watchnerd
Grand Contributor
FWIW, Roon seems to be one of the Harman acquisitions that has worked out okay.
(so far, knock on wood)
(so far, knock on wood)
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Harman To Acquire B&W, Denon, Polk And Marantz From Masimo In $350 Million Deal
- Thread starter MattHooper
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thewas
Master Contributor
- Joined
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Good news:
I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Acoustic/Psychoacoustic Consultant at Self-employed! | Sean Olive | 117 comments
I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Acoustic/Psychoacoustic Consultant at Self-employed! | 117 comments on LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com
PristineSound
Major Contributor
I think we all can read in between the lines here.Good news:
I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Acoustic/Psychoacoustic Consultant at Self-employed! | Sean Olive | 117 comments
I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Acoustic/Psychoacoustic Consultant at Self-employed! | 117 comments on LinkedIn
Seems like Samsung is going in a business direction that is different than Olive's passion and vision, so he respectfully bowed out and moved on.
Also, from what you see in the used market, there is a lot more B&W and Polk than there are Revel, this can potentially be a signal that Samsung is saying screw the science, show me the money.
Isn't that what most businesses do?
PristineSound
Major Contributor
Yes, most corporations. But when Toole and Olive was hired by Harman, they were promised an endless sea of scientific research, obviously all of that changed when Harman got brought out by Samsung.
Of course, there still are smaller shops who are still owned by the original founders and are still a passion business for them.
The question is: why the money does not automatically follow the ´scientifically righteous´ loudspeaker in this market segment, despite from including subjective preference tests?
Me thinks, what Harman brands have been doing over the last decades in other segments, such as in-car-entertainment and portable Bluetooth speakers, was pretty much of a success. Even before Samsung bought them. If you ever have heard the amount of bass coming out of a 1.5l JBL on the beach and counted the number of people having such, you could come to the conclusion that their way of practicing science was more than successful from business perspective and sound alike.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Does not really sound that convincing to me. In a price range of up to a few 1,000 bucks, both brands have pretty conventionally shaped loudspeakers in their portfolio. The more expensive ones are definitely more exotic and unique, but do they really sell quantities of a $25,000 model solely based on the look? I doubt that.
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watchnerd
Grand Contributor
B&W makes $100k Nautilus. Revel has nothing at that price point.
The intent isn’t to sell lots of $100k speakers, but to create a halo line that oozes cachet and drives sales of more mid priced speakers. Standard mass luxury goods marketing.
I’ve seen B&W products sold in Apple stores. I’ve never seen Revel there.
Speakers are fashion objects sales of which are driven partly by looks.
MoreWatts
Major Contributor
I don't think people understand that the long-revered brands of HiFi have reached the point where younger folk have not heard of any of them. The names Denon and Marantz mean nothing to modern folks, and JBL is relevant only because they've managed to dominate the Bluetooth speaker market.
This is an oldish anecdote about an USA HiFi dealer. He mentioned that the only brands that people ever called to ask if he carried were McIntosh and B&W.
Samsung may help traditional home audio stay somewhat relevant simply by acquiring and developing one of the few brands that people know exists. The expansion and updating of the JBL Summit Series of speakers indicates that Samsung has no intention of abandoning traditional home audio, and in fact intends to push the state-of-the-art. The acquisition of B&W almost guarantees a significant-enough market share that they can actually make adequate profit while doing so.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
I don't think people understand that the long-revered brands of HiFi have reached the point where younger folk have not heard of any of them. The names Denon and Marantz mean nothing to modern folks, and JBL is relevant only because they've managed to dominate the Bluetooth speaker market.
This is an oldish anecdote about an USA HiFi dealer. He mentioned that the only brands that people ever called to ask if he carried were McIntosh and B&W.
Samsung may help traditional home audio stay somewhat relevant simply by acquiring and developing one of the few brands that people know exists. The expansion and updating of the JBL Summit Series of speakers indicates that Samsung has no intention of abandoning traditional home audio, and in fact intends to push the state-of-the-art. The acquisition of B&W almost guarantees a significant-enough market share that they can actually make adequate profit while doing so.
I'm in my mid-50s and Marantz meant barely anything to me for most of my life.
Vintage gear is another matter, but those products were no longer made by the time I was old enough to buy electronics.
Do i understand it correctly that you think a design-oriented sculpture-like 4-way active speaker w/o proper amplification, introduced some 32 years ago and disappearing from the stores soon after, is on a massive scale driving sales of standard-looking, affordable boxes (and headphones, Wifi speakers and like) today, solely because this is the same brand? With all due respect, it does not really sound convincing. I would guess that the majority of people who spend more than 3 Grand on a pair of speakers would at least briefly listen to them in a store, if not making this or that comparison with competitor´s models.
Which leads back to my initial question why brands like Revel are not by far market leader for 20 years already, if they had the internal resources to exactly know, with scientific certainty, what people prefer. Me thinks that there is some error in this logic, while with other Harman products this logic worked pretty well.
