The following link is to a BBC Scotland News item that is quite wrong by over three years!!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8368895.stm (if the link no longer works you can see a pdf of the article here)
We made our last CD player in Jun 2006 when it was clear that our customers were buying Apple computers instead. Later on and from Forums we learnt that PC owners were using Squeezebox.
Ironically, some time before, I'd seen a review of the SB Transporter in Stereophile who announced that it wasn't an "audiophile" product. My immediate reaction was that it had to be because it outputted zeros and ones. I was so incensed that I wrote an article for Inside Hi Fi (trade journal) pointing out that retailers had kicked against any sort of progress including DAB and barely accepted CD that was on the way out! Now they were confronted with what might be their Nemesis, the computer. Would they be ready for it?
It was about a year before they printed it because others had written more helpful articles on how to increase business. Twaddle! No one wanted to accept that iPods, Itunes and computers were bearing down on them like a driverless Mac Truck! Many still argue that computers “can’t make music”, “have too much jitter” and generally obfuscate instead of accepting the situation and putting the needs of customers first.
Shortly afterwards we introduced ADM9s and the rest is history. AVI and Apple offer a superior, more domestically acceptable package, more attuned to real world customers for a fraction of the price.
Ashley James
Managing Director AVI Limited
