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Reviewer: Constantine Soo

Constantine Soo unravels the secrets of the $28,500 Audio Tekne TFM-9412 integrated 300B amplifier

Yujean Kang of Tangram Audio, the U.S. Importer of Audio Tekne of Japan, was particularly proud of being the U.S. representative of the Japanese company. It was not because he thought the products would sell like pancakes; on the contrary, his pride of representation stemmed from the fact that not everyone who could afford it could become an owner, regardless of his financial might. Lest I get myself into catastrophic trouble with our readers, I better explain next.

In the negotiation of his wish to become the U.S. Importer of Audio Tekne, Yujean was given a set of “rules” by Mr. Kiyaoki Imai, owner of Audio Tekne, on his business philosophy, to which Yujean must show every effort in adherence. The original words, with minor editing for syntax and usage, are included in the following:

The general plan of Audio Tekne

Please understand these:
Audio equipment is civilization and music is culture.

Don’t sell audio equipment; a seller needs to wait for the customer who understands the value of audio equipment and buys it.

1. The audio equipment for listening to music are not goods sold according to persuasion and power.

2. In short, audio equipment are the goods which are bought after a customer understands the value.

3. Supposing audio equipments are sold at persuasion and power, since the customer bought it without understanding the value, he will get bored with using them immediately.

4. A seller needs to enlighten a customer so that a customer can judge the right sound. For that reason, a seller needs to recommend a customer to go to a concert.

(The reason: Don’t get to know a real sound, and there are many people who evaluate sound quality.)

However, a seller must not force about it to a customer.

5. A seller has to introduce the good software for his customer, and a seller has to make it a matter of pride for his customer to have much software.

6. A seller does not recommend a customer on a change of audio equipments; only when there is dissatisfaction as opposed to sound quality in a customer, it is right for a seller to teach a customer the cause.