small companies making today's best products

"The larger companies I prefer once were small companies"

Now where would those companies be if the ones that did support their products from the begining be if they chose to all have Elizabeths Altitude on this and not support them till they were a large brand name. They would not be here to enjoy now.

To widen the scope of thought if many of these "once were small companies" and the innovative products they produced never materialized then with that loss would be the loss of all the inspiration it gave the ones that followed.

I agree that waiting till you feel safe that the brand has become large enough to ease ones fears may be prudent, but it certainly cannot support the very thing your waiting for if everyone shared that point of view.

That is where I see the insult. Let everyone else take the early adoption of the little guy, wait until they support and make a company grow then critisize the very people who support and build the new crop of little guys.

It should also be noted that some of the better gear out there came from small guys starting out who worked for years with the big companies and struck out on their own knowing they could build and design better products and did so with great success as the little guy.

It is not ones choice of equipment that is insulting at all. That is ones personal choice for their own reasons. However it cannot be taken as anything less than insulting with generalizations that the little guy lacks innovation and are technologically inferior. Then again maybe it is more blinded thought than insightfull insult or critisizm.
The first two paragraphs in response to Inna confirm you know why these larger companies you choose are here. Then a statement like "allow someone on the edge of buying a tinkers dream to think:"maybe i'll buy a real product with some actual engineering behind it that I can depend on the maker servicing it next year...in stead of hoping a few word of mouth mentions in posts where no one can tell if it is just an info-mercial." Makes little sense thus the insult label.

Your choice for bryston gear certainly is no issue here. Properly matched with the right gear just like any other gear has to be, they deliver just like a hundred others will.

You need to get out more now that its getting nicer and sit in the sun. Might clear up that nose grease problem.
Cheers

Well the best example I can think of a small company making todays best products is The David Berning Company in business since 1974. One might think that a company that has the owner's name is making a personal testament to the quality of the product he sells. David Berning takes it one step further, he designs and builds every single product he has ever sold himself, one at a time. Legendary reliability, cutting edge design and performance, efficient and user friendly designs, esoteric but simple at the same time. I can't think of a better example than this all hype aside. This guy is one of the true originals of high end audio.

Yeah, I tried to take out all the bad things i said, but i missed a few.
Sorry I was just ranting away, and went back and removed most of the flash phrases ans bad words. Missed that one. It was not aimed at the many small companies whose products are great.
But as another poster mentioned, clearly the small company is a risk for a 'small pockets' buyer. If one is spending money they cannot afford to just burn, then it behooves them to buy a product they can depend on. Especially if they plan on using it for many years.
And my nose oil is a goldmine. With gasoline at $ gal and heading up. I can run my car off my own NOSE! All i need is a car with a biodiesel engine!

let me add another issue here. the advantage of a company, usually small, that does not depend upon the income generated from the sale of his products as the sole source of his income to pay his bills, is that he can take his time, search for the best parts and achieve the sound that pleases himself firts before placing it up for sale.

i'd say quality control is better, though it may seem counter intuitive and the deisgner is usually a "craftsman" and takes great "pains" and pride in his effort, producing on a smaller scale and not having to please reviewers, necessarily, can rely on other audiophiles for their opinion before releasing the product.

i think, with the exception of ps audio and vtl, which may not be considered large companies, but do rely on sales as their sole source of income, i find the smaller companies producing higher quality products. they are not bound by as many constraints as larger ones and can hand select those parts which may be more expensive and sound "better", without worrying about the bean counters who would tell thenm that using costly parts will multiply the retail price to a level greatly exceeding the price associated with an inferior part.

why are there so many modification companies out there ?

mainly because some designer chose less than ideal op amps, capacitors, wire and other parts.

as i previously mentioned gordon rankin of wavelebgth has produced many fine products, that can compete with any of the larger companies. admittedly his amplifiers are not high powered , but he along with david berning and the designer of the aria amps, the previous owner of counterpoint, mike elliot, are excellenet examples of small companies . many of these companies can customize their products bto the taste of their customers. lartge companies usually do not do that. decware is another example of a fine small company.

as far as audio dealers.

i will contest any dealer to configure a stereo system that i will like better than one i configure myself and put money on my stereo system over his/hers.

a dealer is limited by its product line, whereas i am not. i have a greater variety of products from which to select and i will always be more in tune with what i like than any audio dealer.

no audio dealer can get into the mind of a consumer. he can only be guided by what the consumer tells him or her.

configuring quality stereo systems is no great mystery and does not require a degree from harvard.

i'm not saying dealers are ignorant, but no dealer should have the attitude that they know better than their customers. that attitude is the surest way not to be successful.

taste is subjective and dealers should not inssult the preferences of customers. they should be subject to the wishes of the customer, not the other way around.

mr. dealer, are you up to the chanllenge ?

I'd like to comment on one thing Elizabeth said:

"[C]learly the small company is a risk for a 'small pockets' buyer. If one is spending money they cannot afford to just burn, then it behooves them to buy a product they can depend on."

Now I can't speak for all small companies, but obviously I share some of the same mentality. I use parts that have several times the power handling typically "needed" for the application. And in my home audio speakers, I use only off-the-shelf parts. So if I hit a moose on the way home from the bar the same night that you blow your tweeters, you can get on the internet and find replacements in five minutes. I don't "pot" my crossovers, so if a crossover component does fail, it's easy for your technician to find it and replace it.

In six years of building home audio speakers, I've had zero component failures. Well there was that pair of scortched crossover boards after a very heavy Pantera session (I use much bigger resistors now), and the time I failed to screw down a connection tightly (d'oh!), but neither was an actual component failure.

And if anyone were to have something fail, they'd get to talk to the company president/engineer/service department all at once... assuming he and the moose hadn't had their rendezvous with fate yet. Or worst-case scenario, there's nothing in there a local technician can't diagnose and replace.

A big company watching the bottom line may choose to specify parts that cut it a lot closer, as far as durability and longevity. I don't have the time & resources to figure out which part will be just barely adequate but allow me to save thousands in the long run. And since I don't have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, nor a controlling board of directors who can fire me for it, it's my call.

A big company can weather the storm of putting one or two unreliable products out there. We little guys cannot. And very few of us do.

Back to the small-pockets buyer. Actually, the hard-core audiophile who doesn't have the big bucks is the one most likely to put in the due diligence that can lead him to one of these small companies you've never heard of. Most of us are doing something better than the big guys, and if that something coincides with the person's priorities, the result can be more cost-effective.

Imho, ime, ymmv, and yes I have a dog in this fight!

Duke