Como Audio, a high-end audio equipment manufacturer founded by Tivoli Audio/Cambridge Soundworks founder Tom DeVesto, is closing down.
In a February post on the Ask Como Audio blog, VP of Product Development Peter Skiera wrote: “We did everything we could to keep the company going, but in the end we had to face the fact that it was impossible for the company to survive under the circumstances. We didn’t try to keep it a secret. We sent emails to everyone on our email list and ran ads in the New York Times.”
The website remains active but with the headline “At this time we are no longer accepting orders.”
It was supply chain issues, not sales, that killed Como Audio.
Thanks to COVID, “Electronic components have been harder to obtain and at higher prices and much higher required quantities,” wrote Skiera. “This resulted in us being out of stock of our best selling and most profitable model, Musica, for quite some time. We fielded questions almost on a daily basis from customers asking us when we’d have Musica back in stock. It would likely take us a year to get more Musicas, possibly even longer.”
Not surprisingly, “The company couldn’t sustain itself on such a business model,” he said. “We tried to cut expenses as much as we could but the reality was the company couldn’t continue to operate under such conditions.”
Skiera assured customers that their Como Audio internet radios and Favorite menus will continue to work. “The company that manages the internet radio station database has no financial connection with Como Audio,” he said. The Como Control app continues to work but won’t be updated.
“The free generic version, UnDok, will continue to get updates and operates mostly the same as the Como app.”
Existing receivers will no longer receive free software updates.
“The updates were defined, tested and debugged by Como Audio and we paid our software partner to issue them,” wrote Skiera. “That infrastructure will no longer exist. However, we haven’t issued a new software update in nearly 2 years and our models continue to operate well.”
Warranties will no longer be supported. “There is no longer any method to support warranty claims or out of warranty repairs,” he wrote. “You would need to consult a local electronics repair shop … we are no longer accepting repairs be they in or out of warranty, as there’s no time to obtain the part, effect the repair and test, and ship the unit back before we close.”
According to its website, Como founder DeVesto was “one of the Flower Children of the Sixties. He had long hair, marched and protested, and had ‘an apartment with a bed, a stereo and all the records you could afford.’ Over his 40-year career in consumer electronics, DeVesto stayed true to one focused mission: to deliver the best sound possible.”
