Post
by basspig » Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:13 pm
I've been away from this forum for a while, so it is rather a shock to hear the news of the demise of Sunfire Corp.
Until we know the reason why the company was sold, the rest is just speculation. One thing is pretty certain: the passion of engineering audio equipment is quite a different thing from the dry and often ugly world of business and marketing. Bob was a genius in the technical areas, but I'm quite certain he was frustrated by the legal/business side of things. If he is retiring, then one must question why he didn't find a suitable party to carry the torch. There could be many reasons, but possibly one being that none of the companies in related areas could relate to the appeal of Carver equipment. If the company was sold to a Chinese outfit, then we can't expect any new innovation. That is sad.
This situation reminds me of the recent Kurzweil/Young-Chang/Samic debacle, in which Kurzweil was sold to a Korean company, which seemed to want to obliterate it totally. However, there were several good companies that wanted to buy Kurzweil and restore it to its former glory and an innovator of synthesizer technology. Whether this is true for Sunfire, I don't know. I can only imagine that there must be a few that would want to carry the company's torch, but from what has been posted here, it doesn't look that way.
As for globalism, I'm supposed to believe that it is a good thing. And that the fittest will survive and prosper in these conditions. However, when I see teachers salaries increasing 32% a year, while wages of common workers are frozen at 2% a year, with the real estate market having gone insanely crazy this past decade, property taxes have gone up twenty-fold for some of us in the northeast. Our salaries have gone down. Some one has to tell the tax man that we're now part of a global economy, so teachers have to get with the program ans start living on the wages that the rest of us are living on.
In the early 1990s, I was averaging $128/hr as a prepress graphic designer. By 1995, I was down to $50/hr. By 1997, I was out of the business and fixing radio transmitters for $25/hr. And now satellite, MP3 and the new generation of non-radio kids is putting the broadcast biz into a slow downward death dance. The writing is on the wall. Work is becoming hard to find. My wife and I even looked into a medical career, but the cost of schooling is steep and the wages for the position we were interested in are less than I charge per hour now in radio.
Something really scares me when my real estate agent tells me that the last three homes she sold were bought by CEOs. No common folks moving into my town anymore. The average salary is $122,000/yr here. I HAVE to wonder where all these people make their money. It sure isn't me! This year I will have a $12,800 property tax bill, if the current budget passes. My business posted a loss of $3500 last year, it was such a terrible year. Fuel is at insane prices. Everything has gone up. I've been selling everything non essential on ebay just to stay afloat.
So when will local taxing authorities figure out that this is the new global economy and roll back taxes to Wal-Mart levels?
It is a scary time that we live in. America is Athens, fighting the Battle of Syracuse. Historians will recall the unfortunate ending of THAT battle.
As for amplifiers, with Carver, Sunfire and even Hafler gone, I'm actually contemplating QSC and their Powerlight 6.0 amps to power, at the very least, my woofers. Times are changing indeed.