Audio Hardware Companies on Life Support

The main Wadia folks started Exogal.

 

The younger generation are more inclined towards headgear listening. In many parts of Asia, the migration from rural to cities has also meant that living space has shrunk, making big speakers less practical. Also the emergence of streaming has meant that equipment needs to be connected to external parties, something legacy companies may not have inherent skills in.

 

Harman is owned by Samsung now, which explains the move to cheaper bluetoothier products. They also own AKG by the way, and there has been a degradation in quality there too.

From what I understand, Samsung acquired Harman for the car OEM audio business and other brands under that umbrella will just support that strategy.

 

Cars are the highest profile and current largest growth segment, but don't get it too twisted. Samsung's #1 products involve screens. And most screens require sound. TVs, computer displays, stadiums, movie theaters, cell phones, business telecom, VR etc etc. It'll be great for a lot of things, but I have a feeling high end audio is not one of them.

 

Classe was bought and then sold by B & W. B & W then decided to shutter the operation. But, then B & W sold the brand -- IIRC, back to one of the original/primary founders and/or designers. Who plans to introduce new products. (As told to me by a B & W rep).

 

Energy and Mirage are long gone.

Energy and Mirage were owned by the Canadian speaker manufacturer, Audio Products International (API). Athena Technologies was also an API brand. Several years back, API was purchased by Klipsch. Klipsch then decided to discontinue both the Energy and Mirage brands.

Klipsch was in turn purchased by Audiovox, which owned the Advent and Acoustic Research (AR) brands. AR is no longer a speaker brand; it is being used to market high performance portable digital music player and electrostatic headphones. In fact, an AR portable digital music player is listed on the current Stereophile Recommended Components List.

 

The rep was wrong. Classe is now owned by DEI/Sound United who also now own Marantz, Denon, Polk and Def Tech.

 

Not the most visible brand out there, but still in business AFAIK. Tiny Dancers are still one of my favorite small speakers...I'm talkin' Focal good.

 

How about good news, REVIVED products? Tom Thiel, Jim's brother is so proud if his brother's accomplishments, that he will be offering upgrade kits to some of the older Thiels. His first product kits will be for CS3.6, CS2.2, and one of the in-wall models. These are speakers that are old enough that some of the capacitors need replacement, and that Jim was working on upgrade kits when he died. So Jim's notes are Tom's resource.

Keep in touch about these and more threw Coherent Source in Lexington KY. Rob bought all of the existing stick of parts from the original Thiel's warehouse.

So Thiel owners are not alone.

 

Clement speakers are still supported by Philip Clements, from his new speaker company, Solus, that he bought from ADS. The Clements speakers had proprietery ribbon tweeters, that are still available, now through Solus.

 

Anyone know whats going on with EAR?