In article . com,
Andy
Evans wrote:
I am less confident that you will get what you pay for - particularly at
prices well above the average. Unless, of course, you are paying for a
brand name and items with an impressive reputation Jim

I would be very wary of brand names and established products.

Indeed, so would I in general. But the problem is that people do go into
shops with brand names and reputations already in mind that they have
picked up from the twaddle in magazines, etc. I knew more than one dealer
who regarded certain franchises as a license to print money. The items
'sold' with the customers often having no interest in (or opportunity to)
compare them with (often cheaper) alternatives. Given that some of these
products often had a higher price and a higher mark-up percentage, the
dealers did not rush to pursuade customers to listen to cheaper
alternatives.

They may well be less innovative, use standard parts rather than higher
grade alternatives, and in many cases will be "built to a price" because
overheads and advertising may be built in to the margin.

Alas, the above may or may not be so in any individual case, so a
generalisation about the above will be worthless without specific data on
the individual maker and model.

Small companies may be more cutting edge (except in the case of complex
technology) and better value with less overheads e.g. with direct sales
via internet or even ebay shops.

Comment as above. A small company may have more scope for being daring or
innovative. But they may lack the resources and understanding to produce a
good quality product. I can recall more than one example of a 'small new'
audio company that started with a single product that turned out to be a
firecracker despite getting good reviews. Reason being that they made
something they felt 'sounded good' but lacked the resources/understanding
to make them safe, reliable, and with consistent performance. Being
able to make a one-off or a few on a bench that work for a few months
is very different to making items on a regular basis that unknown
customers will be using in all kinds of situations for years.

A small company may also be more nimble at jumping onto the latest
fashionable bandwaggon, and grab sales from it before the fashion
passes. So as with large companies this is all case-by-case, and
generalisations may be useless.

They may be more risky, but the best should offer more for the price.

The snag is in "should". :-)

Particularly in audio where some items seem to have prices wildly higher
than others and people are told they are "very high end" or something
similar as if that justified it. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

How to know which are the best? This is maybe what you mean by
"reputation" in the form of reviews, but since their products take less
time to come to market they may have had less opportunity to "impress".

In my experience what may 'impress' a reviewer may have little to do
with reality in some cases. But as people in the trade know well,
a good review often has a noticable impact on how people come into
the shops, asking to hear given items. As does a bad review. Up to
the makers and the magazine to time the appearance of a review wrt
the item being on sale.

Slainte,

Jim

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