Sound United has been sold....

[j_garcia]

Doesn't sound like anything good can be expected from it, except that it will all get purchased again by someone else in a few years. Large holding company buys stuff like this to round out their portfolio so they are in different industries, but that usually does not result in the benefits they were after either for them or the purchased companies.

 

[Danzilla31]

It's like the only thing we have left we can depend on other then small boutique brands is monoprice dang who'd have thought that would happen?

 

[Mikado463]

Medical-Hosptital-precision high-tech meets AUDIO.

Imagine MEDICAL + ENGINEERS involved in the company.

where have you been ? It already has ...........

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[Mikado463]

Yes! As I have said for years, here and other places, between MBAs and marketers, they have sent us on the road to ruin. They really are the most ghastly of types.

ahhh, you forgot lawyers !

 

[PENG]

I suspect manufacturing of the high end marantz products such as the
8805a moves to china. Not good

I thought the last two federal governments have made it their priority to bring manufacturing back to the US, or I misinterpreted something?

 

[highfigh]

where have you been ? It already has ...........

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I bet Caelin Gabriel is one of the people who got their jollies by as they created grafitti by pushing atoms around under a scanning electron microscope.

 

[highfigh]

I thought the last two federal governments have made it their priority to bring manufacturing back to the US, or I misinterpreted something?

You mean 'Presidents' and not "federal governments", right?

WRT the current one, I don't see this happening if the cost of fuels doesn't drop and nobody wanted Trump to succeed, so that point is moot. Not making excuses for him, but let's be realistic.

 

[Replicant 7]

You mean 'Presidents' and not "federal governments", right?

WRT the current one, I don't see this happening if the cost of fuels doesn't drop and nobody wanted Trump to succeed, so that point is moot. Not making excuses for him, but let's be realistic.

Ole Joe and China are buttbuddys right? All Trump did was, ship out all those China spies everywhere in the country in our college's and slap China with tariffs for unfair trade practices. Yep China and sleepy Joe, Big Butt Buddies Lolo

 

[WookieGR]

I bet one topic regarding medical grade electrical outlets for Audio Amplifiers is to blame for all of this.

 

[3db]

I agree. This has me very concerned. This is a very modern phenomenon that has been building for several decades now, to have CEOs who have no idea or clue about the businesses they are in charge of. That is why reliability of goods and services are really circling the drain.

The number of friends, family and neighbors who have major appliances and other high ticket items that fail prematurely, and I mean really prematurely is just staggering and a disgrace. When you do due diligence you find there is only one item in any category that won't fail. I am dead serious when I say there is only one brand of washing machine and dryer that will not fail prematurely, and only one dishwasher.

When I got the builder's list of appliances for our new home build, I put a line through the whole list, and chose very carefully. The builder built four homes on this circle. We were the first to occupy. We are the only ones who have not had a major appliance failure. Two of the homes have had more then one. One of my sons has had premature failure of his laundry equipment (Samsung).

A close friend had to have a new double oven set. She wanted Wolf. It took months to come. I warned her they were no good, despite being top dollar. They failed within a couple of weeks. Parts are not expected to be available until March 28!

There needs to be a law passed that no CEO can run a company that does not hold advanced qualifications on the goods being produced.

One of the root causes of this, is individuals being in charge of companies that they know absolutely nothing about.

This same law should be applied to politicians who grew up with a silver spoon in their yap and dont know what its like to struggle for a living and make ends meet.

 

[3db]

You are 200% correct. Appliances have become a F*cking joke in build quality and reliability. My brand new house has a top of the line GE Profile Diswasher and the racks come out of the machine because they couldn't use real wheels as casters. Instead they had crappy plastic tabs that came off and melted in the heat. I had to bitch at GE for 3 months and have them come back multiple times until they fixed it and still NOT using real wheels like my mom has in her 20yo GE Profile dishwasher.

The amount of incompetent people running large corporations and handling production decisions on famed TV series is staggering. Just look at how crappy Star Trek has become, written by folks that never watched an episode of past shows in their lives.

I was just getting used to the folks at Sound United running these brands and now I hope it doesn't go the wrong way like so many buyouts in the past have in our industry.

I agree with you Gene. I blame shareholder value as the root cause of all if this. If a company can make more profit per unit and sell more of this cheap poop, then stock prices rise and shareholders are happy.

 

[3db]

Same thing happened to Energy and Mirage. They were gutted by Klipsch who swallowed them. Klipsch never made a speaker that could touch Energy's performance before and after the merger. Best Buy came in and destroyed FutureShop which was miles better than Best Buy. And the list goes on.

 

[TLS Guy]

It's like the only thing we have left we can depend on other then small boutique brands is monoprice dang who'd have thought that would happen?

Unfortunately I don't think this is likely due to HDCP protocols. This really puts smaller manufacturers out of the picture. As picture resolution increases the HDCP protocols become increasingly draconian.

Each device requires its own secret keys, which if released will cause a manufacturer to loose their HDCP license. I believe there are around 40 Keys to each device and program source. These now have to be passed between end and repeater devices, and between repeater devices on a frame by frame basis.

This should never have been allowed to occur, even if meant every Hollywood studio closed up shop.

The point is that this really rules out small manufacturers, and really some large ones as well. I think it really hurts to profitability of manufacturing AV gear.

In my view this is a root cause of the quality of gear going into exponential decline, especially in these latter years since the analog sunset. Although I have to say that basic engineering quality has been in decline for half a century now. It seems to take a notch down with every merger and acquisition.

