theophile: Well, most of the Crosleys are even lower ranking models than the entry-level Hanpins that were or still are offered by Audio Technica, Denon, Dual (both Fehrenbacher and DGC), Kenwood, Pioneer, Sony... Those Hanpins basically serve customers, who rather want something new, but don't really need more than what I'd call decent consumer stereo quality. For that sector these Hanpin models usually do the job pretty well.
More generally, there are such turntables just like there still are quite a few entry-level digicams or like there are entry-level tools or entry-level portable audio players or whatever. Why? Because there's sufficient demand. In fact it would even seem pretty normal that the majority of people would to a large part own lower and average quality goods, while they'd only go for high quality in a few segments, in which they deem their requirements to be a good bit higher than average. And of course the requirement level can already vary quite a bit for one single customer, who might very well use such a cheap Hanpin in his garage system, whilst having something way better in the living room, just like he's got a cheap, but robust point&shoot digicam for parties, while he will otherwise use a decent bridge- or DSLR cam for more serious shooting...
Speaking of that, I often think it's amazing how many material goods an average "western world" citizen nowdays already owns compared to Joe Average for example 100 or 150 years ago. And while on one hand I think: how poor - on the other I think: what a freedom. Because in the meantime I already perceive many of the things I own also at least partly as a burden in terms of repeatedly requiring my time and care and also my attention and my wilingsness to keep informed/up-to-date.
Greetings from Munich!
Manfred / lini
