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In Reply to: Re: Ralph is discontinuing the kits posted by BryanP on December 4, 2000 at 16:03:53:
I received a lot of email from both prospective buyers of the kit and from people who have already made an M-60 protesting the discontinuation of the kit. It has not been an easy decision. When I started Atma-Sphere, one of the goals was to build amps that were affordable. Over the years, the market has continually said that it prefers to add performance rather then keep the amp inexpensive. So we have that issue.The next issue is that dealers are constantly demonstrating the M-60, only to have the customer buy a kit. Its hard to stay in business this way so the dealers aren't pushing M-60s the way they used to. As a result the amp is all but dead in our lineup.
The third issue is that the kit hasn't been selling either. By far the most popular product we make is the MA-1 MkII and this has been this way for over two years. The second most popular product we make is the MP-3 preamp.
Of course we have the issue of resale of the kits and QC of the finished product. We've already mentioned this issue. The underlying issue here is that if someone makes a rat's nest of the assembly and then says how some SE amp sounds better...well, we know they don't! So why should we get a reputation that an SE amp is better simply due to the accessability of the 'net? So this is a marketing issue as well as a QC issue and a resale issue.
I'm not happy about the way the kit thing has gone because we have always been dedicated to making our technology affordable. This has resulted in the most afforable pricing scheme of any high end manufacturer out there. IOW, if these amps were made by some of our competition the price would be 50% again or double what we charge. Plus we rely on our dealers for survival- we always have. The issue isn't that we are doing so well that we can blow off the kits. The fact of the matter is that by not selling a product that *hasn't* been selling anyway we hope to restore life to a product that used to be our bread and butter.
Of course, I'm grateful for the support the DIYers gave us in the past. I am hoping that no-one is offended by this move; we certainly didn't have *that* in mind!
-Ralph
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Follow Ups
- Re: Ralph is discontinuing the kits - Ralph 13:22:23 12/12/00 (2)
- Re: Ralph is discontinuing the kits - DK 23:11:31 12/12/00 (1)
- Re: Ralph is discontinuing the kits - wellfed 20:33:39 12/13/00 (0)
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