Tag Go Bye Bye

Well I knew some thing was a foot, Tag have been 'Off loading dealers' like falling rocks in the last 12 months, but a close friend of mine who is in the trade, had whispered a rumour to me 3 or 4 weeks ago, seems it's true


http://www.highfidelityreview.com/news/news.asp?newsnumber=18448214

 

Oh, one nice thing, stand by for a 'Glut' of cheap Tag gear, looks like matt will now get his Pre , and guesses how much a AVR 192 will go for ??? WM

 

Anyone notice this little nugget of information?

“An improved sales margin of 41.5% will be applied to all shipments leaving after 28.07.2003.''


Hmm

Chris

 

Chris, yes read 'pile em high sell em cheap', you can have more, now sell em slaves

 

Well - their products might be high quality - but they're ducely expensive as well - so this announcement comes as little surprise. I guess companies like Naim can get away with high priced flagship gear due to decades' good press - but someone like Tag hasn't really had enough time to build up a big rep on their new stuff... If they'd kept the Audiolab name - I wander if things would have been different?

 

People were willing to pay top dollar partly because of the cachet of the Tag name and partly because of the upgradeability of the product.

The second part has certainly disappeared out of the window which means that remaining stocks should be sold off at lower prices.

 

to my mind the tag gear never lived up to it's marketing. tag watches are functional sporty glamorous things - steve mcqueen owned one 'nuff said. the tag mclaren f1 team are world beaters when on the pace and f1 is probably the most glamorous sport out there. the mclaren f1 is the fastest car ever, still to be beaten after nearly a decade in existence.
tag mclaren audio are warmed over 1980's audiolab boxes that are dull as ditchwater.
they were doing ok things with the aphrodite, the top loader dvd and the f1 speakers but they were all massively overpriced and appealing to the wrong market.
tm audio tried to straddle the divide between lifestyle (nakamichi, bose, b&o) and hi-fi (naim, levinson, lexicon, etc) but never realy found their niche. were they av? hifi? lifestyle? mainstream? rarified mega expensive? answer - they were all of these and therefore a jack of all trades and master of none.

of course all of this is marketing and visual appeal but that's what the entire tag audio brand is built on (well that and some old audiolab boxes).

cheers


julian

 

I for one can only think on this sad day of CJ running weeping through the streets of Glasgee in the full knowledge that he will have to start recommending a different dac

And Antonio staring willfully at the pile of DVD-A discs in his local HMV (Portugal)

A sad day indeed:nigel:

 

Mike, Aberdeen Mate :knight: :knight: :knight:

 

Here I go again... :cry:

I am borrowing a Meridian 568.2, if it sounds nearly as good as the TAG I will return the former...

 

Or is this just the Almighty's (God not WM ) way of telling his little Portugese children that AV Sucks:duck:

 

I have a feeling, that a 'Spurious amount' of Dac 20's will up for grabs shortly though all very reasonably priced

 

I agree with Julian2002, and to be honest the stuff never really appealed to me. It always seem very expensive, though it did perform. I'll keep my eye out for some cheap tag gear maybe !

 

I think that is a real shame after they seemed to be developing some state of the art products, I didn't think a company like this would suffer problems, just goes to show a "lifetime garranttee" only really exisits as long as the compay does!

 

The watch was a classic, the square one, this was before TAG introduced batteries to all their watches

Give me a nice self winder any time.

 

I thought TAG watches were Tag Heuer (or something like that), not TAG Mclaren, or are they the same?

 

The watches are indeed TAG Heuer. The common link is TAG, Techniques d'Avant Garde, a Company founded in the 1970s, I think, by an Arabian gent, when Saudi Arabia was flush with money after the enormous oil price hike following Round 4 of the Arab-Israeli war. It bought into lots of things, including the old-established Heuer watch company (famous for chronographs) and McLaren. I don't think it controls things in any way, in fact I don't know that it actually does anything except collect dividends.

P.S. A bit more

http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/cref-ojjman.html

 

And I've just ordered a DAC20 or don't know.

 

This news is interesting and a bit worrying . However, it seems Tag is not closing down totally. I would be following the development closely. At least present owners don't have to sale their gear straight away. I remember the another company QUAD has difficulty before but now they are back and doing very well since. Hope they come to some sensible solution soon. So I hope you get to enjoy your DAC for a long time.

Quote from the Tag website.

''Hi all, let me please start putting some precision to the statements: TAG Group SA and TAG McLaren Group are large and profitable companies, its the audio division TAG McLaren Audio which isn't.

The finanical strength of TAG McLaren Audio's shareholders allow us to categorically state that warranty, repair service and helpdesk facility will remain and with it existing upgrades for our products whatever the outcome of our strategic review. Therefore owners of TAG McLaren Audio products do not need to be worried - we even invite others to join the team of happy owners.

TAG McLaren Audio products are in my opinion state-of-the-art and a period of no-design will certainly assist the competition to catch up

However, I have a second bad news: there is no discount in the pipeline.

Dr. Udo Zucker CEO TAG McLaren Audio from England 7/29/03 10:49:17 AM ''