The Return Of Technics Is Symbolic, But Will Anyone Actually Buy Them?

Register to hide this ad
I have wondered this myself.

Back in the 80's when I worked part time in an audio store as a college student we carried several consumer brands of electronics as well as entry level "high end" brands. Every once in awhile the consumer brands would roll out a flagship component that was aimed at the high end market. Now these were really nice pieces, they sounded good, and in many cases they were on par with what affordable high end companies could do. In some cases better, others not. But because of the perception of those customers who regularly bought those brands of components, they would not sell. For instance, why buy an amp that cost $1500 for a 100 WPC when the same company produced one that sold for $699 and had the same power output? The other side of the coin is that the people who bought high end gear would not believe that a consumer company could build anything on the level that a dedicated small boutique company could, so these products were dismissed.

The result was that these products were discontinued because the manufacturer could not move enough of them to make the pieces viable for production. Stores like ours would buy them on a steep discount and sell them at a good profit margin. And the buyer got a great deal on quality electronics, even if they were not competitive at their original MSRP, but at the sale price they were more than a fair deal. This was a common occurrence for companies whose bread and butter sales came from mid tier consumer electronics.

Whether this trend repeats with Technics and their audio offerings will be interesting to see.

Regards
Mister Pig
 
Yes - I think they'll sell quite well.

The initial offering of the limited edition TT will sell to the early adopters whereas the mass market version will appeal to the increasing number of people who are rediscovering vinyl (aka vinyls - ugh) but don't want to go with the brands that they've never heard of.
Plus Panasonic's marketing strength will assure them of greater market penetration at the big box stores.
 
Huh? Symbolic?

So Technics is sinking who knows how much money in releasing new product lines and the re-invented 1200 with no real sincere belief that they will turn a profit?
 
Mister Pig said:
The result was that these products were discontinued because the manufacturer could not move enough of them to make the pieces viable for production. Stores like ours would buy them on a steep discount and sell them at a good profit margin.
Click to expand...

Some brands did that intentionally to minimize competitors too. If you could get full ticket, great but if not there was still margin left in the product. It was far easier to sell the overwhelming feature set than to sell against it in some cases.

One other thought about the 80s hi-fi market, it was driven by primarily by magazine reviews and sales floor dynamic. It did not take much to kill a good product if either one of those were negative.
 
soundmotor said:
Some brands did that intentionally to minimize competitors too. If you could get full ticket, great but if not there was still margin left in the product. It was far easier to sell the overwhelming feature set than to sell against it in some cases.

One other thought about the 80s hi-fi market, it was driven by primarily by magazine reviews and sales floor dynamic. It did not take much to kill a good product if either one of those were negative.
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I hope to heck that its a smashing success. Because if it is, then perhaps more companies will get back into the hi fi game and we can see a renaissance of the hobby. Imagine if we could have healthy brick and mortar stores again as an option! And if we had more people coming into the hobby again! A bit of wishful thinking on my part perhaps, but if there were ever to be a rebirth of audio as a hobby, it has to start somewhere. I would love it to be here and now.

Regards
Mister Pig
 
soundmotor said:
Some brands did that intentionally to minimize competitors too. If you could get full ticket, great but if not there was still margin left in the product. It was far easier to sell the overwhelming feature set than to sell against it in some cases.

One other thought about the 80s hi-fi market, it was driven by primarily by magazine reviews and sales floor dynamic. It did not take much to kill a good product if either one of those were negative.
Click to expand...
Panasonic/Technics has two new(ish) lines: The Reference and The Premium which are an intended push to be part of a revitalized stance in the audio market.

I doubt that these are only symbolic. Anytime you 'steal' consumer choice to purchase a product you minimize competitor market share.

But I view this potential competition as a 'good thing'...you know coming out every several thousands of years to kick over all the ant hills to stir up struggle. :D
 
It's nice to see venerated brands come back as long as it does not come back poor quality. Technics is a great brand and built some killer equipment that we still know and love today
 
I believe their new tables will sell. Will it be enough for them to continue? Who can say, but I'd bet they will be a turntable worth having at least for an entry level enthusiast.
 
Last edited:
I think the question of where these new Technics pieces are made is important. If the new turntables carry anything other than a "Made in Japan" sticker then it may be harder to sell to the hard core enthusiasts.

Mark Gosdin
 
It also mentioned DJ's. That could end up being the main market especially considering there are some great entry level and above turntables from manufacturers such as VPI.
 
GooOOoogle "Sansui" for an example on how badly recreating a classic can go ...

I wish them luck, and hope they maintain the quality standards of the originals!
 
Last edited:
I think Technics will be fortunate to break even on this project when all is said and done, but hope I am wrong. If it performs better than comparatively priced boutique TT's out there today but sells for considerably less, then they would have a decent shot to turn a profit (and with the right design and manufacturing plan I think this is doable). They are likely going after home and DJ audio customers.

Great value and great performance together will turn into sales and profit. Anything other than that I believe will not lead to extended production or acceptable profits. Too many others already in business out there already and I see a lot of folks down on it before release and also expecting it to be relatively inexpensive.
 
Well, the website says they are not going after the DJ market, but rather the high end consumer market.........

If they are priced like I hope they are, I'm thinking of getting 2.

'ner
 
There was a huge thread in Turntables where people were drumming up a petition to get the SL-1200 back in production, now we can see if any of them meant it.

My guess is that the OG SL-1200s will now command about twice what they were before the re-issue.
 
I have a mint pair of SL-1210's in my basement with a Pioneer DJM-600 mixer between them and a couple boxes of 90s progressive house and trance.

Happy to see this! Now all we need is records that cost $2 each brand new....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom