Comment by klodolph
11 hours ago
Teenage Engineering seems to run partly on hype and halo effect. It makes cool things you can’t afford, and you buy something cheaper. Selling a vinyl cutting machine keeps them in the news, which keeps them in your mind, and then you think about how you always wanted an OP-1 but oh maybe you could buy the EP-133 instead.
I’m sure there’s a price at which the vinyl cutter is profitable.
It's also possible that TE are full of people who are passionate about design and sound and want to work on and release interesting products in that space. Not everything is a psyop
That took my comment to a much darker place than I anticipated—I think basic marketing is ok, and even if you’re passionate about design, you still should be thinking about the business’s bottom line.
But, like, https://teenage.engineering/store/field-desk
Or maybe the TP-7 is a better example.
They are obviously following the playbook from brands like Supreme. At least in part.
That's basically a bad Eiermann desk ripoff, but about twice as expensive as the original.
https://www.richard-lampert.de/en/furniture/eiermann-1/
1 reply →
That is hilarious. Ikea with the Rexroth price tag.
They're passionate about style and brand, not design and sound.
I say this as someone with expertise in a domain they nominally targetted.
Very "cool" looking kit, but: missing basic features, unremarkable in those provided; serious issues rendering it fundamentally inappropriate for its nominal application.