 to compare the spinning noise of the transport and they sent me a new unit. Had both at home to keep the lowest noise one. The service still the same up to date in Europe.

I guess they are cost coting in distribution or something... Giving up the importer margin but fixing the costs of servicing the market there, no? In any case, sorry to hear.

Eli, at RMAF in Denver Esoteric was live.... and doing very well, I should say. Tim Crable is the new Esoteric US sales and marketing manager. Tim was previously manager of technical services, and is incredibly qualified to head Esoteric sales and marketing.... He has deep technical and user knowledge of the product line, is extremely respected by consumers and dealers... and has a true flair for getting visitors excited about Esoteric at shows.

It is not particularly relevant whether Esoteric continues to operate as an independently run division of TEAC, or only as a brand within the TEAC umbrella. From the wealth of TEAC/Esoteric products being featured at RMAF, and the general public excitement at the show, I could see no evidence of the Esoteric brand and products going away any time soon. G.

Guideo,

Have you looked at TEAC's financials lately? They are losing big bucks. I have also heard that Tsuda and Ohmachi, the heart and soul of Esoteric worldwide are now retired and were never replaced. Tascam Japan and Tascam USA run all CE and all Esoteric now. My freind in Japan told me they laid off over 140 people in the Japan and USA operations combined, maybe more. I was told the remaining R&D guys now report in to Tascam management. Tim Crable is an OK guy but he is really a service manager they recently "dumped" Esoteric on. There are major doubts, even as far as Japan, if they will stay in the USA, maybe get sold, etc. Their stock in Japan has fallen from 51 yen in one year to about 25 yen. So, 50% of it's valus is gone in a year. Check out their declining chart value at: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=6803:JP. Like we all agree the products to date are great but for the future, I still say buyer beware. (My friend works at Luxman so he is in a good position to know).

If you type in "TEAC Japan Stock Value" into Google search it will come up with the information I mentioned from your choice of Business Week, Bloomberg and the Tokyo stock exchange. Business Week and Bloomberg even let you switch between English and Japanese and you can directly select their financials from tabs. For their last fiscal year end they lost about $17 million dollars. Rumor mill says Panasonic looked at an aquisition but then decided it is not worth it. I still own and love Esoteric but my friend at Luxman tells me after the P02, D02 and K series, they will only update their DACs. No other new hardware planned. Some of their DACs are still 16-48 and 24-96.