I live in Hong Kong and have been buying up a lot of used equipment to build out my sound system. I've had a lot of luck, but today on a whim, I somewhat blindly purchased a $89 pair of "Timbre USA TTS-2 MKIIs".
I was told they where "made in the USA" (as the brand was "Timbre USA") but when I did some research online, i could only find 2 mentions of these speakers ... one on Audioreview.com (buried in another product's review from the late 90s) and a Chinese site that mentioned these by name.
I couldn't find any manufacturer website or any history of the company or any other products made what so ever. The only trace of the company I could find, was a business registration in New York back in 1997. (This is not super unusual as there are lots of small speaker manufactures and speaker info online can be obscure now, let alone back in the 90s.)
But, given the speakers where "made in the USA", I told myself "how bad could they be" and bought them from the previous owner through a classified ad. I met the guy in person, he looked as reputable as i was and externally the speakers looked like they where well worth the $89. So I paid the guy and took them home.
Upon closer inspection, I realized that what had looked like rubber and aluminum mid-range drivers, where actually foam and paper that was painted with metallic paint (a little dishonest I thought)! I could see through the bass port that magnets on the mid-range drivers where very thin and the back of the speaker didn't say "made in the USA" but rather "cooperated with USA"! It was at this point that I realized that the whole "USA" part of the name was a gimmick, or at the very least, nothing more than the shell company registered in New York in 1997. These speakers where 100% made in China and probably never sold off the continent.
Not that being made in China is immediately a bad thing, but the whole USA ploy was dishonest and took away from my excitement for having American made speakers.
Never the less, I plugged them in and tested them out. I won't say I was happy with what I heard, but I wasn't totally disappointed either. For $89 they did OK, getting a little flappy as the volume went up ... but when I played them with the sub-woofer and I wasn't driving them so hard, it was all good.
These speakers will become my rear surrounds, so they're not going to do much heavy lifting anyway.
So that's my little story. Moral is, if you google it and you can't find any substantial info, it's probably not what it claims to be. That said, I've found some great deals on excellent used gear in Hong Kong, so while you may get taken every once in a while, you'll never find anything good if you don't ever take the plunge.
I'm just curious if anyone else has heard of or owned "Timbre USA" speakers before?
As a side note, I went for a stroll through one of Hong Kong's awesome electronics markets after i picked these speakers up and found new ones selling for only $8 more than what i paid used! But found some wicked vintage equipment dealers (crazy awesome stuff), amazing used gear dealers and this great old speaker repair guy! Definitely going back to him the next time my kids rip a hole in one of my speaker screens.
