Harman/Samsung Buys an Empire in Sound United From Masimo

[Wayde Robson]

By now everyone's heard Masimo is selling its Sound United audio properties to Harman International, itself a subsidiary of S. Korean electronics giant, Samsung. That means Harman adds more of the most legendary brands in hi-fi to its stable that already looks like a CVS receipt of top names in home and car audio. And of course, Harman happens to be owned by an electronics company already waist deep into the biggest Android ecosystem in the Galaxy.

So, what might the future hold? In this article I'll recount a veritable tele novella that transpired to make the sale to Harman, then Gene, takes a slightly skeptical view where I lean optimistic as we give our takes on how this might pan out.

Personally, I'm glad Masimo didn't just drop the Sound United brands off at a bus station in Cincinnati and say, "Good luck, kids." I'm hopeful they found a home, maybe even a family that understands their value.

Masimo Sells Sound United to Harman/Samsung, Creates Audio Empire?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I think it could be awesome.

Back when I was in my crazy days of buying speakers, I always thought that Revel and B&W were the 2 biggest rivals. So I had to get both the Salon2 and 802D2. And now they are owned by the same company.

Denon, B&W, Revel:

 

[TLS Guy]

By now everyone's heard Masimo is selling its Sound United audio properties to Harman International, itself a subsidiary of S. Korean electronics giant, Samsung. That means Harman adds more of the most legendary brands in hi-fi to its stable that already looks like a CVS receipt of top names in home and car audio. And of course, Harman happens to be owned by an electronics company already waist deep into the biggest Android ecosystem in the Galaxy.

So, what might the future hold? In this article I'll recount a veritable tele novella that transpired to make the sale to Harman, then Gene, the skeptic and I the optimist, give our take on how this might pan out.

Personally, I'm glad Masimo didn't just drop the Sound United brands off at a bus station in Cincinnati and say, "Good luck, kids." I'm hopeful they found a home, maybe even a family that understands their value.

Masimo Sells Sound United to Harman/Samsung, Creates Audio Empire?
View attachment 73411

I'm not as optimistic as you are. In audio there is correct and aberrant, with varying degrees between the two. What we need is less brands and quite a few marketers and MBAs getting pink slips.

What we need is good audio gear at the correct pricing for the markets. We need to stop insisting that a whole bunch of channels is nirvana. It may be for some, but can't be done on the cheap. and unsuitable and a down grade for many if not most rooms.


So we need a return to 2 channel. May be 2.1 in the "affordable" and family friendly range of gear.

My wife and I watched Conclave a week or more ago. We really liked it, however there was gratuitous use of the 0.1 sub channel that contributing nothing to telling the story and was actually a distraction. Audio and AV does not need extension beyond 30 to 25 Hz, and certainly not with that 10db LFE boost!

Things have gone well and truly off the rails. I'm sure all the MBA types spun the story it would be like the introduction of stereo back in 1959. As usual they were wrong and now far less homes have decent audio than they did forty to fifty years ago. Good work all you MBAs and marketers!

 

[lovinthehd]

We'll only see in time just what will happen but I certainly expect the usual paring down....

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

I'm not as optimistic as you are. In audio there is correct and aberrant, with varying degrees between the two. What we need is less brands and quite a few marketers and MBAs getting pink slips.

What we need is good audio gear at the correct pricing for the markets. We need to stop insisting that a whole bunch of channels is nirvana. It may be for some, but can't be done on the cheap. and unsuitable and a down grade for many if not most rooms.


So we need a return to 2 channel. May be 2.1 in the "affordable" and family friendly range of gear.

My wife and I watched Conclave a week or more ago. We really liked it, however there was gratuitous use of the 0.1 sub channel that contributing nothing to telling the story and was actually a distraction. Audio and AV does not need extension beyond 30 to 25 Hz, and certainly not with that 10db LFE boost!

