"Erik Squires" wrote in message
ervers.com

When I was very young, I really admired the sound of and look of
Tandberg equipment, but shortly after they released their monoblocks,
they went poof in the US audio market.

Can anyone explan this phenomenon?

Tandberg was very sucessful in a low-volume way for many years with their
high-performance open-reel recorders. They made a evolutionary series of
recorders with a unique easy-to-use mechanical joystick mechanisms. Their
equipment was relatively small for what it was, and tastefully-designed.

When the Japanese flooded the market with really pretty good open reel
recorders, Tandberg had new competition. The Japanese eventually developed
solenoid-operated mechanisms. They had a lot of flash and glitter with lots
of polished metal, heavy cast chassis, and really pretty good performance.
They had vast development, manufacturing, distribution, service, sales and
marketing organizations behind them. The audio business itself changed, when
appliance stores set up their own audio salons, and audio moved out of
specialty stores into the mainstream.

Some place along the way the audio cassette became the mainstream product
and Tandberg had to redesign from scratch. When the market broadened, they
couldn't keep up.

As far as I could tell they had everything going for them.

They were trying to compete way out of their league.