"Patrick Turner" wrote
Andre Jute

(1) In a concurrent thread on UKRA, Keith G talks about buying three
Chinese tube amps... I don't know if he is new to tube amps, but his
eyes have been opened. It may be that, having learned the joy of tubes
amps from the cheap Chinese, he will next aspire to a really good
quality amp.

Keith likes to brag about the cheap chinese amps that sound so well.



Oi! I heard that!

Listen Patrick, me old china (oops) I don't *brag* about anything - I
express my own (usually fairly understated) opinions and reinforce them,
when I can, with the opinions of others who have been here to see.hear what
I'm up to.

If I say 'best ever' about anything it's up to the reader to make his own
mind up what that may or may not mean in the real world. I don't subscribe
to RAT (way too clicky for my taste) and only responded to André's crosspost
*by invitation* (note that my first reply is timed only ONE MINUTE later
than your own response) and I also don't make 'Brit' noises in Australian
newsgroups....

Valves have been an expensive rarety and quite out of the reach of ordinary
audio enthusiasts in the UK until fairly recently, all I have done is
explore them (at no small cost to myself, all in all), share my findings for
free and have thrown my door open to more than dozen different people (half
of them 'ukranians') to come and hear them - also for free, I don't charge
admission! (Eau contreau - it has usually *cost* me money to do it - dishing
out freebie records, 5 course lunches etc.)

So shoot me, why don'tcha?

Who knows, one of them might end up buying one of your amps as a result -
will I get any commission?

(Don't even bother to answer that....)





It is equally possible that, unless his ears and taste are
very well-developed, he will find the improvement he can hear in a
quality tube amp not justified by several multiples of the cost of a
Chinese amp. I'm crossposting this to UKRA so we can hear his opinion.

We'll be bombarded with sales pitch.


???

Who's *selling* anything - I don't give a FF what happens (or doesn't
happen) after I have stated an opinion or shared information that I have
paid for out of my own pocket to get. You are the 'professional' here and
your posts in ukra are a contuinuing, whining tirade against your own
*competition* and your inability to cope with it. You want to sell more
amps? Then get off your arse and do what everyone else has to - promote
them, advertise them, go to audio fairs and demonstrate them. Loan a few out
to 'prospects', send 'em to magazines and get them reviewed. Put a few on
eBay and take the hits that others are prepare to do, to to get things
moving!

As you say yourself: Audio History is littered with similarly arrogant
'cottage industrials' who went down the tubes because the world *didn't*
beat a path to their doors....

(Luckily, we in ukra didn't get to hear about it all, chapter and verse...)

Now, talk's cheap (nowhere more so than in Usenet) so I'll give you a real
life experience of mine: I started a Builder's Merchants from scratch
(that's a blend of supplier and banker, for those who don't know the
difference between a 'shop' and a 'merchant' - IOW, the financial risks are
enormous) and after a while opened up a materials yard within a mile of a
well-established competitor, a branch of a huge (RMC) chain, asitappens.
Anyway, I soon got politely invited for coffee by the manager of that branch
and was patronisingly* told what I may/need do (and not do) etc. etc....

Within 18 months I had shut him down...

(Same thing with a fleet of lorries a couple of years later, when one of my
regular suppliers 'went direct' the one time....)

Now, you go do the same with those inscrutable Chinamen and come and tell us
how you got on. 'Til then, have the courtesy to allow us *hobbyist Brits*
our own opinions in our own *hobbyist Brit* newsgroup, however much they may
stick up your nose.....



*I get a lot of that - even in here! (I 'smile' too much!! :-)