Hi All,
It's Fred from Prana Distribution. As there are a number of scenarios floating around, I thought I would take this time to provide some input.
Firstly, why Zoom Info believes we're in the freight forwarding business I can only guess. We've never been contacted by Zoom, nor have we been listed as a freight forwarder with a state or federal institution. Our outgoing message is my early morning voice. If I sound South Asian, that's news...I was born in New Orleans and sound like a mish mash of US accents depending upon the time of day and how much sleep I've had.
We have been very lucky to import and distribute Trafomatic Audio for 12 years. In our industry, that's an eon. We're a small company and we've done our best to meet their needs and highlight what makes them such a special manufacturer. Since the pandemic, which coincided with the birth of my daughter, we have felt a shift in the tectonic plates beneath our company. We opened a showroom the same week that the pandemic shut down public venues in our area....should have been a red herring. Still, we knew that changes were coming. My desire to travel constantly dissipated with having a family. Also, the lion's share of our clients were pointing us in a more specific direction. Saying 'goodbye' to a friend and a company that you deeply admire and enjoy, is a difficult prospect. We take great pride in having been part of the development of what is now their upper echelon gear, more specifically the Drina (whose smaller sibling is the Elysium) Mono blocks, the Tara 30A Preamplifier and the Collins Phono Stage. They are master works that we contracted based upon concept alone, to a music lover who had experienced most every other top amplifier on the market. The trickle down from those pieces is what you see in the Lara, Luna, Glenn and Pandora. We were also the first to order the Primavera, ( having spoken to Sasa about a deep desire for a top tube amplifier for headphones) Head 2 and Eos..... All to say, we feel part of their history and they have certainly been part of our history.
In recent years, I have not had the bandwidth to do Trafomatic justice. (To whit, the Aries SE came out which is a fantastic piece of engineering and a phenomenal sounding amp. In the old days, I would have sold quite a few of them. I'd love to see a true headphone out on it). We also took on Destination Audio and then Mal Valve both tube amplification companies, either of which could be considered direct competitors to Trafomatic though I did not view them as such at the time. Destination is more of a whole system approach (single ended) and known for their speaker design, while Mal Valve (push pull) also makes a full array of electronics, speakers, an electrostatic headphone and a turntable. Regardless of whatever my view was at the time, I was spreading myself to thin. This led to the inevitable split with Trafomatic within the last month at the behest of Sasa.
We have an unpaid invoice. We asked Sasa to let us satisfy those items and he felt we should directly refund the headphone amp purchases of which there are only a small number (we've handled 3 thus far)...the rest of the invoice is dealer related and will be satisfied accordingly. If anyone feels they've fallen through the cracks, I urge you to contact me directly, either by phone 617.669.3275 or via our website (
https://pranadistribution.com/contact ). I often don't answer the phone but will return any messages left within 24 hours. I hope this sheds a little light on the situation. I should add, that at no point did we take an order for a Trafomatic product past our relationship.
It has been an honor working with Trafomatic and I'm sorry to see it come to an end in this fashion, but it was our need for change, and my inability to make the hard call that put us here. I wish nothing but the best for Sasa, Mica, Goran and the rest of the gang at Traf.
We will have another announcement concerning our new audio venture which shows a narrowed field of partners (a few big announcements) as well as
a full introduction to our piano partner. There will be a section for headfi, albeit just the tip top of the hobby (I love it all, but can only do so much)
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Fred