Gibosn buys controllng share of TEAC

Yeah...they'll just hike up prices like their guitars and milk the brand....I can't see them developing anything further.
They'll get behind the existing products that match well with guitar sales.

Like what happend to Groove Tubes once Fender bought them. All the really great GT products vanished...and all they do is recycle cheap tubes with the GT brand....I doubt they even test and hand select them any more like GT use to.
 
Sad but true that reputation is just a brand name for sale these days, and has been for many years. Few companies that I can think of off the top of my head are owned by the same people or follow the values of the original company that made it a household name. The Tokyo Electro Acoustic Company (TEAC) isn't going to be that under Gibson. On the other hand TEAC has not been TEAC for 10 years or so already.
 
Teac through Tascam has been milking the trust it earned in the eighties for years. I am truly surprised that they are even still around. And I really mean that. As one of their "previously" loyal customers that spent, I don't know, probably well over $25k on their products, I have become totally dismayed with their company and tactics. Actually, my trusty M308's, 38 with thousands of hours and MS-16 still wotk perfectly. On the other hand, I own 5 DA-38's that not one has over 100 hours on it and not 1 of the machines work. Ditto with the way they dumped on those of us with the DM24 LCD, capacitors and power supplies. It's been junk for years now.
 
Teac through Tascam has been milking the trust it earned in the eighties for years. I am truly surprised that they are even still around. And I really mean that. As one of their "previously" loyal customers that spent, I don't know, probably well over $25k on their products, I have become totally dismayed with their company and tactics. Actually, my trusty M308's, 38 with thousands of hours and MS-16 still wotk perfectly. On the other hand, I own 5 DA-38's that not one has over 100 hours on it and not 1 of the machines work. Ditto with the way they dumped on those of us with the DM24 LCD, capacitors and power supplies. It's been junk for years now.

I think that's a pretty good summation of what TASCAM has become. How much more could Gibson further bastardize them? TASCAM alarm clocks in a cheaply made in China, horribly disfigured plastic mold of a reel to reel machine in 1/8 scale? lol...I bet that's exactly what they'll do. Sad.

Cheers! :)
 
All Tascam had to do was to beef up one those portastudios with a nice pair of VU meters, nice, yet, cheap preamps, and wood trims and voila, retro greatness is back! They still sell the portastudios for 99 bucks, what's really stoping them from making a nice machine for a grand or less?
 
All Tascam had to do was to beef up one those portastudios with a nice pair of VU meters, nice, yet, cheap preamps, and wood trims and voila, retro greatness is back! They still sell the portastudios for 99 bucks, what's really stoping them from making a nice machine for a grand or less?

Well I think the issue with Tascam was much more complex than that. But it should be evident that whoever it was that had control of the throttle at Tascam made some pee poor business decisions. Clearly, insteading of sticking with the "Semi Pro" market, they went after the bottom of the barrel, music should be free generation. $99 handheld junk, guitar trainers and other nonsense.

But I also see this as a two fold generational problem. It is widely know that Japan has become fat and lazy, exactly as the American people have become and that they are borrowing on their past successes, just as we are. Instead of their products being made by meticulous and highly motivated Japanese workers, they have farmed out their trinkets, excactly as we have. But that should be expected because MacArthur set up their model precisely following the American model after WWII.

The other part of the generational problem is that kids today think music should be free. And for the most part, an entire industry has been destroyed in the process. This includes local production studios, producers, A&R people, tape manufacturers, machine manufactuers, the list is endless.

I am from a generation that understood that when I went into a studio to record, I would likely spend $7 to $10,000.00 recording a single. And it was not unheard of to hear of major record albums that had over a million bucks invested in production. Thankfully, Tascam made it possible to "almost" achieve the same results as far as fidelity was concerned. As they said in ancient literature distributed with their recorders: they could not guarrantee that "you" would create a hit record, but they could guarantee that their product could, or something like that, iirc.

Bascially, Instead of staying in that botique market, they went for the masses. Bad mistake. On the other hand, consider how Universal Audio, Manley, Telfunken, Toft, API and so many other botique companies are doing. Even in these troubled times.

Tascam has been run into the ground by idiots.
 
Well I think the issue with Tascam was much more complex than that. But it should be evident that whoever it was that had control of the throttle at Tascam made some pee poor business decisions. Clearly, insteading of sticking with the "Semi Pro" market, they went after the bottom of the barrel, music should be free generation. $99 handheld junk, guitar trainers and other nonsense.

But I also see this as a two fold generational problem. It is widely know that Japan has become fat and lazy, exactly as the American people have become and that they are borrowing on their past successes, just as we are. Instead of their products being made by meticulous and highly motivated Japanese workers, they have farmed out their trinkets, excactly as we have. But that should be expected because MacArthur set up their model precisely following the American model after WWII.

The other part of the generational problem is that kids today think music should be free. And for the most part, an entire industry has been destroyed in the process. This includes local production studios, producers, A&R people, tape manufacturers, machine manufactuers, the list is endless.

I am from a generation that understood that when I went into a studio to record, I would likely spend $7 to $10,000.00 recording a single. And it was not unheard of to hear of major record albums that had over a million bucks invested in production. Thankfully, Tascam made it possible to "almost" achieve the same results as far as fidelity was concerned. As they said in ancient literature distributed with their recorders: they could not guarrantee that "you" would create a hit record, but they could guarantee that their product could, or something like that, iirc.

Bascially, Instead of staying in that botique market, they went for the masses. Bad mistake. On the other hand, consider how Universal Audio, Manley, Telfunken, Toft, API and so many other botique companies are doing. Even in these troubled times.

Tascam has been run into the ground by idiots.

I don't really understand this^ :D so yeah basically you're saying that some boutique companies still makes and sell good gear with VU Meters, with cheap yet good preamps! Tascam also have all the power to create and tool their own parts, but probably a very high overhead? I have no idea, but they still produce a decent tape recorder for 99 bucks. Period.
 
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