Masimo/Sound United Dealer Portal now says “HARMAN”

[AcuDefTechGuy]

With the collapse of brick and mortar AV stores and big box retailers going in a different direction with the younger crowd, Samsung could easily drop Boston and Def Tech. They would keep Denon and Polk as the "better" in the better/best offerings, but we'll see.

Yeah, probably keep Denon since Denon is so big.

So now Samsung/Harman/SU will sell AVR/AVP from Lexicon, Arcam, JBL, Denon, and Marantz. Seems like too many brands of AVR/AVP.

 

[everettT]

Yeah, probably keep Denon since Denon is so big.

So now Samsung/Harman/SU will sell AVR/AVP from Lexicon, Arcam, JBL, Denon, and Marantz. Seems like too many brands of AVR/AVP.

For one company, it is too many IMHO.

 

[TLS Guy]

For one company, it is too many IMHO.

Yes. They need some time to take stock of their assets. When you really look at it, multichannel home HT with surround sound has been a colossal failure overall. It has led to far fewer homes having decent audio in the home than a generation and more ago. So it needs a fundamental rethink. Out of desperation came the daftest contraption of all; the sound bar! So you have a ton of speakers with different channels crammed into a small box, with speakers far too close together to have any meaningful channel, separation and sound worse than it would be with just one better mono speaker. But it can say Atmos on the box in Target!
So, my hope is that the varied assets of Samsung/Harmon will really lead to meaningful change and not more of the same, which in my view has failed for the majority of households and dealers come to that.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

For one company, it is too many IMHO.

We will see which brands they cut - but scary for the employees of those brands since it will mean layoffs.

 

[ryanosaur]

We will see which brands they cut - but scary for the employees of those brands since it will mean layoffs.

What does Boston Acoustic do these days? Figured that one is low hanging fruit… or at least a good tax write-off for a few years.

 

[TLS Guy]

We will see which brands they cut - but scary for the employees of those brands since it will mean layoffs.

Not necessarily. If they are smart and realize where this has gone of the rails, and bring in better simpler systems with less parts and simpler set up and operation, then the glory days could well be ahead and everything running full bore and employing many. Read Shady's latest speaker review of that two channel speaker system that connects directly to the TV via HDMI. It is affordable and offers superb performance in a simple elegant format. That is the sort of system that could bring much better AV to the many with no hassle. What we rave about here, has been soundly rejected by the many, and to be honest with good reason. Now is a time for serious reflection and re-assessment.

 

[Out-Of-Phase]

It will be interesting to see what happens to Classe'. There's hardly any dealers anywhere anymore. It certainly isn't like what it was back in their heyday in the 90's and early 2000's.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

What does Boston Acoustic do these days? Figured that one is low hanging fruit… or at least a good tax write-off for a few years.

Yeah, Boston probably doing nothing these days.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

It will be interesting to see what happens to Classe'. There's hardly any dealers anywhere anymore. It certainly isn't like what it was back in their heyday in the 90's and early 2000's.

Yeah, it feels like some of these are just hanging around. Haven’t seen a lot of action from Lexicon or Arcam either - seems to be “backorder”.

So maybe Samsung bought Masimo mainly for Marantz, Denon, and B&W.

Who knows, Marantz and Denon may end up being their only 2 brands of AVR/AVP.

 

[TLS Guy]

Yeah, it feels like some of these are just hanging around. Haven’t seen a lot of action from Lexicon or Arcam either - seems to be “backorder”.

So maybe Samsung bought Masimo mainly for Marantz, Denon, and B&W.

Who knows, Marantz and Denon may end up being their only 2 brands of AVR/AVP.

I think Onkyo under their current ownership will be around for a while. I would not be at all surprised if Yamaha exit the audio business. They are really a sporting outfit, with Jet skis, motorbikes, outboard motors etc. Mind you, you can say that about Samsung who are even in the heavy equipment business. So I suppose there is a risk there, but they are heavily in the TV business, so I suspect AV and audio will continue to be a fit for them. They could become the only major player around, which is somewhat of a concern. Actually I am surprised the monopolies commission rolled over so quickly, but they probably realized correctly there was no other plausible buyer around. Sony seem to have a smaller and smaller presence in the audio business these days, but their TV business seems in good shape.

 

[dlaloum]

True. “Harman” is probably a more-recognizable and prestigious brand name for audio and home theater.

Too bad they got rid of the prestigious Revel Salon2 and replaced it with a much cheaper downgrade.

They better not do the same to the B&W 800 Diamond speakers.

Harman was once prestigious... it is a long time since Harman-Kardon put out high performance equipment.

Most of the products issued recently under "Harman" are best described as "lifestyle"

Revel has a reputation, Denon and Marantz have a reputation, JBL... Harman has withered on the vine, along with Lexicon, and others.

