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amirm

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That doesn't make it any easier to swallow here.
To have great old US audio companies like H-K, JBL, Infinity, Crown, Mark Levinson, etc; become the property of a South Korean corp makes me ill and angry. :(:mad:
Likewise. I have worked extensively with Korean executives and I find their culture very difficult to integrate into US. So beyond the foreign ownership, they are just tough people to work with. I know I would have packed my bags and looked for a different job if I were a high-level executive reporting to them.

They are also located in god awful part of Korea, a number of hours away from Seoul. After a long, miserable flight there, you have to then deal with getting up early in the morning to make that long drive as there are no decent hotels to stay near Samsung. And the town that is near it is quite dumpy.

On the bright side, they own fundamental technology in displays, memory, etc. which should, if politics get out of the way, help reduce Harman's costs and make them more competitive. Alas, the last division I worked with inside Samsung got worse pricing for flash memory than Apple was getting because their volumes were lower than Apple!!!
 

Thomas savage

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Sal1950

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RayDunzl

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Breaks my heart every time I hear of a great old US corp like Harman selling out to foreign ownership.

You can commiserate with the great old names from Denmark, Germany, Austria, and the UK (maybe others) that were sold out to Harman in the past.

Harman itself was sold to Beatrice Foods in 1976, for a few years, mostly before it went shopping for its stable of other great old US (and foreign) names.
 

Thomas savage

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You can commiserate with the great old names from Denmark, Germany, Austria, and the UK (maybe others) that were sold out to Harman in the past.

Harman itself was sold to Beatrice Foods in 1976, for a few years, mostly before it went shopping for its stable of other great old US (and foreign) names.
Yes what goes around comes around! U.s companies been buying foreign assets and stripping them bare for decades!

That's capitalism
 

FrantzM

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The World is interconnected, Capitalism and Wrongdoings have no nationalities and know no borders
...If we were to look deeply at what most of what we use came from we would want to revert to a cave...

Would it be interesting for Samsung to spin off the pure Audio and High End ... end to a private capital firm? That would allow us to keep getting great products from those people who knows how to obtain great sound as opposed to the current High End Audio market where performance is not correlated to price and/or reputation. High End Audio is now staunchly a Luxury market with its own equivalent of Rolex, Patek Philippe, etc... The most important difference being that no one with a Patek Philippe would dare proclaim that his/her piece of jewelry is more accurate than a Casio Quartz ... He/she can't even say it's better simply that he/she paid more for it :)
 

Thomas savage

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The World is interconnected, Capitalism and Wrongdoings have no nationalities and know no borders
...If we were to look deeply at what most of what we use came from we would want to revert to a cave...

Would it be interesting for Samsung to spin off the pure Audio and High End ... end to a private capital firm? That would allow us to keep getting great products from those people who knows how to obtain great sound as opposed to the current High End Audio market where performance is not correlated to price and/or reputation. High End Audio is now staunchly a Luxury market with its own equivalent of Rolex, Patek Philippe, etc... The most important difference being that no one with a Patek Philippe would dare proclaim that his/her piece of jewelry is more accurate than a Casio Quartz ... He/she can't even say it's better simply that he/she paid more for it :)
True plus one could argue having different countries vested in one another in this way helps keep the world in relative peace.. No world war 3 at least!
 

Sal1950

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True plus one could argue having different countries vested in one another in this way helps keep the world in relative peace.. No world war 3 at least!
Yea right, good luck with that. LOL
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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The World is interconnected, Capitalism and Wrongdoings have no nationalities and know no borders
...If we were to look deeply at what most of what we use came from we would want to revert to a cave...

Would it be interesting for Samsung to spin off the pure Audio and High End ... end to a private capital firm? That would allow us to keep getting great products from those people who knows how to obtain great sound as opposed to the current High End Audio market where performance is not correlated to price and/or reputation. High End Audio is now staunchly a Luxury market with its own equivalent of Rolex, Patek Philippe, etc... The most important difference being that no one with a Patek Philippe would dare proclaim that his/her piece of jewelry is more accurate than a Casio Quartz ... He/she can't even say it's better simply that he/she paid more for it :)


Agreed.

Incidentally, one interesting, albeit imperfect, measure of the size of the high end audio market just came to my attention. It was in the current issue of The Abso!ute Sound. Here we have one of the world's leading journals dedicated exclusively to high end audio. But, guess what their total, audited circulation of the print edition is world-wide: only about 35,000 issues on average per month. No doubt, some subscribers now get only an Internet edition, so not included in this statistic. But, I think it might be another indicator of a decline of the high end. My memory may be faulty, but I seem to recall much higher circulation in past decades.
 

Blumlein 88

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Agreed.

Incidentally, one interesting, albeit imperfect, measure of the size of the high end audio market just came to my attention. It was in the current issue of The Abso!ute Sound. Here we have one of the world's leading journals dedicated exclusively to high end audio. But, guess what their total, audited circulation of the print edition is world-wide: only about 35,000 issues on average per month. No doubt, some subscribers now get only an Internet edition, so not included in this statistic. But, I think it might be another indicator of a decline of the high end. My memory may be faulty, but I seem to recall much higher circulation in past decades.
Maybe, maybe not. Most all print publications are seeing declining circulation. Before you posted the number I would have guessed it was less.
 

