From paul@cometway.com Wed Aug 25 01:07:00 2010
Subject:Re: Epoch

Hammond has been selling organs for Years. They already have a name and it took marginal success over 30 years from Korg, Oberheim, Viscount, Voce, and Roland to convince them to get back into the clonewheel game with significant help from Suzuki. Still it took them over 10 years to get it (mostly) right even though they invented the thing in the first place. Nord has worked hard to get where they are, but the NE3 is showing their appetite for the mainstream at the cost of distancing themselves from (some of) the customers who made them so successful. When you can afford to build and supply instruments in the tens of thousands at a price cheaper than a Cannondale, it's not too much to expect them spread it around a bit. The TX5 is not cheap and neither is the Diversi if I remember correctly -- but I don't see how low volume production is a sales problem. The keyboard industry was never big on selling anything over $2K even when the economy was booming. The sweet spot has alway been between $800 and $1600 -- what made the NE2 so attractive to me in the first place. The guys who go out and drop 3-5 grand on a keyboard (or a Les Paul) are not hurting financially -- the rest of us are just looking for a more cost-effective instrument that we don't have to buy off eBay. Nobody let's me try anything on eBay. -pc

On Aug 25, 2010, at 2:50 AM, David Jacques wrote: