We got a wonderful surprise yesterday.
A wealthy ruby merchant and committed audiophile from Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) called to order a pair of ACA's Seraphim speakers. It seems that he had read Roger Skoff's comment on the pair that we had shown at THE Show Newport last May, where Roger said that the Seraphim (regularly US$9,000 base price, but on "Show Special sale for US$8,000) were the best speakers he had ever heard for under US$40,000, and had been sufficiently interested by what Roger had to say that he flew all the way to the California Audio Show, in August, where he heard the Seraphim in an upgraded form, with special wiring, special tweeters, and our famous "Cocobolo" finish for just$14,000 a pair.
After hearing the same program material on the Seraphim and on the US$60,000 Sonus Faber Extremas shown directly across the hall, he told us that he liked the Seraphim a lot better , and that he "probably wanted a pair, but wanted to look around some more before making a final decision."
Well, lots of people say lots of things at Shows, and, although we were pleased by his remarks, we never really expected to hear from him again. So imagine how we felt when, after reading Malcolm Gomes' comments on the "Skogrand Special" version of the Seraphim exhibited at TAVES, he called and finally did place an order.
The ones he ordered were similar to what he heard at the California Audio Show, but in a different finish, and we were really happy to learn that he had been doing serious listening to other competitive speakers over the last few months and agreed wholeheartedly with the reviewers that the Seraphim clearly out performed all of its competition up to three -- or even four -- times its price.
We are pleased and grateful. It's nice to know that others appreciate your work, and we are seeing more and more things like this all the time.