Build, fit, and finish of Sonodyne speakers is A rate. I have seen their entire product line (for home use) and some professional monitors in person. They had them displayed in an hifi show. Unfortunately, they didn't have them setup and playing. So I could only see them, not hear them.
I spoke to them and felt that their marketing strategy was highly flawed. They are still living in 80s. I asked them why they are not present on the hifi scene and why there are no dealers/demo rooms? They said something like (its been like a 7-8 years since then so don't remember the exact words): they don't want to clubbed together with likes of Sony/Samsung/LG. Granted, a decade ago there weren't many dealers dealing exclusively in hifi, but there definitely were some. There weren't many buyers of speakers costing in multiples of ten thousand rupees, but there definitely were some. In their eyes, the domestic market was not matured enough for their products.
I didn't react to their philosophy, I had no reasons to. But I know exactly why they are invisible. Their marketing strategy is very poor. They have some very good products, but how many people know about them? In short, they acted very high. It was a bit surprising as at the very same show there were brands like DynAudio, Dali, Jeff Rowland, Mirage, Classe, Rotel, Avant Garde (from the top of my mind). And in that kind of company they thought their products were too niche to be mass-marketed. Luckily they were not too high headed to even display their brochures. In fact, they gave me brochures of their entire (home audio) product line.
Well, to be respectful to their marketing philosophy, they axed their own legs. Indian domestic market is more matured than they thought (at least now if not back them). Its a shame they don't have representatives even in top 5 cities of India.
Come on Sonodyne, you can at least have one dealer in each metropolitan area. Hire some fresh people in your sales and marketing team. With the ones I interacted with, you are never going to be anybody on the world stage. Today, it's not enough to just have good products, some marketing is needed. May be your team believes in "good product sells itself", and it's not entirely untrue. But guess what, B&W, Paradigm, Monitor Audio, JBL; they all market their products. Are they not good? By acting niche, you are just harming your own interests.
hyeah:
