September 2027
What happened this summer?
My return from vacation, well, let me start out by saying, there was no true vacation time. A little here and a little there. Those are the breaks. I perceived a lot of action. One of our key suppliers was sold. Focal Naim changed hands. I looked at their website which had a revised website was interesting. Focal had been revised, not a lot. However, Naim had managed to be gutted in my view, and maybe for good reasons. Many core value products we gutted. Even relatively new revisions were gutted. I had never been slapped in the face so hard upon witnessing the sheer amount. I’ll let you see for yourselves how Naim has been gutted based on the Naim website.
Linn has taken an entirely different path. A Majik standard LP 12 is now over 7,000 dollars. A Selekt LP 12 is over 20,000 dollars and then some more. Linn LP 12 parts have now shot up through the roof. Check out any U tube video of Linn LP 12 repairs from the USA, some old teck’s are now finding repairing LP 12 very difficult if not arduous in keeping the parts down in price wise. A few of those old U Tube boys are saying out loud that the LP 12 are likely their last one’s. These old boys find the repairs process complicated and with the prices of said parts , all LP 12 parts, these parts have become very expensive… I mean every word of that. Linn makes it very hard to support parts distribution. Once hikes happen so quickly and devastated-ly, even the short terms effects cannot be good, quite the opposite in fact. Linn has begun to replace gear at a very rapid ratio. So, what you buy, gets surprisingly replaced very quickly. Not all but many components. Many of their speakers have doubled in price, meaning they start at 5,000.00 then the next speaker jumps to 10,000.00. Oh, that’s where it starts with Linn. It’s not unique to Linn. I take note others have taken the same road and with the same level of price hikes.
I happen to know, some supplier, have let go some lines that they had done for years prior. Our city here is a bloody mess audio wise, often you lose lines that you had for years. I could go on and on; many of our lines have been affected in this fashion. One line up I had been discussing with in France, shut their doors permanently. Boy oh boy, that was fast !!! I’m barely touching the surface.
Then we see our American side with Tariffs. We have some lines that have been shut down quite quickly. So, there is no investing or adding to our lineup. All of our future’s seem topsy tirvy at this time. Our website will need to reflect this reality. Let us see where this goes my dear gents.
Clearance page
…Will be active again in the coming days or week max. It will be refreshed very soon.
Inventory levels
Aside from the new that we continue to offer, we still maintain we have still a tremendous amount of inventory… still more than any other shop in the region.
Tariffs
Tariffs have affected most American lines that we carry. Both sorry and regret having to carry lines under this predicament. We had negotiated with 2 lines, tariffs had posed a pause but the Trump nightmare has deepened as you all know.
Emails…
… are being responded to, quick enough, in fact quite efficiently. Saturdays are loaded with lots of activity with our clients, so expect some brief delays. YES… coffee is still being served, not the cheap kind 😉
Suspect retail behaviors
We’ve seen many shops who advertise line ups in droves they do not have on the floor or they advertise the entire line up while they have but one or 2 pieces. Suppliers have no choice, as business cycles are basically very low. Never seen this before to this extent now.
Next update.
This September will see a whole Naim system on. Then we will move onward onto other brands sometime this October. We can see introducing NU PRIME, a first. On this last note… take care fella’s.