Skip to main content

Speaks Volumes

India is an audiophile’s nightmare – a billion+ people are perfectly at ease with atrocious acoustics. Blame lack of knowledge, poor or non-existent taste and a music ecosystem that lays no demands on hi-fi.

But there are two exceptions: Sonodyne & Cadence. While the former is trying hard to woo the mainstream listener, the latter is an elitist and completely at odds with what one comes to expect from an Indian manufacturer of audio systems.

image I first read about Cadence when I was in Pune. I learnt about how 3 audiophiles (2 Indians and 1 German) met at the redoubtable Osho Commune and teamed up to form a one-of-its-kind audio manufacturing unit in Mundhwa, Pune. Acoustics gained precedence over aesthetics - this is vouched for by each for its products. Don’t be fooled by looks, there’s raw power underneath the hood.image

Cadence has won rave reviews globally although they’ve not  been able to scale up production to gain the visibility accorded to other renowned brands like Bose and Onkyo. They don’t mass manufacture, they don’t advertise, they don’t offer promotions and discounts, they don’t try gimmicks and they don’t compete with anyone. There have been instances when people from abroad have come all the way to India just to buy their products. Sachin Tendulkar owns a Cadence.

I hope to be the proud owned of a Cadence some day. Will make do with a low-end Bose until then!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Onkyo & Bose in the same sentence? Nakamichi I could have understood, but Onkyo!
Deepanjan said…
Onkyo is only a shade less luminous than Bose. Nakamichi is defunct.

Popular posts from this blog

This is what Bertrand Russell said about religion...

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. ... A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

The year that was

I'm wearing a rather striking shirt, one that makes me feel like a clown fooling around in a graveyard. Roving eyes latch on to me and make me too conscious of myself. Checkered in red, grey, black and maroon, I've excused myself into donning it and looking silly for two reasons. It's Friday and…more importantly, the last working day of the year. Tailored half-a-year back, I never had the courage to wear it, not until today. It's that time of the year when it's time to reflect on the events that transpired. Last year ended on the worst possible note. Dad had expired and I was numb with shock. The repercussions rippled halfway thought this year. Things were so abysmal initially that I had lost the will to live. Acrid in everything I did, I was immensely angered by time phlegmatically flowing through its cadence. It was as if Dad meant nothing to anybody. What right did people have to live the way they always had when Dad was no more? Why was much of the world still