Cavalli shutting its doors

Discussion in 'Headphone Amplifiers and Combo (DAC/Amp) Units' started by AllanMarcus, Oct 15, 2017.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    That's Voldermort bullshit. Asian sales were 8-9% of revenue (and profit is even less through dealers) and most of that to Taiwan, HK, or Singapore. There are lot less "rich Chinese dudes" than people think. CPC has been clamping down on excesses.

    Most business is to HF / SBAF members and prior customers.
     
  2. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    EC has zero presence in China because you're way off the mark if you want to sell there.

    I did some price elasticity studies a while back. You actually have to price at 100k+ to even be considered in China to see adoption in the hifi market.

    I have a buddy who was early Tesla. They brought in a consultant to help them sell into China. The consultant suggested 500k+ starting price. They thought the consultant was nuts and so it sold for just over 400k. Turns out a big chunk of the elite wouldn't consider the car due to being priced so low.
     
  3. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I don't think Craig or I want to deal with CPC generals named Dian De Si who put in tubes the wong way.
     
  4. HitmanFluffy

    HitmanFluffy Hoping to see real genitals someday!

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    Im just messin man. Ravi is absolutely right in that you basically need to price stupid high to even get started because chi-fi is clowntown when it comes to money.
     
  5. JimL

    JimL Tongues KG's hairy starfish for fun

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    Well, maybe. Remember that the Stax amps were conservatively designed and have lasted for decades in some cases even without maintenance. I fact, I'm listening now to a Stax SRA-3S that is probably at least 40 years old, and is all original including tubes, except for replacement of the electrolytic caps and the output caps (which probably wasn't necessary). However, if Ica-Man's comment in the RMAF thread #121 is correct: "Good sounding, yes. Reliable, not really. There was a local dealer here in town and I spent some time hanging out with him. It was alarming how many of the amps came back for repair," resale value is less likely to go up. True, if amps fail there will be less of them so they become unicorns faster, but unreliability will tend to depress prices. Most people don't want an obsolete amp that has a reputation for failing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2017
  6. aamefford

    aamefford Nothing like chamberpot coffee

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    This echoes my feelings. I almost sold mine a couple weeks ago. In the end, I just couldn’t part with it. I’ll miss Cavalli audio. Alex is a fine man who deserves retirement on his terms. Take care Alex.
     
  7. Luckbad

    Luckbad Traded in a unicorn for a Corolla

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    Hold onto that Crimson until I can afford it. ;)
     
  8. dBel84

    dBel84 Friend

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    I have heard this type of comment before and it is sadly just a perpetuation of the long negative vibe that Alex has had to deal with for as long as CA existed. His real products - Liquid Gold , Crimson, Glass, Lightning all have exceptional build quality and I would bank on them still playing well in 50 years time without any additional servicing.

    The biggest thorn recently were the potentiometers on the budget line (Carbon) where he had "American made" pots - even with the 30% trash on initial QC, several of them started to fail in the field. He fairly quickly identified the problem and pulled the ongoing production for a different manufacturer. I would not judge his high end line on the unfortunate support of local manufacturing and he made sure that all amps were repaired at CA expense (as would be expected)

    I would vouch for any of Cavalli's high end products - treat them within the bounds of normal use and they will last forever.

    ..dB
     
  9. JimL

    JimL Tongues KG's hairy starfish for fun

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    Well, as I posted elsewhere, I have no personal experience, so just going by what others have reported.
     
  10. Colgin

    Colgin Friend

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    I note anecdotally that I had one of the bad pots and my LC failed literally within 24 hours of receipt. Alex had great communications with me though and repaired my LC promptly at no expense to me (he covered shipping both ways).
     
  11. dBel84

    dBel84 Friend

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    This was partly the point - people without personal experience perpetuate the here-say and soon it becomes gospel. There was a time that I felt more indignant for Alex and would post more actively, eventually you figure that people will figure it out for themselves. This is sadly not true as I see many fallacies repeated about a number of products (not limited to CA) by people acting in good faith and it does eventually become dogma.