Things have gone well and truly off the rails. I'm sure all the MBA types spun the story it would be like the introduction of stereo back in 1959. As usual they were wrong and now far less homes have decent audio than they did forty to fifty years ago. Good work all you MBAs and marketers!

Interesting. Could YOU be wrong?

 

[TLS Guy]

Interesting. Could YOU be wrong?

The market says I'm right, but anything is possible.

One thing I'm not wrong about is that many, many homes had a decent audio system and now very, very few do, despite audio and video now being joined at the hip and good high quality content so easily available. You would think decent electronics and speakers would now be more common than it ever was, but its not. I personally think I have identified the villains.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

The market says I'm right, but anything is possible.

One thing I'm not wrong about is that many, many homes had a decent audio system and now very, very few do, despite audio and video now being joined at the hip and good high quality content so easily available. You would think decent electronics and speakers would now be more common than it ever was, but its not. I personally think I have identified the villains.

Let’s not forget. One of the biggest villains(in most homes) is WAF. The other seems to be the idea that people can get a cinematic experience from an iPad. Convenience is king these days. It’s sad.

 

[TLS Guy]

Let’s not forget. One of the biggest villains(in most homes) is WAF. The other seems to be the idea that people can get a cinematic experience from an iPad. Convenience is king these days. It’s sad.

Past experience tells me that two elegant speakers has decent WAF, but not 5, 7 or more plus subs. That drives it over the cliff and to Target to pick up a sound bar.

 

[isolar8001]

Cause of Divorce----Irreconcilable Atmos Syndrome

Otherwise known as "Sonofabitch hung four ugly ass speakers from our ceiling just so a helicopter could be heard passing overhead once in a blue moon."

 

[highfigh]

I'm not as optimistic as you are. In audio there is correct and aberrant, with varying degrees between the two. What we need is less brands and quite a few marketers and MBAs getting pink slips.

What we need is good audio gear at the correct pricing for the markets. We need to stop insisting that a whole bunch of channels is nirvana. It may be for some, but can't be done on the cheap. and unsuitable and a down grade for many if not most rooms.

So we need a return to 2 channel. May be 2.1 in the "affordable" and family friendly range of gear.

Things have gone well and truly off the rails. I'm sure all the MBA types spun the story it would be like the introduction of stereo back in 1959. As usual they were wrong and now far less homes have decent audio than they did forty to fifty years ago. Good work all you MBAs and marketers!

You're ignoring the fact that nothing is perfect and there's no way to make perfect speakers. Further, and you should know this- human hearing isn't consistent across the population, so even if you were to make speakers that are as close to perfect as possible, the inability of many to hear that means you WILL hear "I don't like it". As much as Drs Toole, Olive, et al showed that many people have similar preferences when they hear loudspeaker demonstrations, those tests weren't for critical listening, AFAIK- that's a learned skill and it's not one of the easiest to teach.

Consider the preference for abberant speakers 'personal preference'- it's probably the only thing that can help a speaker designer maintain their sanity.

You're really underestimating the power of suggestion- it's the basis for all advertising and then, there's the inabilty of most people to see when they're being fed lies- "If you can't impress them with logic, baffle them with BS" was coined a long time ago and it still works.

As I have posted many times, too many people have been conditioned to believe that more & bigger equal better, so they spend more than they should on crappy mass-marketed systems and systems that were badly 'designed' by people with no technical background at local stores- I have worked with people who could have picked up a few books and learned about this, but management were very happy with them as they were because they had were closing more sales than the others. Training costs money, dealing with a few dis-satisfied customers is easier, in some ways.

The movie industry can't make better product, so they use flashing lights and sound effects to impress people. That's not sound quality, it's mostly noise.

One of the worst lies told by the AV industry is: "More channels sounds better and it's easy to set up a home theater".

If it was so easy, everyone would have a system that sounds and looks great, but that's not the case. The problem is, most people don't know the difference, so the industry goes on its merry way and trowels out their crap.

