Sad, but not unexpected or unusual.
Out.
"All Hovland company design rights remain in the hands of a secured creditor on whose promissory note Hovland defaulted"
That is like a racing family putting up the tools and pink slips as a bet and losing the race. At least there is a theoretical shot at resurrection; the creditor would love to sell the intellectual property for cash.
Much sadder was Sun Tour, where part of the deal of a sale of naming rights was total destruction of the tooling.
Clark
Information is not Knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom
Too many audiophiles listen with their eyes instead of their ears
This sounds about right...
"Our original business model called for about 40% of our business to be domestic and 60% international," he said. "Over the last few years, sales were weighted further and further toward the international arena, until they became almost 90% international. This lowered our profit margin greatly, because while US distributors get their product at 40% off retail, international distributors receive a 52–56% discount."
"Sales in the last quarter of last year and beginning of this year were dismal worldwide. In the second quarter of this year, they absolutely died. We had a staff of 12, including ourselves, and our monthly break-even was $90,000 a month. Every time we fell short, we three company officers as well as our vendors couldn't get paid. We hung on for more than a year, but this summer it became completely untenable."
First rule of business: If it isn't sold at Walmart you're screwed... maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but at some point Walmart is gonna get ya...
Walmart put them out of business.:dont-know but, slamming Walmart does sell papers.Originally Posted by 4313B
"Our original business model called for about 40% of our business to be domestic and 60% international," he said. "Over the last few years, sales were weighted further and further toward the international arena, until they became almost 90% international. This lowered our profit margin greatly, because while US distributors get their product at 40% off retail, international distributors receive a 52–56% discount."
"Sales in the last quarter of last year and beginning of this year were dismal worldwide. In the second quarter of this year, they absolutely died. We had a staff of 12, including ourselves, and our monthly break-even was $90,000 a month. Every time we fell short, we three company officers as well as our vendors couldn't get paid. We hung on for more than a year, but this summer it became completely untenable."
First rule of business: If it isn't sold at Walmart you're screwed... maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but at some point Walmart is gonna get ya...
If Pro is the opposite of Con,
then Progress is the opposite of Congress.
Walmart didn't put them out of business. It's just a mindset. People like cheaper capacitors.
Hovland's demise is unfortunate.
I wonder how Solen are going??
:dont-know
Hopefully they are used by enough successful manufacturers to keep them afloat.
I figured you would be in the top 100 customers (after JBL)
I mean you basically buy 8 off every value. Right!!
That would be down right insane with Hovland.
I got it.
"Walmart", has become a metaphor for the now, and of the future.
bo
"Indeed, not!!"
I'd prefer to think of it more in terms of A Christmas Carol. Not necessarily the future we must have... I keep hoping people will turn away from our landfill culture and start seeking quality.I got it.
"Walmart", has become a metaphor for the now, and of the future.
JBL and Great Plains Audio have been wonderful resources for keeping innumerable high quality loudspeakers out of the landfill. I am sure great numbers have slipped through the cracks, but we are quite fortunate that replacement diaphragms, recone kits, and a fair amount of backdoor support have been offered so that so many fine older systems are not only still with us, but are still working properly.
I hope that the future is as kind to the Project Arrays and Everests down the road... right now it isn't looking terribly bright, but that may change.
Unfortunately most of the rest of life isn't filled with such quality as vintage JBLs or Altecs. There are so many things we buy that simply are not expected to function longer than the batteries assembled inside of them... in that world there isn't much room for a brand like Hovland.
Widget
...so B&L will continue to take over, WALL-E will have plenty to do, and
the sheep will be coddled by machines...
(sorry... just saw a fair chunk of that on a new blu-ray disc/plasma system)
If my work has any significance, I hope that it contributes to a brighter,
rather than messier (however you want to read that) existence.
Nothing wrong with Blu-ray... however almost all of the players like the $99 DVD players before them are 1-2 year designs... they simply are built as cheaply as possible to coddle us sheep until the next shiny mechanical trinket comes along... this is not sustainable.
A friend who designs junk, sorry... merchandise, that is sold at Wallmart and elsewhere told me that his Wallmart buyer has told him that the big W is going Green... apparently in a fairly significant way. They are dictating packaging reductions and a myriad of other requirements... that is all good. I doubt they will require products with a 10 year lifespan though as that would reduce their sales... why sell a customer one shiny disc spinner (or whatever) when you can sell him 5 or 6 over the same time span?
Widget
This begs the larger question to be asked ...
Are audiophiles the next dinosaur? Are we going extinct??
I know many high end manufacturers in the audiophile space. Not a one of them is making money right now. That needs to change very soon. Nobody's pockets are that deep.
______________
Carl Huff
I think so... along with stamp collectors, model railroaders, and photographers who used darkrooms...
Widget
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