Def tech tried to be to the 90's what Polk was to the 80's. A sales superpower who's target was the hi-fi specialty store.

They sought out the top specialty stores in any given town and went after them strong and hard. They wanted their products prominently displayed, and to look different from the other boxes in the stores.

To their credit, they pretty much pioneered the 6ft tall, shiny black, mothothic speakers with built in subs that soon everyone and their brothers tried to mimic.

However, around the turn of the century, 6ft. tall, high gloss, bi-polar, monolithic speakers wrapped in socks began to fall out of fashion. Even the brands that Def Tech had mimic (Mirage & Paradigm) had abandoned the look and design.

Thinking back at the Polk glory days, the old ads that showed Mr. Polk standing next to a gigantic $3500.00/pr. set of speakers (along with captions from reviewers talking about how great they were) did wonders for selling the $500/pr Polks. Just like Def, the awe factor was there in a big way.

The problem is that it's hard to sustain that momentum. When you first see the big, impressive advertisements and the reviews, it's pretty hard to ignore, but after a few years, the awe and wow starts to wear off. Def Tech had a great story, and I'm sure that they had a huge growth phase for quite a few years, but once that growth starts to level off, maybe it's time to sell and get out?

To Sandy's credit, he started that company from scratch, built it up into a pretty well known name, sold it and probably made quite a bit of money doing so.