We did not have to close our shop but....just sold my
company for a ton of cash, LOL.
We did not go out of Business, meaning we chose to sell our shop and take the money vs. Building
cheap shit and making money.
There are many ways of making more money than in
manufacturing, I have been machining for 35 years and have owned my own
business since I was 19 years old.
We had 2 Million
dollars in equipment and owned the building and all our gear.
We did this out of passion not simply to build the
cheapest table and sell it for the most money like the rest. We designed over
300 products, ALL original but have been copied all over the place. We did
not go out of business,
I made a decision to NOT COMPETE with cheap turntables,
We did actually build a 4 tables with a cheap VPI Hurst motor/low cost inverted bearing, cheap laminated pluinth... and it cost 1 grand to
build, was going to sell it for $2500.00 but it was just another belt drive. I
could EASILY compete but I am not interested in building low performance
turntables.
Anyone can build a cheap belt drive (they come out of the wood
work EVERY day another me too belt drive) there is nothing to it. But we are
innovators and we sold a ton of RIM Drive (over 1000) tables and gear but the
margins are getting too slim.
I admire VPI's business but not their turntables, they
have a great business model, use inexpensive materials, use the same design in
different packages, we could have done that it is simple,
But no thanks, our table(s) will now be legendary, you will not
see a 100 LB rim drive turntable with tolerance of +/-.0001 (yes 1/10 of one
thousands of an inch actually machined like aircraft parts.
The sound, you may be lucky to hear one some time but NO ONE sells their TTW Tables, well about 3 a year - thats a 99.5% customer retention rate
Vinyl will always rule, but I will not be making turntables JUST
TO COMPETE
I actually love the
vinyl music, and money was secondary.
Happy Holiday to you and your family,
It was fun,
Larry Denham
TTW Audio
