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Sad day for Kralk

hifinutt

hifinutt

hifinutt
from the website


Kralk Audio Limited is not trading at this time, and hasn’t been for the past few months.Kralk Audio began 8 years ago with Alan Clark, a man with a passion for creating great loudspeakers that many could afford and enjoy, all on his own in his small workshop at home. Unfortunately, success is a demanding mistress; great workmanship and quality engineering are not enough. Business requires more than that. The start of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered various latent issues, which had been building up. Core processes quickly deteriorated to the point of failure, leading to a complete production stop.This is when Mike Harlington and Nicolas Will came on-board in March 2020. Both are just as passionate about audio as Alan is and they recognised the value of Kralk Audio and all the pre-existing efforts put into making high-value loudspeakers with a fantastic market recognition. Both were willing to bring what was missing: successful entrepreneurship track record, industry recognition, management and commercialisation excellence, finances, marketing and sales experience.Kralk Audio Limited was born, with the goal of reaching the next level of deserved success, while preserving its acquired legacy, through significant financial and time investments, improved engineering and commercialisation processes as well as new manufacturing capabilities. Alan was given the engineering/quality reins (the heart of all Kralk Audio products), a majority stake holding in the new company and a guaranteed income: peace of mind for him and his family once the busy transition was achieved.Unfortunately, transitioning proved to be a mountain too high to climb; major gaps in understanding the very basics of business management, communications difficulties and a failure to establish trust, compounded by the lockdown, multiplied the challenges, ultimately leading to the complete breakdown of the already stressed partnership.This is a sad tale of passions and positive intentions that have regretfully failed to align and meet the expected success. There were signs out there to be seen, but hindsight is 20:20…There are open options for Kralk Audio Limited to have a future, either with Alan or with Mike and Nicolas. We’re hoping to find the best way forward, for everyone, regardless of our differences. Until that way is found, everything related to Kralk Audio Limited, including the intellectual property and assets (both material and financial), is on hold. Alan is still a director and shareholder of Kralk Audio Limited, even if he’s not a salaried employee anymore.Mike Harlington and Nicolas Will can be reached by email or other well-known means. They welcome and encourage any request for further information.
 
Not the first and doubtless not the last. No personal experience of Kralk, but never good to see.

On the other hand, I do have first hand experience of a number of small UK manufacturers for whom things are going pretty well at the moment, and who might, and indeed on occasion do, claim to be feeling energised, spunky and full of vim.
 
Sad news, I heard the TBD-12s at Cranage and really enjoyed them, to the extent that I was seriously considering buying them once I managed to squirrel enough cash together.
Hopefully they’ll be able to sort themselves out.
 
I did see this on the website yesterday, I was hoping to upgrade from the TDB4 I currently have to a larger speaker. That update reads slightly odd to me? I do hope they sort things. The chap makes great vfm speakers.
 
British speaker manufacturers rarely seem to last more than ten years
The Harbeths of the world are the rare exception
 
<moderating>

One no doubt innocently framed post removed as I don’t think it fair to speculate on other businesses as a site the size of pfm can do real damage to customer confidence. We should try and support surviving businesses where possible, not preempt failure.
 
That's sad, i remember them at Cranage, thought the three way speaker was such good sound and great fun to listen too, was a real joy to hear them playing none audiophile music.
They had a much better sounding room that many of "if you have to ask you can't afford them" rooms.

Cranage_20181034.jpg

Cranage_20181035.jpg


Images....Hifi Pig...https://hifipig.com/north-west-audio-show-2018-show-report/
 
Kralk’s Facebook page has disappeared too. I was always tempted to go for a listen as they’re only up the road, sadly looks like I won’t get a chance now. I do remember seeing some out board crossovers and cabinets he made for some big old JBLs (IIRC) and thinking they were beautiful
 
Tony L said:
<moderating>

One no doubt innocently framed post removed as I don’t think it fair to speculate on other businesses as a site the size of pfm can do real damage to customer confidence. We should try and support surviving businesses where possible, not preempt failure.
Click to expand...
Sorry that was me, I did not mean to cause concern to anyone.
 
Space is the Place said:
That's sad, i remember them at Cranage, thought the three way speaker was such good sound and great fun to listen too, was a real joy to hear them playing none audiophile music.
They had a much better sounding room that many of "if you have to ask you can't afford them" rooms.

Cranage_20181034.jpg

Cranage_20181035.jpg


Images....Hifi Pig...https://hifipig.com/north-west-audio-show-2018-show-report/
Click to expand...

The bottom ones are wacky! One of the most original aesthetic treatments of a box speaker Ive seen- bet a company with marketing heft could shift those in large numbers, especially at that price.
 
alanbeeb said:
Damn. I was really hoping to hear the TDB-10s someday, or hoped they might bring out a sealed box standmount with decent sized drivers (think they had some planned - https://www.stereonet.co.uk/news/exclusive-kralk-audio-30-range-loudspeakers-unveiled). Oh well.
Click to expand...
The enthusiast market has been crying out for a decent medium sized IB speaker too. I wonder if he’s been caught out by the economic crisis just at the point he was scaling up the business. Hope he gets back up again when conditions permit.
Edit: Ah, just read Phil’s opening post.
 
Yeah, sad news indeed. I've got two pairs of Kralk Audio BC-30 speakers (front and rear speaker in a 4.0 setup), both in the lovely and quite understated light-sapelle finish, and I expect to keep them till death do us part.

I bought them in 2016 and I remember being thoroughly impressed with Alan's customer service skills at the time as he sent me regular updates on their progress: he built speakers to order back then in his garden shed (okay, it could have been a spare, workshop room in his house). At any rate, he took customer service as seriously the king of customer service, John Lewis.

The speakers sound a lot like Linn Kans: bass-lite, fast and fun... but without the top-end squeal and squawk. In my flat with neighbours on three sides of my living room, they're Goldilocks-right for one and all.

Farewell, Kralk Audio, may the Pheonix of Sunderland Speakers rise from the ashes and transduce electrical energy into sound once again...
 
Welcome to business in the modern UK. Although understandable it is disappointing that Tony doesn't want us to discuss what has almost certainly taken out a small viable growing UK home audio business. But not certainly which I guess is the point.
 
I'm sorry they've folded, hopefully he'll regroup. The problem is that a hobby business with modest turnover is easy to manage, scaling up requires investment and business acumen and that's brings demands for steady sales, marketing Infrastructure, real margins and a whole host of other head aches.
 
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