GM, Ford and Chrysler have been conglomerates since before the '60s and Ford owned 25% of Mazda at some point. Maytag/Whirlpool/Amana are still good brands, but as always, the consumer needs to find out which are better.
I'm not sure that moving old/discontinued inventory as limited runs in lower levels is a bad thing- it gives people who wouldn't buy the upper level stuff a chance to have it, after the development costs have been written off.
I went to the local grand opening for a national AV distributor and one of the first people I saw as I entered was the owner of the store where I got into selling this stuff. He was talking with one of our reps from the same time period and within 6' was another rep who I have known almost as long. The KEF regional manager was there and we're good friends- we met about 6 years after I started. I got that job in Feb, 1978. While I was talking with the first rep, who is now 84 years old, he asked what I have been doing and when we got to the part of the direction of the AV industry, we agreed that it used to be a lot of fun. In the words of Moe Sizlak (bar owner on The Simpsons), "Not no more, it ain't". Companies have been bought & sold, Pioneer pulled out of most markets for awhile, Onkyo & others have had problems and after being sold, many speaker brands are nothing like what they had been. As an example, Jamo was #3 worldwide in completed units sold, meaning speaker systems, not components or in-ceiling/wall. The only two ahead of them were Bose and The Harmon Group, which included JBL (consumer, pro, commercial), Urei and others.
I was looking for the brands owned by JBL and found a site with Harman's history, including this-
"In 1976, Harman supported Jimmy Carter’s bid to become President of the United States. When Carter became President, he appointed Harman to be the Deputy Secretary of Commerce. As US law required appointees to have no direct business interests in day-to-day activities, Harman had to sell the company. He sold Harman International to Beatrice Foods, a large conglomerate for $100 million. Under Beatrice Foods, Harman International turned away from the company’s earlier policy of advancing Hi-Fi design and marketing of products that appealed to audiophiles. Under the new style of management, Harman International sales had dropped 40% by 1980.". I have serious problems when a company in one industry hires someone to run it or sells to a corporation that's absolutely unrelated. Sure, business principles work across many industries, but if they don't understand the market for the new company, bad things can happen- The Koss Corporation is a great example. They hired a new president when John Sr wanted to retire and that moron drove it more than $9 million into debt. Once the audit came in, the guy was fired, John Sr stepped in and turned it around in 11 months, but he had to sell his house in order to do it. The moron they had hired came from the air compressor industry. I guess that was applicable since both products move air, but.....