Pioneer Splits from PAC, How Does this Affect Onkyo AVRs?

[gene]

Premium Audio Company (PAC), the parent company of audio brands Onkyo and Klipsch, has announced that its multiyear partnership with Pioneer Corporation’s home audio and home theater division will not be renewed. This “mutual decision” was revealed in an email to distributers and dealers. This concludes what has appeared to be a successful collaboration in licensing and marketing between the two companies. PAC was quick to clarify that the agreement never included Pioneer’s automotive, television, headphone, wireless audio, or professional sound products — only the company’s home AV gear (such as AV receivers), which had been licensed to Premium Audio Company and developed alongside models from Onkyo and Integra. Those other product categories will continue to be produced and sold by Pioneer Corporation or other Pioneer licensing partners. The announcement of the PAC/Pioneer split arrived soon after both entities were acquired by separate companies, both focused on automotive tech, rather than home AV tech.

What we can’t help but wonder is whether there will be a divergence between future Onkyo and Pioneer AVRs, which shared a common platform prior to the PAC split. Time will tell.

Read: Pioneer Splits from Premium Audio Company

 

[TLS Guy]

Premium Audio Company (PAC), the parent company of audio brands Onkyo and Klipsch, has announced that its multiyear partnership with Pioneer Corporation’s home audio and home theater division will not be renewed. This “mutual decision” was revealed in an email to distributers and dealers. This concludes what has appeared to be a successful collaboration in licensing and marketing between the two companies. PAC was quick to clarify that the agreement never included Pioneer’s automotive, television, headphone, wireless audio, or professional sound products — only the company’s home AV gear (such as AV receivers), which had been licensed to Premium Audio Company and developed alongside models from Onkyo and Integra. Those other product categories will continue to be produced and sold by Pioneer Corporation or other Pioneer licensing partners. The announcement of the PAC/Pioneer split arrived soon after both entities were acquired by separate companies, both focused on automotive tech, rather than home AV tech.

What we can’t help but wonder is whether there will be a divergence between future Onkyo and Pioneer AVRs, which shared a common platform prior to the PAC split. Time will tell.

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Read: Pioneer Splits from Premium Audio Company

Everything going on right now, tells me their is not much money to be made in home AV, at least at lower price points.

The monopolies commission ongoing review of Harmon's purchase of Sound United adds another layer if uncertainty to the whole arena. The sooner this issue is decided the better. There should be a directive by the end of the year. It is anybody's guess how many DOGE fired from that commission.

There has never been a more uncertain time in the home AV industry.

I see layer upon layer of uncertainties. My advice is to look after your gear very, very carefully. My recent experience I regard as a real wake up call. Now more then ever, is the time to go for quality in your purchases and NOT the lowest price. I recently learned that the hard way.

 

[dlaloum]

The only area that I can imagine which will be impacted by the split is RoomEQ...

The merger of Pioneer with Onkyo/Integra some years back (10?) brought with it MCACC - which on the Onkyo/Integra gear got rebranded as "AccuEQ" - This happened at around the same time that Audyssey disappeared from Onkyo/Integra gear, and may also have coincided with the exclusive deal that Denon/Marantz made with Audyssey (which removed Audyssey as an option).

One wonders whether MCACC was one of the main motivators behind bringing Pioneer onboard?

In any case, now that PAC have licenced Dirac, and bundled it into their AVR's, the licence for MCACC becomes far less important.

The question will be, what happens with the mass-market value category, where Dirac is not an option, and the more basic versions of AccuEQ are used? - Will AccuEQ with its links to MCACC disappear altogether? Will Dirac be extended to cheaper models?

Lots of people don't even bother to try out AccuEQ, as they have Dirac and go straight to that - which in many cases is a shame, because AccuEQ/MCACC works very well, and is a lot easier to set up than Dirac.
It does a good job too! - I think ultimately, and for difficult situations, not as good as Dirac... but in perhaps 80% of setups, it is probably on a par.

