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

It will be interesting how Harman, and on top of that Samsung approach further development.

There is obviously a lots of overlap in their brands portfolio, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Funding the brands to compete with each other might be a way to go, just like the luxury fashion brand conglomerate model.

The other approach would be to micro manage the brands and get consolidated output that was aimed form. This would include some decisions that are not necessarily the best ones but might be needed if profitability as opposed to brand development is the goal.
 
techsamurai said:
Agreed, people spend a bazillion on headphones. I was absolutely shocked at my daughter's college at how many people have AirPods Max which cost $550. I just replaced the blue earpads on her Beats Studio 2 that I purchased on sale for her many years ago.

But I don't think that Massimo's companies are heavily invested in headphones except for B&W and their PX line. They're mostly stereo and home theater.

Stereo involves 2 speakers while Home Theater can involve 13 speakers (thanks to Atmos) and most people will aim for 7,9,11, or 13 to beat a soundbar's number of drivers. Very few people would choose a 5-channel system like the ones I have over, say, a Sonos soundbar which on paper is a 9.1.2 system :)

With a soundbar you just need to unpack, connect, power, run, and enjoy Atmos sound.

Try doing the same with a 13 speaker Atmos system. The boxes alone become an issue :) Ideally, they'd all be wireless and run without a power plug :) But even then you still have to mount them. I love surround sound but I would never build an Atmos system nowadays and I don't think I'm the only one here.
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I would point out that according to the inflation calculator $550 would only be $150 or so in 1980 dollars which I believe I spent on Audio Technica electret headphones around that time. While perhaps OT, I always felt that Atmos was a bridge too far. It's hard enough to get WAF approval for a 5.1/7.1 system let alone the extra expense for 4 or more Atmos speakers to get what I expect is at best 10% more envelopment in the surround sound. I wonder if all that R+D devoted to Atmos had instead been use to created user friendly room EQ systems.
 
Putter said:
While perhaps OT, I always felt that Atmos was a bridge too far. It's hard enough to get WAF approval for a 5.1/7.1 system let alone the extra expense for 4 or more Atmos speakers to get what I expect is at best 10% more envelopment in the surround sound. I wonder if all that R+D devoted to Atmos had instead been use to created user friendly room EQ systems.
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And that 10% only happens when the speakers are active which is a very small percentage of time.

I agree 1,000% about the EQ systems. Surround sound with more virtualization for the bedlayer would have improved sound for everyone and also improved LCR sound would have been better especially taking advantage of full tower LR channels.
 
Putter said:
I would point out that according to the inflation calculator $550 would only be $150 or so in 1980 dollars which I believe I spent on Audio Technica electret headphones around that time. While perhaps OT, I always felt that Atmos was a bridge too far. It's hard enough to get WAF approval for a 5.1/7.1 system let alone the extra expense for 4 or more Atmos speakers to get what I expect is at best 10% more envelopment in the surround sound. I wonder if all that R+D devoted to Atmos had instead been use to created user friendly room EQ systems.
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Not sure I follow the logic of your post at at.

And not sure what your WAF has to do with it on larger scale. Also where is 10% coming from.

Otherwise, it's not just you insert a coin, or many of them. and get a better EQ result. Lots of coins were inserted into ART and still not present on most platforms.
 
Music1969 said:
Dr Sean Olive resigned. Will be interesting how critical objective performance will be for JBL etc, going forward.
Or not.

We won't see the effects for at least 2 years. New products/product cycles
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Whether Toole's and Olive's work was about objective performance or not is an interesting question.

I would classify much of it as empirical observation and rigorous testing of user preferences (which is subjective).
 
watchnerd said:
Oh my sweet summer child...

Redundancies will be eliminated.
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Sad but true. I wish companies would find a better approach. Perhaps no hiring of new people and let attrition do it's job or offer an early retire package and volunteer separation.
 
PristineSound said:
What a loss to the industry and hobby. But I am happy for him, he earned the time off.

I hope the next and new generation of acoustic engineers and scientists will carry the industry forward. Lots of hopes is riding on some of the new comers like Ascilab, Perlisten and Audio First.
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TBH, I think we're well past the golden age of audio research when it comes to traditional home audio.

Samsung / Harman's corporate priorities (cockpit audio, mobile) tell us where the R&D money will go.

If I was a next generation acoustic engineer, I'd much rather work on audio systems for self-driving cars or immersive gaming than conventional stereo reproduction.
 
watchnerd said:
TBH, I think we're well past the golden age of audio research when it comes to traditional home audio.
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I don't think so, there Is still so much more we don't know about in acoustics.

And immersive audio like multi-channel is not easy to get large adoption due to cost of equipment, cost of content production and space required. Especially on Europe and Asia, where space is very limited, it is very hard to get a large number of customer base.
 
Keith_W said:
He did?!?!? When???
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Few days ago?

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mhardy6647 said:
Care to list an example or two?
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Perfect example, we have a general to medium level idea on how to get good spatial effects from a two-channel loudspeaker, but can we design one to behave exactly how we want it to be?

Or the evolving Harman curve.
 
mhardy6647 said:
Care to list an example or two?
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Off the top of my head, here are a few questions I have pondered and don't have a satisfactory answer for.

1. Why do IEM's and headphones sound like IEM's and headphones, and not like loudspeakers? Is it possible to DSP them so that they sound like speakers?
2. Why do open back headphones sound different to closed back headphones? Or for that matter, from IEM's?
3. Dipoles and omni speakers do not sound as terrible as conventional thinking about directivity and reflections would seem to suggest. Why?
4. Why do large speakers sound different to small speakers?
5. What are the audible group delay thresholds < 100Hz?
6. Is intrachannel phase distortion audible or not? (It is). Is there a lower limit and upper limit? Under what conditions does it become inaudible?

Maybe some of the questions I am asking have been answered. Some of them have opinions but no published papers. For example, for the first question (why headphones don't sound like speakers) some people like Toole and Linkwitz think it's the change in HRTF when the head is turned, and when we don't hear this change (as is the case with headphones) our brain gets confused and creates the "sound in your head" sensation. But as far as I know, there are no papers, only opinion and speculation.

Then there are some people who say that loudspeakers give you "tactile sound", that you feel the sound on your skin and in your bones. Again, that's anecdote and opinion. I am prepared to entertain the idea, but I won't believe it unless I see some papers!

The only reason I listen to speakers is because I hate the sound of headphones. I even prefer the sound of my crappy bluetooth speakers or computer speakers to my Dan Clark Stealth headphones. If it were possible to make them sound like loudspeakers, I would love it - I could sell my main system and have a living room again.
 
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