Margery just wants to have fun.
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)Women sometimes buy quality audio, but that doesn't make them audiophiles.
With rare exceptions, all the audiophiles I've known are men. The unifying mantra for audiophiles is that there's always something, maybe an amplifier or speaker just out a reach that might get them a little closer to the music. Audiophiles are gear junkies. They want to have Aretha Franklin or the New York Philharmonic or their favorite music sound like it's in the house. Audiophiles crave an emotional, visceral connection with their music.
That pretty much sums up Margery Budoff's audiophile urges. Like most audiophiles I know, Margery had an unusually strong affinity for music at a young age. She described herself as "A child musician with an industrial design fetish." Even as a little kid she loved the look of stuff, especially older, big and clunky 1950s and 1960s record players.
The first record Margery bought was "Telstar," then Dionne Warwick, then the Rolling Stones. The record player was the thing that could "Decipher the secret code encrypted in the records. I wanted to hear the sound in all its glory. That's how I became an audiophile."
... Read moreBack in the day, we built great cars and the best TVs. And our advanced engineering was the envy of the world.
That was a long time ago. Today "world-class" design and manufacturing is mostly sent off-shore to Europe and Asia. American companies market and distribute products made somewhere else. According to American Economic Alert, the U.S. has imported $250 billion worth of goods and services more than we exported so far this year.
(Credit:
Audio Research)
High-end audio is one area where made in America products are still truly world class. While the major brands like Audio Research, Ayre, Cardas, Conrad-Johnson, McIntosh, Thiel, and Wilson Audio are only known here by audiophiles, these brands are major players in the global audiophile market. And with the U.S. dollar at record lows, exports sales are healthier than ever.
Audio Research reports strong sales surges in Italy, France, and the U.K. Russia has just recently become a major market for Audio Research's vacuum tube electronics. The company is still selling mostly two channel audio components; home theater products aren't a big part of their growth over the last few years. In the U.S., you can buy an Audio Research VSi 55 tube integrated amplifier for $3,495.
Thiel Audio, based in Lexington, Ky., is enjoying robust sales. "Our export business doubled in 2007, and is now about 40% of our gross revenues. The biggest increase has come from Europe. Fortunately for us, our domestic business is up, too, though not as much as foreign sales," said Kathy Gornik, Thiel's president . I reviewed Thiel's least-expensive speaker, the SCS4 in the May issue of Home Theater magazine.
(Credit:
Cardas)
Cardas Audio, maker of high-end speaker and interconnect cables, has also noted that Russia is coming on strong. George Cardas, the company's CEO, said, "I have always found (that) overseas sales surge with a drop in the dollar. Distributors hold orders until the right moment and even increase orders if the drop is substantial." Interesting.
Steve Silberman of Ayre Acoustics, based in Boulder, Colo., chimed in too. "Export has been off the charts this year, mainly in Asia, though Europe has been growing steadily too," he said. "What's been the real surprise is that the U.S. saw growth in the first quarter on par with export growth." Ayre electronics have been part of my reference system for years.
(Credit:
Ayre)
Wilson Audio, the Ferrari of American speaker manufacturers, is also doing well: "Our sales are up in all international markets. This is especially true of Europe, where we have benefited most from the weak dollar. Of course, it is a complex issue with several factors, only one of which is the weak dollar. For example, the Hong Kong dollar is tied to the U.S. dollar, and so in that market we don't directly benefit from the weak dollar. We are doing extremely well in Asia for an entirely different set of reasons, unrelated to the dollar."
Of course, all of these American made-products are far more expensive in other countries than they are here.
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