If you were to carry a tube product line?

Art Audio

The Berning gear is terrific as the others have stated but David Berning is a one man show with a very limited number of products. Cosmetics may also be a problem (although it shoudn't be).

On the other hand, Art Audio has a reasonably broad product line, including amps, preamps, phono stages and DACs, albeit with an emphasis on low powered designs. The designs are pretty attractive as well.

I have gear from both companies and love them both. Actually, if I were a dealer I would carry them both.

Too bad Sonic Frontiers is gone. Neutral, well built,low output impedances, single ended and balanced, remote and lots of inputs and out puts. Their componenets were compatible with a lot of gear including solid state.

BAT- Small, responsive, great service and extensive product line, including (gasp!) SS and HT products, integrateds, balanced and s.e. Great sound of course.

From a business perspective (not based on sonic merits) a well known company with a long history would make the most sense. So Audio Research, Conrad Johnson and (maybe) Krell. These companies heavily advertise and get favorable press so a lot of the work is already done for you.

Carrying Berning products is a bad move business-wise. First of all he sells the products direct off of his website (and I know first hand he offers a discount if there is no dealer in the area- easy to circumvent). Second, as the above posts indicate his product line is limited in products and production and has a definite "home brew" look to it. And lastly, who is going to repair his gear if he is not around (his circuit design and parts are so complex that a major manufacturer tried to reverse engineer it and failed)?

BigKids

$7,500 = Moderate to low priced?

Crap, i dunno what it is you do for a living, but i think im totally gonna sue my guidance councelor.
Anything over 2,000 is pretty pricy in my wallet! :)