small companies making today's best products

Mrtennis, thanks for taking note of the sound quality of (at least some) small companies.

We trade off economies of scale for the economy of direct marketing, and hope that we can build a better-enough mousetrap to generate some word-of-mouth to make up for our relative lack of advertising. The internet makes this feasible; it was much harder yesteryear because word-of-mouth didn't reach nearly as far. The price of entry into the market has come down.

But, this still doesn't answer the question of "why" a small company can build a product that excels in sound quality. My guess would be, in a small audio company, product development gets a lot of free "off the clock" engineering hours from its owner that would have to be paid for in a big company if done by an engineering department. This is true of small companies both with and without dealer networks... and, may be true of some big companies as well (I bet Jim Winey put in his fair share of off-the-clock R&D before he hit it out of the ballpark).

Duke
small company

Regarding the "technical superiority and innovation" of mid to large size companies, I'm not too convinced of that. There's not too much innovation going on in circuit design, most aspects of that part of the equation are pretty well established. Class D amplification and digital audio servers (and related products) are the only things that come to mind in the "innovation" realm of late. Larger companies have led the way in those areas I'd agree. With established products like amps, preamps, analog gear, etc., there are many smaller companies that give up nothing but the advantages of economy of scale in manufacturing to the big names Elizabeth mentions. One thing I do consider sometimes is whether a company is going to be around to provide service of replacement parts if needed. In that regard, bigger might be better. Seeing that digital players have been trouble prone in my experience, company longevity and staying power were factors in my decision to purchase a Marantz SACD player.

consider competition.

a small company, initially has the onus of convincing its patrons that it will be around and provide service.

if the small company can provide a superior product at an inexpensive price point, it might convince consumers to take a chance that, in absence of service in the future, the product can be repaired by an experienced technician.

also, small companies are under less constraints than large ones, especially if the income generated is not their main source.

certainly larger companies have produced fine products, as have small ones. i just think that a small company--designer and a couple of employees may have a certain ethic and pride which is missing in larger companies. the designer may be willing to experience failure and continue until the finished product satisfies his own (hopefully) high standards. however, one cannot generalize.

my own experience as a reviewer, motivates me to respect and admire the persistence of designers who own small companies. i have heard many products from small products which i consider fairly priced and offering a level of sound quality that is competitive with higher priced products from larger companies, some of which have been named by elizabeth. I think this is especially relevant to cable companies, where the initial investment may be less than that of a company which manufactures electronic equipment. although i am sure we can think of the names of designers of electronics which are representative of small companies, such as steve nugent, john tucker, dan modwright, gary dodd, jerry osman, gordon rankin etc., who produce fine products .

note i am using the term "small", in terms of number of employes, not sales revenue.

I would put Odyssey Audio up there with the best of the small companies. Great products, great customer service and run by a family that loves music.

Bob

harmon is big and makes good products. i enjoy buying from small companies tho.