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who is he talking about?
#1
https://www.stereophile.com/content/visit-focal-france

snippet from an article on the Stereophile site:

Finally, we visit the office—a glassy, reflective building with light wood floors, live plants, open stairs, natural light, and an abundance of charming Frenchies. The office houses general admin work, IT, supply chain (critical given that most products are built in-house), and the communication department (which handles everything—user manuals, product pictures, packaging, press releases—in house.)

image: https://www.stereophile.com/images/04021...l5-600.jpg
[Image: 040218-Focal5-600.jpg]
In the right corner of the first floor is the unassuming office of Christophe Sicaud—CEO of VerVent Audio Group, the holding company of Focal and Naim. He is a rangy man with angular features, towering above me in a sky blue button-down and crisp black blazer. Like with all sizable companies in audio, there is an overwhelming sense of highly polished brand passion, "Where Focal has delivered interestingly in the long run is in the design story." Christophe tells me the strengths of their brands lie in providing both good taste of sound and good sound experience. The latest Naim Uniti line, for instance, leaves customers feeling as though, "they didn't just buy a pair of wooden or black boxes with amplifiers inside. They also want to have something nice that fits with their interiors." 
On the current market and the future of audio he shares, "For us, it's also very important that the apps you get on your iPad, iPhone—the experience should be great, easy to use—your music listening, your listening platform should be perfectly integrated into our apps. Where the market is definitely going today is: the experience should be as simple as possible. Customers do not care to spend hours and hours in the shop anymore to experience different products."
"One very interesting market is the growth of the top high-end headphone market. As an audiophile, I owned some competitors' headphones before we developed the Utopia and Elear headphones. For me, explaining how a great driver and speaker company like Focal is able to deliver to these types of customers is very important. Most customers live in apartments and cannot use a big pair of speakers even though they could definitely afford them. They enter [the audiophile world] because they have money and would like to have the best from this segment. All the statistics we get from this market says they are far younger than traditional audiophiles. It's very important that we get younger customers interested in both our brands."
I ask him about his feelings—in the general sense—about fellow audio companies. "We need competitors. For sure, we hate some of them, because they—" he pauses for a moment, choosing his next words carefully, ". . . they push the market in a stupid way. We will not give you a name, but it's easy to say: it's a French company who's spending a bunch of money on marketing and not a lot on their products."

Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/visi...oMA9dFL.99
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#2
Hi, the same topic! Rolleyes
https://devialetchat.com/showthread.php?tid=5059
Aavik U-280 / Audio Physic Cardeas / Melco N1ZS + D100 / Melco Switch S100 / KECES P8 Dual / Transparent Audio PowerWave X / Cable: Audioquest, Shunyata, Transparent, Ansuz Digitalz A2 Ethernet, USB
Remote: iPad-Pro
Roon Nucleus+(B), Lifetime / Qobuz Studio Sublime                                                                                                          
Germany / Bavaria
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