Denon Parent Sound United buys Onkyo/Pioneer

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by sunspot42, May 15, 2019.

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  1. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    SandAndGlass likes this.
  2. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    It wasn't that long ago that Onkyo bought Pioneer. Sound United now owns Denon, Marantz, Integra, Onkyo and Pioneer.

    No way in hell they keep all of those brands operating indefinitely. I see all but Denon and Pioneer being dropped in the US.
     
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  3. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    If that happens then Best Buy Magnolia is going to lose a good portion of the brands they show. Denon, Marantz, Integra, Onkyo, and Pioneer are what I see the most of in the demo rooms at Best Buy Magnolia around here.
     
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  4. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Yeah, but I've gotta think BestBuy/Magnolia will be prompted by this to pick up some additional brands. They cannot be in the position of having most of the brands in their showrooms coming from a single manufacturer. That's a really crap position to be in.

    If I were them, I'd be making panicked calls to Yamaha tomorrow morning. NAD as well.
     
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  5. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

  6. ggergm

    ggergm another spring another baseball season

    Location:
    Minnesota
    I'm trying to get a handle on the fact that a company which started out making car alarms now owns Onkyo, Pioneer, Denon, Marantz, Polk Audio and Boston Acoustics, among other brands.

    Wow, just wow.
     
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  7. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    inMusic Brands (the company that owns the DJ brand Numark among other pro audio brands including Akai plus the cheap retro turntable brand ION) distributes the professional and DJ lines of Denon and Marantz, BTW.
     
  8. tumbleweed

    tumbleweed Innocent Bystander

    <Sound of other shoe dropping>

    No surprise here at all. Time moves on. Brands change hands. Good/bad/indifferent? We'll have to wait and see...
     
  9. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    Sherwood would be a good brand for Best Buy to carry as well.
     
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  10. tumbleweed

    tumbleweed Innocent Bystander

    The heyday of mainstream audio brands of the '70s and '80s is over, in case you haven't noticed. But let's not forget the rise of the many "boutique" brands that have emerged: Emotiva, Outlaw, Schiit and others are the Pioneer and Marantz of the 21st Century. Heck, the "older" boutique brands such as Creek and NAD are still viable.
     
  11. soundboy

    soundboy Senior Member

    RIP Boston Acoustics
     
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  12. I'd guess Denon, Marantz and Pioneer hang around. I don't see Integra and Onkyo being kept alive for the North American market.
     
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  13. tumbleweed

    tumbleweed Innocent Bystander

    Onkyo, you're likely correct. Integra, however, is an important brand for custom installers/system integrators - the CEDIA people. Integra is not commonly sold at retail; it's designed specifically to be sold by home theater folks as part of a system.
     
  14. That's a good point.
     
  15. mj_patrick

    mj_patrick Senior Member

    Location:
    Elkhart, IN, USA
    From the article:
    The acquisition still hinges on approvals, including from Onkyo shareholders in an annual meeting on June 26th.
     
  16. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I don't see what difference that will make?

    They all sound the same anyway.
     
  17. ggergm

    ggergm another spring another baseball season

    Location:
    Minnesota
    Besides I'm not sure they all sound the same, different marketing strategies can allow each line to thrive.

    For example, make one of the lines a house brand for Best Buy. Imagine Best Buy is the exclusive home for Pioneer in the United States and Canada.

    Do the same thing with Amazon and Marantz. Give them that line. Isn't Amazon like half of all Internet sales? Co-brand it with existing Amazon products, so that a home theater Marantz receiver would be a Fire piece. Marantz Alexa could take the sound from your turntable or CDs around the house while playing those sources, plus your phone, through big speakers in the living room.

    It was said upthread that Onkyo Integra is currently being used by custom home installers. Check. Put regular Onkyo in the few independent audio stores that remain, like HiFi Sound in Minneapolis and University Audio in Madison, Wisconsin. There's a lot of crossover between these brick-and-mortar dealers and the custom home community, anyway. Double check.

    Special feature packs for these different sales platforms would go further toward making each line unique.

    We still need a line for Internet companies like Music Direct. Make that Denon. And this is only North America. There is the rest of the world in which to place these lines. If done right, Sound United could save most if not all the brands they own.

    This is nothing new. It's the way General Motors has been doing business for close to a century.
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
  18. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Yeah, and they've been floundering and contracting for decades, too.

    I'd keep the two best-known brands - Pioneer and Denon - and dump the rest. Essentially buying the brands just to kill the competition. I'd spin Denon as the "pro" brand, replacing the lesser-known Integra, and target it more at the high end of the market and at physical dealers. I'd target Pioneer more toward consumers with a larger online retailer footprint and coverage from the middle thru the upper end of the market.

    Exit the low end. Leave that to whoever wants to lose money there. Probably Sony - they seem to be good at that.

    The market is shrinking overall and there's no way it will support micro-targeted brands for niche segments. At that point you're essentially running something like NAD, and losing the economies of scale it takes to compete with the little guys. Meanwhile, Sony and Yamaha could eat your lunch with their more streamlined operations.
     
  19. Bubbamike

    Bubbamike Forum Resident

  20. Gray Beard

    Gray Beard Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern NJ
    Strange times indeed. Been loving my Onkyo 8050 receiver since 2013. Great unit with a lot of power on tap and not a single issue all this time. Curious to see what happens here, since to me Onkyo releases some great under the radar products.
     
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  21. BayouTiger

    BayouTiger Forum Resident

    Everyone has their personal favorites, but has Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, or Pioneer done anything to distinguish themselves in ages. The $300 to $900 AVR market has been propped up for two decades by buzzword marketing and changing HT standards. The choice between these brands has been mostly esthetics and nostalgic reputation for years. NAD, Anthem, Arcam and others left them behind years ago at the mid range and up. Sonos has taken the market from the traditional <$1000 AVR with the exception of the aging troglodytes (like me!). Over $1000 on the audio side the market gets much tougher with the boutique lines.

    Who knows what costs are really associated with offering different faceplates with separate branding, especially in todays era of contract manufacturing. Pioneer is still solid in the car audio area. Denon is still making great headphones and cartridges. Integra is still doing OK with integrators, though not as much as days past as many integrators are not doing Sonos more and more and using amps from Crestron or Russound or other more whole house friendly solutions. At least a consolidation will allow them to keep the successful stuff and cleanse the dead wood. Otherwise we would just see a lot of babies thrown out with the bathwater. Imagine losing access to the DL103R because Denon's AVR business is stagnant (of course the cartridge line is stagnant as well but they still sell as many as they make).
     
    Rolltide likes this.
  22. Those companies are still very relevant in the home theater arena. Many of us run a Denon or Pioneer receiver for our home theaters, which the higher-end boutique labels largely avoid.
     
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  23. F1nut

    F1nut Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Mars Hotel
    You seem to be over looking the Marantz Reference gear.

    What hell is an integrator?
     
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  24. tumbleweed

    tumbleweed Innocent Bystander

  25. F1nut

    F1nut Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Mars Hotel
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