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Harman To Acquire B&W, Denon, Polk And Marantz From Masimo In $350 Million Deal

MattHooper

MattHooper

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The lead-up to the sale was being discussed here FYI.

www.audiosciencereview.com

Denon/Marantz - the end is near

The Sale is near. From Masimo quarterly investors call Selling Sound United - “We are in the later stages of the process. We will not be commenting further on it during this call, but we remain pleased with the level of interest and our general expectations around timing remain unchanged.”...
www.audiosciencereview.com www.audiosciencereview.com
 
Audio was a passion project for the founder, Joe Kiani. He is out. They had a good medical IP licensing business. It is sad that Apple played hard ball and refused to license Masimo's blood oxygen sensor. Apple infringed on Masimo patents for some Apple watches, then took the sensor out, rather than negotiating.

I'm not sure there is enough business in hifi to support all these different brand identities and channels for selling the products even if they are owned by a handful of parent companies.

For channels, there may be an independent hifi/home theater company in a town, plus Best Buy, then after that, it's all online sales. Samsung will have relationships with many channels.

There is some crossover to the recording business: Vintage King, Sweetwater, and pro suppliers in big recording cities: NY, LA, Nashville, Europe/Asia examples. Then Musicians Friend, Guitar Center, etc.

These brands don't cross into installed sound, worship sound, or film track sound.

It is the same challenge with recording studio gear, too many microphone, outboard, console companies. Thank god for high school bands supporting the instrument market.

When the music is all made by AI, there may not even be recording, mixing, and mastering studios.
 
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I thought that Samsung or VOXX would be the eventual purchaser of these brands. It’s good to see new ownership that has resources to develop them.
 
amirm said:
Didn't see this coming but it is positive news.
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As a dealer for Harman products, is it likely Madrona Digital will be a source for select products from the brands of Sound United ?
 
This is a positive. The new owners do have a clue about consumer home entertainment electronics. I’m not sure the Masimo stockholders did.
 
It's positive in the sense that these brands will continue to see another day. Same with the recent McIntosh Sonus Faber move, they will continue to be there. My question is, how does this leave the Matsushita and Sony audio shares of the business. As Samsung has ample distribution around the world they can easily make it harder for the Japan brands to reach consumers.
 
Ismapics said:
My question is, how does this leave the Matsushita and Sony audio shares of the business. As Samsung has ample distribution around the world they can easily make it harder for the Japan brands to reach consumers.
Click to expand...

What have Sony done which is so great lately? They helped invent the CD and the entire portable music market. But their last innovations were from 20 years ago and involved pushing more DRM onto consumers (SACD, ATRAC, Minidisc). Their lunch was eaten by the Koreans and Apple. Sony needs a great big slap in the face, otherwise they will go the way of Philips (co-inventors of the CD, by the way).
 
Don't forget the brands Definitive Technology, Polk Audio, Classe, maybe some I'm not thinking of....
 
Power Pop 23 said:
As a dealer for Harman products, is it likely Madrona Digital will be a source for select products from the brands of Sound United ?
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We will have to wait to find out. Some existing Harman products like Harman Kardon are not available to us. While we have a distribution deal with them, JBL Pro is also not offered through standard Harman "Luxury" line (different dealers, distribution and pricing structure).
 
pma said:
Is monopoly a positive news?
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My feeling as well when I read this stuff.

I understand the point about it being better than the company just folding. Although even that is not always true because sometimes they decline and enshitification of small companies under these monopolies is like a fate worse than death, and customers can start getting the short end of the stick with the quality decline.

But mainly speaking, I would certainly prefer that many such high-end companies remain independent.
 
Not a direct comparison, but I hope it will turn out better than the merger between Chrysler and Daimler-Benz.

Or perhaps more relevant, Saab and GM.
 
MattHooper said:
My feeling as well when I read this stuff.
Click to expand...
The standard path, when a company acquires something that only the CEO wanted, is to write off the whole thing. They can apply that to their profits as a one time event, and go about their business. That they found Harman to acquire it for good money is very much the exception, not the rule. They were literally pulled from the grave.

Above happens even if everyone loves and wants the technology. As an example, I had paid some $5,000 for CNC software from a company in UK. Autodesk acquired them and a year later, shut it completely down in favor of their own version (Fusion 360). Everyone loved the UK software but it matter not to the larger corporation.

So this is absolutely cause for celebration unless you wanted them to go away for good.
 
Here is the official press release:

Masimo to Sell Consumer Audio Business to HARMAN International

IRVINE, Calif.—May 6, 2025—Masimo Corporation (Nasdaq: MASI), a leading global medical innovator, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Sound United consumer audio business to HARMAN International (“HARMAN”), a...
news.harman.com news.harman.com
 
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