    I accepted that life was too short to get caught up in much of the daily drama but as this is a final thread on CA, I figured it worth making the effort and correcting any misconceptions. Nothing personal

    ..dB
     
  12. JimL

    JimL Tongues KG's hairy starfish for fun

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    Understood, nothing personal here either.
     
  13. Xen

    Xen Friend

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    Mine failed soon after yours, if I remember correctly. Alex was excellent to deal with. I have been using my LC v1 most of time because the balanced inputs reduce common mode noise. My Black Widow has been switched off while I try to figure how to get rid of some major low frequency distortion from somewhere.
     
  14. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    If no warranty (which is going to expire anyway) then the question is how repairable?

    Buyers may feel miffed if they can't get something fixed for free within what would have been the warranty period, but, if they can take it to a competent repair man and bring it home working then... they still have their amp.

    My original Cyrus integrated sat in a cupboard for ages, as none of the controls worked, and out-of-warranty 4,000-miles-from-base customer service (flat-rate repair in UK) was our local distributor will give you a great deal on a new one. Having peaked, and seen what looked like proprietory chips inside, I had little hope, but eventually got around to taking it to our local repair genius who fixed it without too much trouble at all.

    On the other hand, last time I saw him (to get new rechargeable cells fixed in my ages-old shaver: his workshop is attached to a general electrical store and they do everything) he told me a tale of woe of the Musical Fidelity amp on his shelf: needed one proprietory part, MF completely unhelpful if not one of their dealers they didn't want to know.

    So, if these things do fail, how easy to fix?
     
  15. Koth Ganesh

    Koth Ganesh Friend

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    Thad, as you know, the said local genius fixed my Odyssey Stratos power amp when I was asked by Klaus from Odyssey in Indiana to ship the amp back to him for repairs. All that I did was to ask Syed (aka local genius) what had happened. He opened up the amp and figured out quickly that half of my transistors had failed. Ordered them, he fixed 'em and redid the biasing based on the specs and I have not had a problem. Obviously, it was a simple repair and hence easy to fix. The same Syed could not figure out what happened to my Yggdrasil so it went back to Valencia. So yes, ease of fix !
     
  16. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Oh yes, I forgot that. Hey, he fixes old Philips shavers too!

    Would I be right in thinking that the smaller the business, the more likely that what is under the hood is standard, replaceable electronic components? That could be a reason, in itself, for buying them.

    (NB: my standpoint is that I buy hifi to last, not to swap in and out weeks, months, or hopefully, not even a year or two, down the line. I know that's not exactly hobby, and, if everybody did this, we wouldn't have forums like this one)
     
  17. JimL

    JimL Tongues KG's hairy starfish for fun

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    Sorry to be off-topic, but this seems to explain HiFiMan's pricing strategy
     
  18. Tari

    Tari Friend

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    Happy to see Alex can finally retire for good, sad it without the legacy of a continuing company. Don't understand why this is turning into a HF vs SBAF thing, seems unwarren-ted. But maybe there is backstory I don't know as I am way out of the loop. Best of luck Alex and enjoy your family, children and grandchildren are the greatest music.
     
  19. dBel84

    dBel84 Friend

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    Not necessarily as some smaller companies pride themselves in boutique snake oil.

    BUT as for Cavalli, Alex's philosophy has always been to use off the shelf ( or orderable from Mouser or Digikey ) parts that have high performance and are appropriate for the design. Thus anything should be easy to source unless the manufacturer has stopped making it.

    The designs themselves are however not as simple as they might appear and you would need someone very savy or resourceful to repair them outside of the service that Alex has established.

    ..dB
     
  20. aamefford

    aamefford Nothing like chamberpot coffee

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    I saw a little traffic above on hosting the DIY stuff. Has the commercial Cavalli Audio site found a home? It would be handy so folks like me can look back and see if we will for instance blow up our Liquid Crimson by stuffing a 7DJ8 / PCC88 in it.
     

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