My advice to you all, is to choose your equipment with the greatest care. Go for quality now, more than ever. Look after your gear very carefully and avoid abuse, and this includes maximum protections ahead of the mains plug to the device. No a surge protector is not going to cut it.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Unfortunately I don't think this is likely due to HDCP protocols. This really puts smaller manufacturers out of the picture. As picture resolution increases the HDCP protocols become increasingly draconian.

Each device requires its own secret keys, which if released will cause a manufacturer to loose their HDCP license. I believe there are around 40 Keys to each device and program source. These now have to be passed between end and repeater devices, and between repeater devices on a frame by frame basis.

This should never have been allowed to occur, even if meant every Hollywood studio closed up shop.

HDCP master key was leaked. No one closed doors. https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2010/09/16/understanding-hdcp-master-key-leak/
What you're thinking about HDCP 1.x protection scheme. Since that leak fiasco, all 4k BD disks are all protected with a newer HDCP 2.2 system which can and is getting updated by simply playing new disks. So if HDCP 2.2 (current) keys get leaked/hacked - it's not an issue since the next movie will just rotate the key and things stay protected. It can also revoke HDCP authentication of non-compliant devices (such as HDCP stripping hardware)
For more info:

https://www.quantumdata.com/assets/hdcp_22_protocols_webinar.pdf

https://www.digital-cp.com/sites/default/files/specifications/HDCP%20on%20HDMI%20Specification%20Rev2_2_Final1.pdf

 

[mtrot]

On digging in to this I am even more worried. Masimo was founded in Irvine California in 2011, where it is still based.

It specializes in oximetry, both in hospital and especially home monitoring. It also makes add devices for ventilators, including capnea and end tidal volume monitors. They also have a partnership and may be ownership with Newtech Inc. of Shenzhen, China.

Masimo seem to be under the impression that they can integrate home monitoring with home entertainment systems. So though far fetched, they seem to want to make your AVR do you oximetry monitoring and probably monitor your CPAP remotely, This sounds like a great business model to me. What could go wrong!

Sound United is owned by Viper corporation, and Masimo have purchased the whole works for a billion dollars. It seems Masimo have contributed a small amount of cash, but the buyout is largely leveraged by debt. I regard this as extremely ominous.

The bottom line is that Masimo do not make or design major medical devices, despite to glowing boiler plate about being leading manufacturers of medical equipment. They do not seem to be, but very much peripheral players.

Anyone see a train crash in the offing?

Lol, so does this mean that your Masimo AVR will sense your O2 saturation dropping and turn down the volume for you?!

 

[mtrot]

Speaking of appliances, when we needed a new fridge a couple years ago to replace our 40 year old Whirlpool that finally died, we looked and looked, and Ill be darned if this french door Samsung wasn't the best option. I never thought I would buy a Samsung, but it is so much better looking than the others and, after some quibbles with the ice maker, it has worked perfectly. And it is, by far, the quietest fridge I've ever heard. But I certainly do not expect it to last 40 years like our last one!

 

[ryanosaur]

Wow. (Again.)

Y'all are some reactionary @$$ MoFos.

Don't get me wrong, it's surprising... and I completely get the potential of problems.

At the same time... How many times have some of these brands changed Ownership? And survived.

Let's not lose sight of the fact Denon has achieved some of the most consistently high measurements from ASR for AVRs while going from owner to owner.

The proof will be in the pudding.

This years gear should be announced soon (*fingers crossed), and since taking last year off D&M have had 2 years to work the kinks out of their new models.
The new Polk and DefTech Speakers have all looked pretty good and measure well. B&W is B&W (*siezure inducing eye roll).

We can be afraid, or we can see what comes of this.

I think more importantly this wasn't taken over by a capital acquisitions company that specialize in dismantling and selling off corporate pieces.

I'm going to take the wait and see approach. The sky isn't falling until it's actually falling.

 

[Mikado463]

Lol, so does this mean that your Masimo AVR will sense your O2 saturation dropping and turn down the volume for you?!

maybe I can plug my CPAP hose into it and have music flow with the incoming air ?

 

[Mikado463]

Speaking of appliances, when we needed a new fridge a couple years ago to replace our 40 year old Whirlpool that finally died, we looked and looked, and Ill be darned if this french door Samsung wasn't the best option. I never thought I would buy a Samsung, but it is so much better looking than the others and, after some quibbles with the ice maker, it has worked perfectly. And it is, by far, the quietest fridge I've ever heard. But I certainly do not expect it to last 40 years like our last one!
View attachment 53884

40 years ?? !! LOL, you'll be lucky if it last 20 !!

 

[Danzilla31]

Wow. (Again.)

Y'all are some reactionary @$$ MoFos.

Don't get me wrong, it's surprising... and I completely get the potential of problems.

At the same time... How many times have some of these brands changed Ownership? And survived.

Let's not lose sight of the fact Denon has achieved some of the most consistently high measurements from ASR for AVRs while going from owner to owner.

The proof will be in the pudding.

This years gear should be announced soon (*fingers crossed), and since taking last year off D&M have had 2 years to work the kinks out of their new models.
The new Polk and DefTech Speakers have all looked pretty good and measure well. B&W is B&W (*siezure inducing eye roll).

We can be afraid, or we can see what comes of this.

I think more importantly this wasn't taken over by a capital acquisitions company that specialize in dismantling and selling off corporate pieces.

I'm going to take the wait and see approach. The sky isn't falling until it's actually falling.

I love your optimism thank you for your perspective

My ports feel much better now they were going through a bit of turbulence