Audio Lounge - London

[vijwilso]

finally the only thing that to my mind is sad is that instead of being happy that cadence is the only indian company that encompasses research,development,production,and now retail spanning three continents with four production facilities,and owns historic brands that have been around for over 4 decades and more at the top

sincerely,

ajay shirke

Thanks for the post . Me and few of my friends are happy customers of Cadence . It was a real surprise for me when i first received a speaker for home demo from Pune to my home in bangalore , for a week-time , though i was a complete stranger to Cadence at that time . This alone ( obviously i liked the product ) , along with the very competitive pricing , which was closer to the international pricing made me to buy from Cadence .

We wanted see to more such D&Ds in india.


Regards

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

There is duty on UK imports too, as well as the VAT, plus a nasty and significant charge made by the couriers for collecting the duty and taxes on personal imports. I suppose there is no duty on EU-country imports, although local tax has to be paid of course.

One thing I do not understand. Obviously personal, single-item imports are charged tax-and-duty on the retail price, but when a distributor imports goods, does he pay import duties on the retail price or on the value of the consignment to him?

Or is the volume so small that every item is, effectively, a single-item import? That would be a no-win vicious circle .

Recently I was interested in a pair of speakers. My interest was passed on to the Indian dealer by a mutual friend. The dealer showed an enthusiastic and immediate response, wanting to talk to me on the telephone immediately. When I replied that what I wanted, in the first instance, was prices, I got no further response. Is that weird? Or just unfriendly, unhelpful, bad business response that puts a dead end in front of someone who may not buy this year but might next. This dealer is one of those who is usually spoken well of in circles such as this forum.

It was a real surprise for me when i first received a speaker for home demo from Pune to my home in bangalore , for a week-time , though i was a complete stranger to Cadence at that time . This alone ( obviously i liked the product ) , along with the very competitive pricing , which was closer to the international pricing made me to buy from Cadence .

We wanted see to more such D&Ds in india.

Indeed we do . It is good to hear of such positive experiences --- and purchases.

 

[ajay shirke]

dear thad,

that is the problem i mean when i said that there is no established trade even in the segment which is just below high end. what use is it in having a "showroom" if all that a customer can do there is listen to what is available with them which is precious little and the rest is all catalogues.....and "you order it we will get it"!

so rather than that we at cadence say we have our listening room where you have a large range to listen to and if someone is looking for a serious system we either have the product sent over as mentioned by our customer in bangalore or if it is a more serious system even fly him/her over for a listen.

that is the only way that we have found to really serve the customer in the absence of any real dealers committing to proper investments in stock.

ajay.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

the rest is all catalogues.....and "you order it we will get it"!

maybe there are a few "dealers" who prefer to do business like that, but they are doomed by the internet. Otherwise, I understand that, although it remains frustrating for the customer, there is frustration up the supply chain too.

 

[panditji]

I will say it again as i have been repeating for a long time....The Dealers have to make investments if they want to get into the audio business with respect to money, time and effort...the dealers/distributors do not want to invest in stocks but want people to buy from them at a higher price even though there is no demo...
It's the same in all businesses..you have take your product to the consumers at a price reasonable to them..... if people can spend huge sums on Home Theatre systems why would they not spend money on good audio...

It is heartening to know that Cadence is sending demo speakers to different cities for people to experience. I hope the conversion rate is high as that is serious effort and money invested...but that is the way to go about doing any business.

 

[dillihifi]

................. anyway i am watching and when the time is ripe.....who knows we may open five audio lounge outfits across india!

cheers great weekend and happy listening,

ajay.

I tend to agree with the statements and also with FMs, Here the major problem which is plaguing this business is that most of the D&D do this as a part time business / shoot off from their main business and are very reluctant to give a world class experience to the people.

Well this is because of what others say like a chicken and egg situation like the D&D s are bot prepared to invest much as they have already invested a lot in the place, dcor, overheads and coupled with the fact that these are slow moving goods they also need to have a very big inventory. Of course without cash flow they cannot be expected to survive so maybe they look for pastures in better lines and try minimizing the stock.

You would have come across several dealers who have sealed pieces but no demo pieces. Maybe we need to follow a different pattern like manufacturers setting up experience zones / listening rooms where people can come and experience and see/hear the products and place orders with the authorized dealers. Here we can expect the D&Ds to price the stock lower as they would not be burdened with the demo pieces.

As per Mr. Shirke's observation regarding the pay by cash or.. discounts this has come because of the circumstances. Even big brand names also do it so there is no harm in asking. I hope the day is not far off when we will change. You should see that in India though lot of music piracy is there but sales of music is growing therefore legitimate sales are growing day by day. Well I am waiting for the day when our own audiophile brands like Cadence / Rethm set up listening rooms /experience zones in different parts of the country so that more and more people get that experience and start investing in high quality Indian brands than chasing far inferior foreign brands.

As for Cadence which I was searching to audition in Delhi in around late 2005 I found the Delhi dealer having only a pair of stands and extolling the virtues of Wharfdale.

Hope that the Indian Brands in High End Audio grows .

 

[captrajesh]

the general impression with the masses even in these times is that loud is equal to good.

True that! When I was a child in the 70's people used to rate the car by it's carrying capacity rather than ride comfort and such finer things.

Hope things would change in the audio front too.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Maybe we need to follow a different pattern like manufacturers setting up experience zones / listening rooms where people can come and experience and see/hear the products and place orders with the authorized dealers. Here we can expect the D&Ds to price the stock lower as they would not be burdened with the demo pieces.

This comes down to investment in the country by the manufacturers. Ajay has talked about why he does not find this attractive.

As per Mr. Shirke's observation regarding the pay by cash or.. discounts this has come because of the circumstances. Even big brand names also do it so there is no harm in asking. I hope the day is not far off when we will change.

People everywhere ask for discounts, but buying hifi should not be like taking a Chennai auto: the asking price should not be doubled to allow for the 50% negotiation! Prices should be open and transparent. I hate the "What did you pay? --- I'll PM you about that" conversations. Bottom line, it is shopping: do we need to keep secret the price we pay for rice?

 

[dillihifi]

I agree why should we keep the price a secret it is as if the salesman is your long lost brother and brokered as special deal for you. I think we need to be transparent about the entire pricing so the D&D's also expect that the potential customer know about the cost of the equipment or at least the same can be found out easily rather than being a top defense secret