TagMclaren Gone?

Has anyone been to the Tagmclaren Website today?

http://www.tagmclarenaudio.com/

It looks as though they have gone for good, there is a statement about what's going to happen now. It is a sad day when any company gets into difficulty and then disappears.

Hopfully the new owners, who also make Wharfedale and Quad :chunder: :chunder: , can do something positive with it. But I am sure they won't be of the same standard.

A Sad Day Indeed

 

Hmm...International Audio Group (IAG, the new owners) are obviously not the same IAG that I know:

http://www.iagaudio.com/index.htm

A sad day indeed but I can't say I'm surprised.

Michael.

 

it 's been on the cards for some time, the factory was up for grabs a few months ago. Udo Zucker was fired at the end of 2003, I believe.

 

i wonder, if maclaren had won the f1 championship would sales have taken off?
cheers


julian

 

No. The link between F1 and upmarket audio was never really there.

 

The link between tagmaclaren and up market audio was never really there.

Bob

 

With hindsight bolting fancy knobs and blue LEDs onto 1980s Audiolab products was never really the way forward… a bit like sticking blue headlights on a 80s 205.

I just hope Quad are safe, I'd hate to see them hit the skids again. It is a little disturbing to see them lined up in IAGs portfolio along with Warfedale, a once proud name who now seem to be in the 50 quid DVD player market.

Tony.

 

I predict IAG will resurrect the Audiolab name. Would make better sense from a marketing POV than persisting with TAG McLaren.

AFAIK Quad are doing OK.

-- Ian

 

Audiolab would make sense.
IAG seem to have done rather well with Quad and Wharfdale, they both seem to gone back to what they both did best.
Hopefully the same will be true of Audiolab, and they'll stick to two channel.
Or could it be that IAG wants a home cinema brand?

 

Interesting. Not a bad thing as the 'new' owner seems to have treated the Quad name very well so far.

Maybe I should go and audition those nice Quad ESL speakers. However, I think I need to upgrade my listening room first to fit a 5.1 channels base on ESL system.

Demo Martin Logan ESL before at home. Didn't thought they had a big superiority over dynamic speakers then.

Very interesting.

 

"it 's been on the cards for some time, the factory was up for grabs a few months ago. Udo Zucker was fired at the end of 2003, I believe."

Udo was a very confident person (clever as well). There was his way of doing things and his way! Perhaps this didn't quite work out as designed! Has he gone back to TAG Electronics?

There was a view that Audiolab was bought by TAG to give Udo something to do instead of going to another F1 team. Use of the McLaren "golden cuffs" again.

Ian

 

I wonder what it is that HiFi and fast cars have in common? There are quite a number of people who have a strong interest in both. Yourself (Ian), Udo Zucker and then there's Keith Howard and to a lesser extent, David Vivian who both have journalistic careers in both camps. Whilst I don't belong in the same exalted company as the aforementioned I also have more than passing interest in both areas and I'm sure there are many more. Surely there must be more to it than just a geeky interest in technology?

Michael.

 

Damn right. The Audiolab brand, concept and products were genuinely well thought out IMO. The Tag McLaren rebadging and restyling was the *Miami Vice* of makeovers.

 

This has been on the cards for a while, are the new boys going to honour the warranty claims? or are Quad going to stick F1 approved on the cooker cable?

 

Its a shame, Audiolab were great, tag got them to go 'designer' to appeal to the boys toys brigade.

I hope they will be restored, the cds, tuners and amps were brill, tuner esp.

 

A message to IAG : Don't screw this up - TAG have some GREAT products out there!

 

I think they should revert back to Audliolab as well, they have such a big name in HIFI. TAG have always seem to be a bit flashy has others have said here. However they always got good reviews in the HIFI press so it could not have been all about show.

 

Well that's utter balls as they were widely regarded as making some of the finest processors and DVD players available. On the stereo front, I don't think I'm mistaken in saying that their CD transports, DAC's and the DPA32R pre-amp were pretty well rated too.

I think they started out reasonably well - the AV32R was a superb product (and good value) and I even think people might have lived with the re-badging of Audiolab had the prices remained the same. Some of the amps (5X100R etc) might have been a little overpriced but were still good designs, if not class leading. They tried to do too much too soon IMO.

It's when they came out with weird looking £15K pairs of speakers and evolved the AV32R into the £6K ish AV192 that they took themselves out of reach of many potential buyers.

It's a great shame to see them go and hopefully their better products, if not the brand itself, can live on through the new owners.

Matt.

 

well, to be the opposite..

I thought Audiolab 8000P, 8000C and most of all 8000A's were (for the money) a big heap of stinking turd.

The only thing I liked about Audiolab is the name, which is a fantastic name for a hifi company IMO.

Sorry if you liked Audiolab amplification (never really heard the transports and DACs), but I didnt.

Chris

 

It's always sad when a company goes a way other than intented.
The pretentiousness that Tag tried to engineer into it's products, just didn'y pay off, I agree with most of the guys, they would have better off leaving the Audiolab badge on it.
I've never been a fan of either Tag or Audiolab (it'as the dryness that I don't like), nothing really they didn't seemd to really say hey look at me, but they have a good following, and it needs to be continued I feel. Wm