 

[lovinthehd]

IIRC Pioneer had the actual Dirac rights, will PAC retain use of those?

 

[TLS Guy]

The only area that I can imagine which will be impacted by the split is RoomEQ...

The merger of Pioneer with Onkyo/Integra some years back (10?) brought with it MCACC - which on the Onkyo/Integra gear got rebranded as "AccuEQ" - This happened at around the same time that Audyssey disappeared from Onkyo/Integra gear, and may also have coincided with the exclusive deal that Denon/Marantz made with Audyssey (which removed Audyssey as an option).

One wonders whether MCACC was one of the main motivators behind bringing Pioneer onboard?

In any case, now that PAC have licenced Dirac, and bundled it into their AVR's, the licence for MCACC becomes far less important.

The question will be, what happens with the mass-market value category, where Dirac is not an option, and the more basic versions of AccuEQ are used? - Will AccuEQ with its links to MCACC disappear altogether? Will Dirac be extended to cheaper models?

Lots of people don't even bother to try out AccuEQ, as they have Dirac and go straight to that - which in many cases is a shame, because AccuEQ/MCACC works very well, and is a lot easier to set up than Dirac.
It does a good job too! - I think ultimately, and for difficult situations, not as good as Dirac... but in perhaps 80% of setups, it is probably on a par.

Dirac also has lousy bass management.

 

[lovinthehd]

Dirac also has lousy bass management.

Can you expand on that? Which particular versions of Dirac?

 

[TLS Guy]

Can you expand on that? Which particular versions of Dirac?

Unless things have changed it does not allow for LFE + Main. In other words you have to fully cross the bed layer speakers over and can't run them full range plus the subs.

I don't use Audyssey either to EQ my system, but I did check it on the AV 10 and this time Audyssey did not change my settings in any meaningful way, which surprised me. So the latest versions must be much improved over the others. Anyhow I don't have Audyssey engaged, as I don't need it.

 

[lovinthehd]

Unless things have changed it does not allow for LFE + Main. In other words you have to fully cross the bed layer speakers over and can't run them full range plus the subs.

I don't use Audyssey either to EQ my system, but I did check it on the AV 10 and this time Audyssey did not change my settings in any meaningful way, which surprised me. So the latest versions must be much improved over the others. Anyhow I don't have Audyssey engaged, as I don't need it.

You've just generally been behind on Audyssey developments/tools and assume same for Dirac. In other words, you don't really know or have the experience.

 

[TLS Guy]

You've just generally been behind on Audyssey developments/tools and assume same for Dirac. In other words, you don't really know or have the experience.

That may be, as I don't use it because I have no need of it. The system as I have set it up, has absolutely no need of any auto Eq whatsoever. All they could possibly offer is to muck the sound up.

 

[lovinthehd]

That may be, as I don't use it because I have no need of it. The system as I have set it up, has absolutely no need of any auto Eq whatsoever. All they could possibly offer is to muck the sound up.

Fair enough, but on the other hand limits your actual knowledge/experience.

 

[TLS Guy]

Fair enough, but on the other hand limits your actual knowledge/experience.

That is obviously true, but I'm glad I don't have to fuss about with it.

 

[dlaloum]

Unless things have changed it does not allow for LFE + Main. In other words you have to fully cross the bed layer speakers over and can't run them full range plus the subs.

I don't use Audyssey either to EQ my system, but I did check it on the AV 10 and this time Audyssey did not change my settings in any meaningful way, which surprised me. So the latest versions must be much improved over the others. Anyhow I don't have Audyssey engaged, as I don't need it.

That is not the case - the decision of where to route which channel, is made by the AVR / Decoder pairing, and depends on the options provided by the AVR/AVP manufacturer - Dirac does its thing on the resulting output.

I run my Integra DRX3.4 with Dirac Live, and use the Double Bass feature to do LFE+Main as I have full range speakers - very happy with the results...