dave weil wrote:

You know very little about marketing *or* guitars, it seems. Ovations
have been out of favor now for years.

I know that. I *DID* say that they are not as good as a decent Martin
or Guild with decent pickups, but they do sell enough to make a decent
profit because of their different way of doing things(ie - the botique
type asthetic difference). I also said that IMO, it was a bad choice to
make them out of plastic(resonates like crap for one), but, remember, I
was in "marketing advocate" mode.

I have no problem at all with Trotsky going the B&O type botique
speaker route. Nothing wrong with that. OTOH, that means he requires
a differece or gimmick that he can exploit to make it look or be
perceived as worth the difference in price.

Well, that would be my advice. Shoot, the Beatles used a gimmick or
different sound in most of their early recordings. Listen carefully.
There is always a odd instrument or catchy rhythm or something in
every single song subtly mixed into the background. Nothing wrong
with it either - it worked then and for Trotsky's speakers, it would
work now.

You see very few of them these
days in comparison with Martin, Gibson, Taylor and Takamine,
especially on stage.

Oh, I know this. And I said as much. My mother-in-law has a beautiful
1960's Guild that whomps on the latest Ovation I heard. My dream
guitar is a full body Martin I recently tried. But, at $800, um...
Yeah - that dream will have to wait a year or two. (grin)

OTOH, Ovations still sell well to the intermediate crowd, just like
Tortsky's speakers might. IF he finds that special feature or
niche that sets him apart. And, no, a ribbon tweeter won't be
enough of a change by itself, especially since most people find
them to be kind of ugly in a bookshelf speaker - where smaller visual
impact is usually preceived as better.

This did strike me as odd, actually. Small as possible cabinet and
design(a good thing in some situations) and a huge glaringly non
subtle ribbon tweeter up top. Kind of defeats the whole smaller
is better thing he seems to be going for.

Stage guitars have come a long way, especially
with the mic'ing and eq options now available. I can't remember the
last time I saw an Ovation on stage, and I've probably seen about a
hundred different ones just this year. People like Al Stewart, who
have used them in the past, have migrated to Taylor, which seems to be
the trendy live acoustic these days.

Yeah I noticed that, too. It seems to change every few years which
model is the "hot" thing.

Oh yeah, PS, look for my photo/s of Glenn Tilbrook to be accompanying
an article in an upcoming Taylor Guitars newsletter.

So what makes them different or special? Just curious. Better
pickups? Different shaped body? Or, are they just the "hot"
commodity now?