Bonjour, Bill!
Saturday November 08 1997 10:03, Bill Dobiesz wrote David Arvon:
 BD>   I speak American, some Canadian, English and Astralian...a tiny
 BD> bit of French, Spanish and German...no Hebrew or Yiddish.
Me, only Russian ;-) French, and (very bad :-) English...
 BD> Anyway, what's the music & audio scene like over there?  Anything
 BD> made domestically there, or is everything imported?
   In Russia (that's where I live) we have very long tradition of vacuum-lamp 
amplifiers making. I think you know, that most lamps, used in USA made audio 
technic where imported to USA from USSR (and China), because they has very 
small price with not bad quality. But other (semiconductor) compounds, 
produced in USSR always was not of the best quality, because our industry did 
not know any concurence. That was caused by "soviet" centralised economic 
system. Only military technic, produced in USSR was of the "world" quality... 
In 1985 in USSR the "perestroika" began. The new gouvernement, witch in the 
head where Gorbochev, tried to reparate economic system of the country, byt 
in 1991 USSR had crashed down. The new Russian federation had no good 
(normal) economic system (and now is has only very bad one) that's why most 
interprises was stopped and only now some of them begin to produce something. 
The new interprises, create with new economic system are so young, that they 
cannot create good production. Most people in Russia now resale something, 
byt not produce. How we live so, we don't know ourselves ;-)
   So, in USSR people had no possibility to use much imported technic, byt 
they always tried to do it. In the domain of professional audio (in the 
recording studios) was used in most cases technic imported from other 
"soviet" countries as Poland, Cheko-Slovakia etc. Most interprises, who 
produced some not bad audio for home use was in Estonia, Litva, Latvia, than 
after 1991 they become forigen for Russia, but bacause only Russia always 
buyed all their production, now they are in very bad situation - nobody in 
the world want to buy their technic.
   If you understood what I wrote (with so "good" English as mine, I think 
that was not very simple ;-) you must understand too, that now in Russia we 
all are surrounded by imported technic, because we have no domestic audio, 
but everybody in the world want to sell us tomething after they received this 
possibility :-)
   In the domain of home audio Panasonic try of all their forces to sell us 
their equpement. SONY go after them step by step (in the domain of "Walkman" 
they are the first). AIWA sell mini- and midi-systems, their walkmans are not 
so popular because of their big price. Philips, I think, begin the 
arriergarde of this "top", and people, who understand something in sound, 
choice JVC or AKAI, who close this "top". :-)
   If we speak about people, who want to have good sound, not only hear the 
noise ;-), they buy equpement in the HI-FI and HI-END shops, witch we have 
much now. In this case, I think, most things are like in all other countries. 
I can say only that after Technics (that in Russia is popular because of its 
small prices) goes Pioneer. It is the most popular in domain of HI-FI 
equpement. Of cause, people who know real good soud buy Maranz, Teac ect, 
i.e. all that buy so people in other countries (how I think HI-END is 
everywhere HI-END and not so mutch people in the world produce it). I must 
say only that HI-END vacuum-lamp amplifiers are produced now in Russia and 
they have good quality, but this is so small part of this market, that I 
can't say that it is real part :-(
   In recording studios - Tascam, Alesis, dbx... - all imported. Only 2 or 3 
pieces of equipement on every studio are home made. And cables, connectors 
may be - things, that seem to be not very important, but everybody try to 
change them to imported when possible...
   So we live in Russia. But I can speak only about St.Petesburg, in Moskow 
life is much more expansive (this is the third cyty in the world in the top 
of most expansive cities) and in domain of professional sound everything can 
be not like ours - more good expansive imported equpement; in home audio, I 
think cannot be much difference. In other cities (far from the capital) - I 
know nothing about audio market there...
                                      Amicalement votre / MIT
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