Finding your groove: getting into vinyl with Audio-Technica
I’d like to think that I could’ve been friends with the late Hideo Matsushita, founder of Japanese Hi-Fi powerhouse Audio-Technica. If I could, I’d travel back in time to 1960’s Tokyo, where a young Matsushita curated “vinyl listening sessions” at the Bridgestone Museum of Arts, exposing visitors to the sounds and possibilities of high end audio and the warmth of vinyl records. I imagine sitting with him in a mod coffee shop, listening to the stories of what he witnessed in those sessions, the conversations he had with visitors, and what ultimately motivated him to head back to his small apartment above a ramen restaurant and start an audio company of his own. In the histories I’ve read regarding AT’s humble beginnings, Matsushita’s motives seem clear. Produce high end audio at affordable prices, bringing audio excellence into spaces and to customers that simply didn’t have access to it before. His first two products, the AT-1 and AT-3 phono cartridges did exactly that, and...
Dec 6, 2023
i can see why companies don't want to throw every product they have with big discounts to not damage the real MSRP of their products, and maybe there's more to it like pressure from the big guns not to let the prices drop heavily. maybe that's why we always seeing the same products over and over again, or why most polls with many votes is going nowhere, or things like that IE 80 "drop" when the product real cost these days is around 200~250 bucks and here it is suddenly a $450 MSRP product.
My advice to you guys is - because you already have everything in order, with this super nice website and discussion forums like no other, and an excellent shipping system, start selling products also without drops, just keep the prices fair and competitive and provide good AP service. and of course keep some truly legit drops like the TH-X00 or the K7XX or other product with some real discounts that you do have now and then. don't limit yourself most of the time only to drops, i know this thing is called massdrop, but it's becoming frustrating to see the almost always the same stuff over and over again.