Now, that’s dumb.

In Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”, the author speaks of many strategies for defeating and combating the enemy. One of them is “taking the high ground”, where instead of confronting your advisory directly, you kind of “go around”, thereby devising a completely different strategy in hopes of obtaining a victory later.

Our brick and mortar retailer friends, if they can get past there upturned snobby noses, should take the “high ground” by buckling down with what they do best: rubbing shoulders with industry stalwarts such as Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, McIntosh, Levinson etc… After all, this is their niche: catering to the upper crust, who think this high end boutique paradigm is still “happening”. Instead, our brick and mortar friends are doing something that in my opinion, is, well, dumb.

What’s really dumb is offering Chinese-made equipment at Levinson prices, a strategy that I just cannot figure out. The minute that the internet-o-sphere figures out that the high end boutique brand is really offered on the streets of Shanghai at 1/3 of the price, the brand gets flushed down to loo.

Instead of figuring out hot to sell over priced equipment better, they are getting adroit at disguising the brand rip. A little sleuthing and homework will help you figure out which brand is which. Let me share with you my work.

The Raysonic brand, looks good, but to me, it looks like a Shanling, doesn’t it? There is another company that claims it is an “Austrian Brand”. They take out big ads in Stereophile and Absolute sound. But I was offered to sell a Chinese amp that look mysteriously like the “Austrian Brand” with round chrome faced transformers for much less than these are going for. Then there is another importer who sells CD players and integrated amps made by Shanling but marked up much, much more than the comparable Shanling products. That same importer, by the way, has succeeded in running what was left of the Shanling franchise right into the ground. Likewise, with re-branded Chinese vacuum tubes sold at exclusive distributors with what it seems to be exclusive prices. Note to self, “If you cannot find a Chinese tube on the web from China, then it’s a "markup” brand re-labeled. I thought that the whole reason for buying an import these days is the high value proposition, and not high price proposition. Right? I cannot believe that folks are getting conned into these tubes - they are jsut re-branded stock Shuguangs (P.S. - I am not talking about the treasures).

Jolida had it right, sell high value at discounted prices and offer USA based service and support. The Jolida model is the one we choose to imitate. But, buying a Chinese import at Conrad Johnson prices? Well, that’s plain dumb. Buy the Conrad Johnson.