Another insult to customers- when I started selling audio in early 1978, the failure rate across the audio market (there wasn't much to Video, aside from TV) was 1%. Now, IIRC, it's closer to 2%. 1% of a much smaller number was tolerable but 2% of the current sales volume means the defective equipment could fill whole container ships.

 

[TLS Guy]

Cause of Divorce----Irreconcilable Atmos Syndrome

Otherwise known as "Sonofabitch hung four ugly ass speakers from our ceiling just so a helicopter could be heard passing overhead once in a blue moon."

Brilliant one liner!

 

[TLS Guy]

You're ignoring the fact that nothing is perfect and there's no way to make perfect speakers. Further, and you should know this- human hearing isn't consistent across the population, so even if you were to make speakers that are as close to perfect as possible, the inability of many to hear that means you WILL hear "I don't like it". As much as Drs Toole, Olive, et al showed that many people have similar preferences when they hear loudspeaker demonstrations, those tests weren't for critical listening, AFAIK- that's a learned skill and it's not one of the easiest to teach.

Consider the preference for abberant speakers 'personal preference'- it's probably the only thing that can help a speaker designer maintain their sanity.

You're really underestimating the power of suggestion- it's the basis for all advertising and then, there's the inabilty of most people to see when they're being fed lies- "If you can't impress them with logic, baffle them with BS" was coined a long time ago and it still works.

As I have posted many times, too many people have been conditioned to believe that more & bigger equal better, so they spend more than they should on crappy mass-marketed systems and systems that were badly 'designed' by people with no technical background at local stores- I have worked with people who could have picked up a few books and learned about this, but management were very happy with them as they were because they had were closing more sales than the others. Training costs money, dealing with a few dis-satisfied customers is easier, in some ways.

The movie industry can't make better product, so they use flashing lights and sound effects to impress people. That's not sound quality, it's mostly noise.

One of the worst lies told by the AV industry is: "More channels sounds better and it's easy to set up a home theater".

If it was so easy, everyone would have a system that sounds and looks great, but that's not the case. The problem is, most people don't know the difference, so the industry goes on its merry way and trowels out their crap.

Another insult to customers- when I started selling audio in early 1978, the failure rate across the audio market (there wasn't much to Video, aside from TV) was 1%. Now, IIRC, it's closer to 2%. 1% of a much smaller number was tolerable but 2% of the current sales volume means the defective equipment could fill whole container ships.

I think Drs Toole and Olive are basically correct, at least among classical listeners who have been to concerts and recitals. Pop Rock and to extent movies is another ball park, as there is no point of reference for human experience. A band full of electronic instruments can make any foul row they want and who is to know? There is zero point of reference.

I have built speakers for friends and colleagues over the years, and they have all counted them among their most prized possessions. So it is possible to understand what are the ingredients for really satisfying speakers.

Lastly I would say, that you need good measurements, but that is far from the end of it. What takes experience is where you put and apportion your power resources. This is the commonest pitfall that is so often ignored in commercial designs. Let me tell you it is not in the deep bass subwoofer range, far from it. Looking at speaker measurements will not give you a clue about that. However years of experience will give you a good idea by just looking at the speaker and crossover points. You can then gauge if the speaker will run out of gas and dynamically compress, or worse, vital parts of the musical spectrum.

 

[mns3dhm]

This is a good outcome for existing owners of the acquired brands; they should be able to obtain service and it's reasonable to expect Samsung to utilize their financial and technical resources on new product development and innovation for these brands. Samsung acquires brands that extend their product reach and brand recognition globally. Some of the intellectual property in the acquired companies should be valuable to Harman and their existing brands. As far as how this affects competition in the industry remains to be seen, but Harman will be a dominant force in the mid-level hifi segment going forward. I expect to see Harman incorporate these brands into their automobile audio strategy as that is a major area of emphasis for them.