Sal1950

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Agreed.

Incidentally, one interesting, albeit imperfect, measure of the size of the high end audio market just came to my attention. It was in the current issue of The Abso!ute Sound. Here we have one of the world's leading journals dedicated exclusively to high end audio. But, guess what their total, audited circulation of the print edition is world-wide: only about 35,000 issues on average per month. No doubt, some subscribers now get only an Internet edition, so not included in this statistic. But, I think it might be another indicator of a decline of the high end. My memory may be faulty, but I seem to recall much higher circulation in past decades.
High End Audio is on life support and the prognosis isn't promising.:(
I think back to the heydays of Hi Fi and remember how many different publications I subscribed to and would get in the mail each month. :eek: The market supported mainstream pub's like High Fidelity, Stereo Review, Audio, etc; plus the "undergrounds" of Stereophile, TAS, Audio Critic, IAR, and about 3 or 4 more I can't remember right now. Then after things fell away I had hoped that the Home Theater fad would inject new life into the market. It did for a while but then that and all the supporting publications died away too.
For the most part today's market is made up mostly of high income people that have a love for music, or a big segment made up of guys just trying to put together their "man cave" comprised of obviously very expensive components with which to impress his friends with his disposable income. (Look at my $6k apeice fire hose power cords and pure silver braided interconnects). :cool:
Except for the guys I'm familiar with on the web, I currently don't know anyone who has anything better than a Bose Wave music system and a 55" flatscreen with a cheap soundbar. :(
I don't know how much longer today's High End will continue. They've built a market on lies and BS, snake oil peddlers that I can't help but believe will one day blow up in their faces.
 

RayDunzl

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Except for the guys I'm familiar with on the web, I currently don't know anyone who has anything better than a Bose Wave music system and a 55" flatscreen with a cheap soundbar.

I'm a hermit, the neighbor houses I've been to have nothing of interest, but my musician friend (of 35 years) John has this system:

upload_2016-11-23_13-53-47.png
 

Sal1950

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The World is interconnected, Capitalism and Wrongdoings have no nationalities and know no borders
...If we were to look deeply at what most of what we use came from we would want to revert to a cave...
As a US citizen my only concern is (and rightfully so) the future I will pass on to the next generations here. The same should be true of the citizens of other nations, they all working to hand a better, more prosperous future to their offspring.
Yes, I'm nationalistic and damn proud of it. I look to spend my income as best I can on domestic products from domestic company's and will do so till I'm in the ground.
Look at your children and do what you thinks best, YMMV.
http://jobsback.com/biggest-wealth-transfer-in-the-history-of-the-world/
 

Sal1950

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I'm a hermit, the neighbor houses I've been to have nothing of interest, but my musician friend (of 35 years) John has this system:
I would say he is an exception. I have many friends that are musicians, a couple successful professionals, and none have anything of note. Best of them is currently the eastern distributor for one of the biggest instrument manufacturers in the US. His family room system is a 20+ year old one box Sony stereo receiver, cd player and speakers rig. He's a classic tube gear fan and the man cave music room in the basement has a assemblage of Heathkit and Knightkit stuff he enjoys doing the technical maintenance on. Speakers are again nothing of note. ;)
 

RayDunzl

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Fitzcaraldo215

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It looks like there are super tweeters on top, as well. I never found a need or desire for those.

Yup. I owned a pair, upgraded from CLS I's to IIz's, over many years: 1986-2002. The mid/upper bass was always thin and anemic in a way that no room placement or subwoofer could cure. Although, some Krell Class A amps helped a fair bit. The ML hybrids with dynamic woofers crossed over in the approx. 200-400 Hz range were much better. Still, there was a remarkable sense of transparency and coherence to the sound of CLS's owing, perhaps, to the elimination of any crossovers in the single element electrostat design.

I guess I became fixated on the idea of full range electrostats from the legendary KLH 9 in my teens. I never owned them, but I lusted for them. They had long disappeared from the market by the time I was ready financially to build a system. So, CLS's were my vicarious way to achieve the same idea, and I preferred them to Quad 57 or 63's. I had also been disappointed by Mark Levinson's HQD system with stacked Quads, a Decca ribbon tweeter and Hartley 18" subs.

Like you, Ray, I am still an ML guy with 7 ML hybrids of various sizes in my Mch setup. I think my system still stands up pretty well sonically to most everything else I have heard, including some way, way more expensive. DSP room EQ (Dirac), a good JL sub, and PC playback via a great Mch DAC all help make that possible.
 
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DonH56

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Blumlein 88

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I went to possibly buy a pair for sale near me some years back when those were current. As I listened to them the fellow decided he wasn't going to sell them. Which was actually alright. I liked them, but decided they weren't quite for me. So everyone was happy. I preferred them to the early attempts at hybrids by M-L.
 
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