Pale Rider
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Fair point, though I think it is a very premature assessment. I suspect that someone schooled in Marketing would advise that we haven't even yet seen the "new news" gain traction yet.
The market for these products is probably not huge, and even enthusiasm like that expressed by Tone isn't going to move the needle overnight. So, I think the anecdotal "evidence" so far—no significant uptick in sales, and the difficulty of your re-sell—don't really mean much at this stage.
I still believe that reviews like this, in publications with growing credibility (whether deserved or not), overlaid on the incremental small growth rate of the specialty hi-fi market, etc., the importance of Internet-based word-of-mouth, etc., will eventually lead to a significantly improved market penetration for Decware.
My own experience is interesting. I have been aware of Decware for over two years, having run across their portable headphone amp first over at Head-Fi. But even so, it took more than a year before I bought my first piece, and at that, it was the Taboo, not the portable amp. The rest of my buying spree only occurred because I made a decision to renovate my HT. Had my timing been a little different, I might have bought your amp, but again, the current market itself remains fairly small. I, and almost every other person on the Amp Waiting List is the sort of customer willing to wait months for a handmade, often not-previously-heard, completely custom product. There are generally not millions of such customers running around. If there were, I would think that an announced review like the Tone Audio one would have a much bigger pool in which to make a splash.
When all is said and done, I think a Torii has more in common with a custom pacemaker than it does an iPad. The market in the former is by definition harder to impact.
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