Wouldn't it mean as a matter of consequence that all audio objectivism, scientific listening test and measurements are doomed to have no influence on buyers at all?
Seemingly they are relevant and very popular, but why don't they dominate the market for classic hi-fi, reasonably priced high end speakers as well?
I am far from sympathizing with the way B&W speakers sound, but we should be honest enough with ourselves admitting that people buy them in mass quantities after having done numerous listening tests, ignoring competitor´s models which are said to be sounding right from scientific or measurement point of view. Which leads to the question why the research on subjective preference tests failed to predict this. Will be interesting to see that speaker manufacturers with such an opposing philosophy will be operating under the same roof in future.
PristineSound
Major Contributor
Yes, there's a lot of bass from those little BT speakers. But if you take a look at JBL and Revel speakers in the used market and the fact that Revel gets ridiculous factory discounts few times a year, this suggests that sales of JBL and Revel is far from par with Polk and B&W.
MoreWatts
Major Contributor
I stumbled across this photo of the complete line-up of the new and re-freshed Summit Series, on a Chinese headphone website. This includes the new Everest and K2 models. The photo was posted there on 14 Oct 2024. I don't think JBL has officially shown or announced the refreshed Everest and K2 models. Nice to see JBL has not abandoned the 15-inch woofer.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Quite possibly, or at least a lot less.
How many buyers demo speakers in person at audio salons any more?
How many audio salons still exist compared to the past?
How many new buyers are listening in traditional living rooms (that the listening preference tests were similar to) vs desk tops?
These days, you can cultivate relationships with social media influencers to help drive sales.
Edifier R180T has >18K reviews on Amazon.
Audio Engine A2+ has >3k reviews on Amazon.
KEF LS50 Meta has >400 reviews on Amazon.
Revel speakers don't even show up on Amazon.
Revel's great engineering isn't driving market dominance. But this shouldn't be news -- the tech industry is rife with examples of superior engineering losing to better marketing / branding. Or market conditions changing completely, freezing past research in time (LPs, cassettes, etc) and market relevance.
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watchnerd
Grand Contributor
I stumbled across this photo of the complete line-up of the new and re-freshed Summit Series, on a Chinese headphone website. This includes the new Everest and K2 models. The photo was posted there on 14 Oct 2024. I don't think JBL has officially shown or announced the refreshed Everest and K2 models. Nice to see JBL has not abandoned the 15-inch woofer.
View attachment 453846
View attachment 453847
I think they have, @amirm posted about them a while ago.
EJ3
Master Contributor
Maybe some of them think that B&W is BMW?I don't think people understand that the long-revered brands of HiFi have reached the point where younger folk have not heard of any of them. The names Denon and Marantz mean nothing to modern folks, and JBL is relevant only because they've managed to dominate the Bluetooth speaker market.
This is an oldish anecdote about an USA HiFi dealer. He mentioned that the only brands that people ever called to ask if he carried were McIntosh and B&W.
Samsung may help traditional home audio stay somewhat relevant simply by acquiring and developing one of the few brands that people know exists. The expansion and updating of the JBL Summit Series of speakers indicates that Samsung has no intention of abandoning traditional home audio, and in fact intends to push the state-of-the-art. The acquisition of B&W almost guarantees a significant-enough market share that they can actually make adequate profit while doing so.
If you count hi-fi trade fairs, computer shops selling audio gear and mail-order shops allowing customers to try stuff at home for a few weeks, my guess would be the consumers have more opportunities to listen to loudspeakers prior to buying than ever, particularly under home conditions from acoustic perspective.
My guess would be almost everyone who is in the market for floorstanding speakers. Maybe the number of people having a dedicated home cinema or listening room might has increased, but not enough to really shift the market.
Maybe brands like Revel are not on amazon or social media, but me thinks this would be doable with a company like Harman backing you up.
Again, I am not convinced. What better marketing could one get other than having a big company with indefinite R&D resources, world-wide recognized specialists and independent scientific knowledge behind your brand?
If it would be solely about technological superiority, with no-one caring for the result, it would sound logical to me. But they claim to have not only the best research behind them but also scientists doing reliable, independent preference tests with a mass of listeners. They should be capable of predicting what people will prefer and design products like loudspeakers accordingly.
Don´t get me wrong, I value all the effort and the level of sophistication when it comes to Harman´s R&D. But me thinks something does not really match with these decades of independent preference test story, I suspect some inconsistency in there. Otherwise their high end speakers would dominate the market for decades already, as their portable speakers managed with ease.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Once upon a time, companies invested huge R&D into turntables, cartridges, cassettes, SACD, etc.
R&D into those topics was used to help promote sales.
Then the market changed and that research wasn't so important anymore.
Just because Harman spent a lot of R&D money on preference test researching in a setting designed to match (then popular) living room scenarios doesn't mean that research will drive sales going forward.
If this "R&D will lead to sales" was the most important thing for market success, we wouldn't even be having this discussion about these brands being sold for low valuations.
These brands are being sold for 1/3rd of what Massimo paid for them.
That's a huge indictment of the prior path's failure to adapt to a changing market.