Tag Go Bye Bye

Wolf gang, no doubt you are a tag owner. For someone like me who is not a tag owner it is a simple case of Branding gone wrong.

They hoped to make a buck off the back of their name and it hasn't worked.

Owners of the kit now have to decide if they will likely recieve service in say five years time when their tag goes belly up.

Sometimes it pays to go with a company that has the reputation for good reason and not just for its racing car.

 

i feel like this :NADowner:

:cry:

 

Wolfgang, I did not mean it in that way.

Tag no doubt are a good brand and product. Unfortunatly somewhere down the line the public has lost faith.

This can come from a number of factors of course. What is important is that you are happy with the product.

The downside for you is, if they don't come out the other end of this product support my dry up.

However as all things in life no doubt the brand will change again and it will still be fixable, only this time it will be Ferrari, and this time all those pretty lights will be red

 

Julian has pretty much hit the nail on the head here I feel.

BTW, love the shpongle avatar:MILD:

Robbo

 

Now THAT is a cool watch.

Do they still make it?

Steve Mqueen wore one... it doesnt really get much better than that! I dont even care if it keeps good time!!

How much are they, anyone know?

 

Tag watches tend to start around the 800 quid mark, although no doubt one of that vintage will fetch a lot more.

I don't like tag watches.

 

I have to say, they don't do much for me either.

 

for me the older tag watches like that pictured are preferable to the newer ingots of tacky chromed metal that tag currently flogs. however as i've stated before i'm such a suave m***** f***** that time is irrelavent to me and i therefore don;t own a watch - actually i get a really bad rash if i wear one so i use my phone instead. this has lead the male obsession with wrist jewelery to pass me by. still steve mcqueens watch is prety f****** cool.

cheers


julian

 

(a) Yes they do, I see them in Basel every Saturday.

(b) Don't know, but I could find out and get one at cheaper Swiss prices, if you were interested.

 

Get one of these :-



Oris are much nicer IMHO

How long before Ian or Lee gets one

 

I used to have a very nice watch in which the minute hand had a small flag of Pakistan on the tip. But it broke.

I had a Soviet submarine commanders watch as well, but that only lasted about 10 minutes before self-destructing. Makes you wonder why it took the yanks so long to win the cold war...

-- Ian

 

Why Ian, were you Force feeding it Brotzman at the Time?, no wonder the poor thing expired :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

I have a tag 20 dac and was looking to upgrade to the dpa 32 dac pre, i might think again. I have read on this forum about how people rate quad (always seem to be in trouble). It is a fact that over 90% of businesses cease trading in the first 10 years.

GAZZ

 

Even better, I live in the village where they're made!

 

sorry,

Miles Davis made Jazz cool.

Steve Mqueen WAS cool.


I want to be steve mqueen not Miles Davis! hehe

Its like my little boy wanting to own an action man watch, and me saying 'timex is better' !! doesnt wash I'm afraid!!

For the first time ever, I wish 'Dan Duchane' the muscle building meathead from hifi choice was around...

He'd know how much you could pick an old steve Mqueen Tag up for..

Mind you, they say careful what you wish for..

 

I think that's a tad harsh - I think their niche was AV - the AV32R was a landmark product in many ways, not just for it's excellent performance but for the futureproofing it offered.

I do wonder whether it is the upgradeability that has been it's downfall - you have a team of developers working on endless new features but the customer has only to pay for the new feature rather than having to replace the whole unit (as would be common with many other manufacturers)

It's great for the consumer because they just buy the original unit then pay small amounts to keep it up to date but is it good for the company i.e. do the figures add up - it would appear not.

It's true to say that there was a lot of brand marketing behind it all (and that can't have helped profitability) but, behind that brand, certainly with the likes of the AV32R and DVD32R were products that really delivered the goods.

Matt.

 

I dont know if they were big in the states??

But maybe their concentration and investment in home cinema was their downfall.

After all, outside of the states 2 channel is much more dominant in sales .. at least in the high end game IMO.

... budget 5 speaker packages from dixons not withstanding of course.


? Well, I just wonder whether Udo Zuckers claim that prices arent going to drop ?

