In other news, Arcam have effectively be bought by Samsung

Fisher never went out of business - the company as a whole was acquired by Emerson Electronics in 1969, just like Arcam is now being purchased by Harman, which itself is owned by Samsung.

Then Emerson later sold it to Sanyo, then it turned into a mere "brand", and then Panasonic later bought and terminated Sanyo (along with Fisher that Sanyo owned).

Source:

Fisher Electronics - Wikipedia

Mr. Scott retired in 1972, sold the company in 1973, and died in 1975, so it never really went out of business, either:

"Scott remained independent until 1973, when it was sold to its European distributor, Electro Audio Dynamics. This began the final chapter in a gradual decline that began back in the mid 1960's. The transistor age, and the entry of foreign product into the American audio marketplace was the beginning of the end for Scott, Fisher, and most of the American manufacturers. Rather than aim for the smaller upscale market, as did Macintosh, Scott tried to beat the Japanese at their own game. Scott Lost."

Source:

The Antique Collector: Focus on H. H. Scott

Now, those Japanese brands you may be right about, plus I'm too lazy to check.

 

Most said Samsung acquired Harmann for the Connected Car and Connected Services businesses. There was speculation over whether Levinson and Revel would be sold off. With the Arcam deal it looks like the home hi-fi business is a keeper. Just how all of this eventually integrates with Samsung's existing home entertainment electronics businesses is still a mystery.

Yeah, the B&W deal is a mystery too. There aren's a lot of major hi-fi brands surviving consolidation in the industry as people started to spend their money on other stuff.

 

Ron Fone had to get sacked before he ruined the company, too. Once he and Clarion was gone, and Charlie Randall took over as CEO, things were much better and McIntosh has introduced quite a lot of excellent gear. Also, McIntosh got acquired twice, is back in American hands. And Charlie has a legacy connection with McIntosh stretching back to key people who built McIntosh into the legendary company it is. Much more respectful to the company.

 

Not to mention Lowenbrau.

 

LOL

 

The point is that Clarion didn't change very much about McIntosh, because they knew that would be a terrible idea. Companies get sold without being dismantled all the time.

The part you're glossing over is these companies weren't doing well, or else they wouldn't have been for sale. Just like Arcam apparently isn't. A with Arcam, I imagine they'd have just gone out of business had they not found a buyer.

There's always a narrative attached to these events like "oh no! This fantastic company is being bought by a company that's going to gut them and put their name on clock radios!" that just isn't the case. This sort of thing is like corporate dumpster diving.

Personally, as Arcam isn't an especially well known or well regarded brand (perhaps its different in the UK?), I'm curious as to Sammy's plans here.

 

HK has done some brands really wrong, think Infinity! But also that being said, some recent Infinity speakers were really good, like the Intermezzo and Prelude speakers. Revel was there own making from the beginning and they kept it to fairly high standards. I guess my big concern is that HK will continue to gobble up decent brands and mid fi them.

 

If you want the "better" "smaller" companies to continue, buy their gear. I read so many posts where the advice is consistently to look for something per-owned or to buy "vintage". I agree that this is often the best route to go. "And there in is the rub". Often better quality of performance per dollar can be had by buying something other than new. It is a tough market where the product does not wear out like old tires do. We are lucky that there are still companies making higher end gear and still advancing the state of the art of audio. As an example, many owners find that once they spend 1k or more on a pair of speakers, they tend to keep them years. Get into the 3k-5k range where there is a big number of very decent speaker pairs (new and used) and most buyers will keep them almost forever.

 

Not glossing over anything. Just posted the info I found regarding them not being out of business at the time of sale, without alluding to their financial health at the time.

 

Not just Infinity! Look at what Harman did to Lexicon, not to mention its own "Harman/Kardon" brand, and JBL.

 

H.H. Scott was taken over by German-based SCHNEIDER in 1974; then, around '78/'79, EMERSON bought the brand and farmed it out to Korea. Emerson, a decade later, also bought the then-small-but-reputable VECTOR RESEARCH...and: (pitifully) consolidated all of them into being "Emerson Research".
The WORST radical change in ownership, though (after Sanyo/Fisher), would have to be SINGER sewing machines buying KLH in 1967. Practically nothing of merit came out of them after the Kloss stewardship (while; at least, A.R. *did* continue to innovate throughout the TELEDYNE era: LST/10pi/11/48/91/303/etc...only tanking from the RECOTON period forward).
Another example would be: Pioneer buying PHASE LINEAR then, turning around and re-selling it to JENSEN (who made it exclusively a car audio line).

 

This is just not true. Companies that are very successful get sold all the time when their owners want to cash out for various reasons. B&W is a good example. When the market is high and the offers hard to turn down, it's a good time to cash out.

 

On the video side, I think the world of Samsung's TV's. The only problem is that they don't integrate well with other connected equipment, including a Samsung soundbar I attempted to connect to the set in a small room setting. I recently purchased another Samsung that won't integrate with a Sonus soundbar in a bedroom because Samsung remotes now connect via Bluetooth. For whatever reason they don't want to play nice in the sandbox with others. It's like they have Sony disease.

 

I don't know if this is relevant to the topic of this thread.

But we used to enforce our Monopoly/Anti-trust laws much more than we do...these days.