Originally Posted by
Werner Berghofer
Gary,
I don’t think so. Recently I asked you kindly to describe in a few words the “Beresford brand identity”. Instead of answering my request, you suggested to have a look at Stan’s gear and as an additional bonus you provided a link to Wikipedia — fortuntately at least this link worked. So far the only person obviously found worth doing trying to describe his feelings and perception of Beresford products and their philosophy was Hamish.
Actually you seem to have no idea about this legendary “Beresford brand identity”, but one thing you know for sure: It has to be kept intact and alive, and my design proposals just violate it.
You stated “its best to keep the design simple, clear and to the point”, and I felt free to match what you call “simple, clear and to the point” with photos from products which actually are designed this way. The prices for these products still are very reasonable and fair, but it’s obvious that their visual appearance is in a complete different, much higher league. By looking at gear designed like this, one expects that it also must be sounding excellent. In contrast, when looking at a big part of British HiFi gear, one wouldn’t expect more than just the power indicator light starting to glow the moment the unit is being powered on — assuming of course a brick-sized, high-performance external PSU is used.
To exaggerate this a little bit: certain British audio gear may sound very good, but it looks and feels as if it had been designed and assembled by amateur electronics handymen working from the garden shed. Their gear’s possible superior inner life and craftsmanship just is not recognizable from the outside, and more sensitive people might not feel invited to give gear looking that nasty even a try.
Nowadays even a small fish in a big pond needs professionally designed cases, web sites and printing matter to reflect the outstanding quality of his products in a credible, convincing way. It’s the Internet age, my dear; the days of the tinker’s weekly buddy meeting at the local pub are over. Schiit started as a company run by only two persons, but had a highly professional web site from day one plus a very clever markting concept. It also helped a lot that both founders are well-known and respected names in the audio business.
To Jerry aka “Jandl100”: As an experienced Webzine Reviewer you certainly know that the company name is Schiit. So what’s the deal with misspelling it constantly? I’m convinced that even in a few years in the future Schiit’s current case designs still will be recognized as outstanding, excellent and reduced to the maximum. Simple, clear and to the point, as Gary aka “Gazjam” prefers it, but unfortunately failed to demonstrate in a convincing way with his own proposals.
All just in my humble opinion, of course.
Werner.