As WM suggested, sounds very very unlikely to me.

 

Now that customers know that they cant carry out upgrades/futureproofing etc, I cant see how they will manage to sell anything without cutting their prices.

The brand has now been devalued in the eyes of the customer IMO.

Robbo

 

Hmm, so all those DAC20s being sold off as factory refurbs (but were all actually brand spanking new units) a couple of months back, was that when alarm bells started ringing for TMA which has now lead us to this conclusion?

TMA, do seem to have a bit of confused identity I must agree. I think I've always perceived as "life-style" because a lot of their kit does have designer looks and it is priced quite steeply. On the other hand, they do seem to have one or two quite noteable mainstream products which are more than praiseworthy in their respective price ranges. The AVR32 surround processor, which I think is also popular in the US too as an example of a successful export, and also their DVD transports.

If there was one TAG product like to have owned, it would be their FM/DAB tuner. Probably the best DAB tuner around, but the price, ouch. So definitely more of a frivolous expenditure. Would have like to have seen this at heavily discounted prices - still we may yet see the words of "no discounts" buckle underneath possible recessionary pressures coming into play towards the end of this year if certain commentators are to believed. :JOEL:

I don't think in the slightest that keeping the Audiolab brand name visible after the TMA takeover would have psychologically swayed existing or new customer at all. For me, Audiolab died when TMA took over and raised the prices of the existing Audiolab range, and then hiked the stakes even further with the TMA branded equivalent replacements. To be fair, the first generation of TMA products, were essentially re-boxed Audiolabs, but IMO, from then onwards the products were definitely more TAG's own take on things. I'd say that the TAG sound is slightly warmer and a touch more rounded than the typical Audiolab sound of old, which was certainly always neutral but some often accused of being sterile , cold or a touch lean. I was always a great fan of their full range of amps (and owned an 8000A, and still have a 8000Q and an 8000P), but was less convinced by their CDP and CDT/DACs. Although having said that, the digital front ends could do a sterling job with suitably matched amp/speakers, but just not matched with their own amps which was too much of an Audiolab thing even for my tastes!

As for comparing the success of Naim against TAG/Audiolab? Well, Naim have a better marketing strategy, as others have said. They target a set market, have a distinct philosophy (or did?) on sound/music reproduction and know how to keep hold of existing customers by giving them a (hardware) upgrade path - the crucial bit which really brings in the pennies, rightly or wrongly but the marketing guys certainly got this money spinner off to a tee IMO whatever you may think of the pricing structures. I suspect the rise of flat earth at the time in the early 80s helped no end and Niam were able to latch on and became one of the brands synonmous with this movement. Audiolab were certainly more middle ground, round earth yes, made reliable and dependable products but which weren't contraversial and were understated but still very reasonable successful. Audiolab and TAG just didn't heard together enough sheep together all in one place to pull off the Naim hat-trick.

 

i always see the main customer base for tm gear as the docklands loft rooster with more money than IQ. needs some tunes to impress the girlies so drops by the cornflake shop or oranges and lemons (cos he's heard they're cool) spots a hi-fi the same make as his tasteless new watch and stumps up the readies. of courser this isn;t everyone but i'd say this was the typical customer.

matt,
the f3 boxes are not significantly different in from the 8000 al boxes in any way i can fathom.
the dvd player is totally out of sync with the design of any other tm product
the aphrodite is a linn classik at 4 times the price
the caliope speakers look tacky and are too expensive.
the av32 + derivatives are perhaps the one product that kept tma alive for so long it was inovative, expandable but very expensive and if you didn;t mind the lack of upgradability you could buy a good pre and a sony / yamaha / dennon / marantz av amp that would better it for 2 channel and equal it for 5 with built in amplification. only if you want room eq or phantom height etc. does the tma stuf win and they'll be along in the next generation of japanese super av amps.
the f1 speakers were massively expensive.

i would say all but their f3 stuff were niche products in one way or another and the f3 stuff was outdated in the knowledgable customers eyes and too expensive for the 'impulse' buy so not really viable.

cheers

julian