No one under 30 will remember Harman as a brand name of any import... although they may know it as a corporate conglomerate owning some interesting brands.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I think Onkyo under their current ownership will be around for a while. I would not be at all surprised if Yamaha exit the audio business. They are really a sporting outfit, with Jet skis, motorbikes, outboard motors etc. Mind you, you can say that about Samsung who are even in the heavy equipment business. So I suppose there is a risk there, but they are heavily in the TV business, so I suspect AV and audio will continue to be a fit for them. They could become the only major player around, which is somewhat of a concern. Actually I am surprised the monopolies commission rolled over so quickly, but they probably realized correctly there was no other plausible buyer around. Sony seem to have a smaller and smaller presence in the audio business these days, but their TV business seems in good shape.

I’m surprised Onkyo is still around. They have to be losing money for selling so cheap.

Yamaha & Sony are big enough to be hanging around with AVR - but no AVP.

 

[dlaloum]

Also Masimo kept far too many product brands. There absolutely needs to be some rationalization especially in the speaker lines. There also needs to be some rationalization between Denon and Marantz or may be one of them disappear.

I don't know about between Denon and Marantz... you really should be calling it between JBL, Arcam, Denon and Marantz...

JBL have just launched a completely new AVR series (the MA range), the Arcam shared JBL's seem to be in a phase out stage, with the Trinnov based model as the flagship but the rest.... and there really has not been any new developments in the AVR space at Arcam for a long time either.

So JBL flagship... Arcam perhaps will drop its AV range, and revert to a stereo/audiophile brand, Denon and Marantz already share a lot of components, boards, transformers, etc... within their ranges, which makes it relatively efficient - Lexicon is already pretty much dead as an AV brand.

Both Denon and Marantz seem very much alive in the marketplace, with buyers having a higher awareness of those brands, than they have of JBL, Arcam, or the others in the "library".

If they have to cut somewhere... D&M wouldn't be where I would be logically focussing.

On the other hand, those sort of cuts often have an internal office politics component... and economic logic is not always the primary driver.

 

[dlaloum]

Yes. They need some time to take stock of their assets. When you really look at it, multichannel home HT with surround sound has been a colossal failure overall. It has led to far fewer homes having decent audio in the home than a generation and more ago. So it needs a fundamental rethink. Out of desperation came the daftest contraption of all; the sound bar! So you have a ton of speakers with different channels crammed into a small box, with speakers far too close together to have any meaningful channel, separation and sound worse than it would be with just one better mono speaker. But it can say Atmos on the box in Target!
So, my hope is that the varied assets of Samsung/Harmon will really lead to meaningful change and not more of the same, which in my view has failed for the majority of households and dealers come to that.

I think you underestimate soundbars...

As TV's grow ever larger, the relative spacing of the outside edge of soundbars starts to approach the spacing of a traditional stereo setup....

And with DSP's like Dirac, there is some serious potential in soundbars. - Sure we are still talking about "Bookshelf" speaker equivalent, rather than bass capable floor standers, but even there, my current (soundbar-ish) center channel is limited to 55Hz - but there are plenty of compact floorstanders that have that kind of bass reach/limitation. So there is ample potential for Soundbars to reach up into the midrange of audio performance.

Also recent developments, with soundbars having Atmos reflecting speakers built into them is to be considered too.

Yes, ultimately a Soundbar will never replace a Home Theatre... but a soundbar based setup replacing the average home's "stereo" - we are there already!

 

[dlaloum]

Yeah, Boston probably doing nothing these days.

BA used to be one of the great proponents of a certain soundstyle, along with AR - they made great sealed acoustic suspension speakers for a couple of decades...

But then they sort of lost their way, and became "just another speaker", following the fads of the day... good speakers sure, but with limited differentiation.

As the CEO of Renault said at one point, I don't care if some people hate my designs, as long as their is a large enough segment of the market that absolutely loves them, and won't settle for anything else.

There is value in that sort of differentiation - and sealed speakers have become a dying breed, potentially creating an opening for a brand willing to focus on the strengths and distinctive characteristics of that genre.

Another genre that could use some focus of that kind, would be Transmission Line speakers... but none of the Harman brands seem to have a history or brand link to that specific technology...

 

[dlaloum]

I think Onkyo under their current ownership will be around for a while. I would not be at all surprised if Yamaha exit the audio business. They are really a sporting outfit, with Jet skis, motorbikes, outboard motors etc. Mind you, you can say that about Samsung who are even in the heavy equipment business. So I suppose there is a risk there, but they are heavily in the TV business, so I suspect AV and audio will continue to be a fit for them. They could become the only major player around, which is somewhat of a concern. Actually I am surprised the monopolies commission rolled over so quickly, but they probably realized correctly there was no other plausible buyer around. Sony seem to have a smaller and smaller presence in the audio business these days, but their TV business seems in good shape.

I hope Onkyo survives...

and with regards to Yamaha - they were big on musical instruments long before they got into the "sporting" stuff... and still are!

In some ways, their audio and AV range has leverage off the musical / musical instrument background of the company.

And yes, they have been sitting on their laurels in the AV space... good gear, but let down by their limitations in the DSP space... they need to either invest in their DSP development, or jump aboard with someone like Dirac. Which I think is antithetical to their internal culture!... will be watching them with interest.