15 ms·

Samsung is paying $350M for audio brands B&W, Denon, Marantz and Polk

217 points by thibautg 1y ago

notfed 1y ago
Great...Samsung buying the competition. Denon makes great audio receivers. I expect them to turn to junk soon.
- snapetom 1y ago
  Yeah, kind of a bummer. B&W makes great headphones. I expect it to be "made" pretty soon.
  - fmajid 1y ago
    B&W is first and foremost a speaker brand, as used for mastering at Abbey Road Studios and a huge number of top recording venues. Their headphones are midrange at best.
- AyyEye 1y ago
  Maybe it's always been this way and I just never noticed but at some point in the last ten years or so Samsung became synonymous with bottom of the barrel quality, while still charging premium prices. I won't buy anything with a samsung sticker on it, even used, because it's inevitably going to have failing electronics, stupid design decisions, too many half-baked features, and horrible buggy software/firmware. Your typical no-name alibaba whatever is likely to be at least on-par with anything Samsung puts out while costing less. Even ignoring price, I can't think of a mainstream brand I consider worse from a quality perspective than Samsung. The only other brand I consider as bad is Sony, and that's more ideological than quality because of their shenanigans and contempt for their customers -- at least their hardware isn't almost across the board destined for the scrap heap. I've seen too many nearly new samsung appliances just die due to bad electronics and they want to charge nearly the cost of the appliance for a replacement circuit board. On topic for audio -- I got a samsung receiver for $20 from the thrift store and while it sort of does the job of being an amplifier, everything else about it is horrible. Worst interface of any receiver I've used since the 80s, its easy to change a setting accidentally while being difficult to change it back, and it doesn't power back on after a power outage requiring me to manually press the (capacitive/touch) power button on it. Also that (TOUCH!) Power 'button' is right next to the volume knob so you accidentally touch it while changing the volume, shutting the receiver off. But booting it back up requires holding the (capacitive) button. A quick press makes it flash so you think it is booting but the joke is on you, you need to hold it. Also you have to hold it properly, because sometimes it simply fails to register so after holding it for a few seconds and it doesn't boot, you have to take your finger off and try again. It's a receiver and you can't even select an input -- you need to cycle through all of them one at a time. So the one connected to your TV starts blasting erectile dysfunction audio at boosted commercial volume through your speakers when you're just trying to switch to bluetooth so you can listen to some lo-fi. You can't even make this stuff up. It's a joke and I don't believe anyone involved cared one bit about making a decent product.
  - nfriedly 1y ago
    Prettymuch agree with you. I have a Samsung plasma TV from 10~15 years ago. The picture quality is and always was beautiful, I had to have the power supply replaced once, and the software experience is and always was terrible. I eventually factory-reset the TV to make it forget my wifi credentials so it would stop interrupting me to claim my internet connection was down, when actually their update server was down. (I was trying to watch a DVD, so it would have been fine even if my internet was down!) Now it's just connected to a PC and I completely avoid the samsung software. Also agree with you about Sony and their contempt for their customers. I went through 3-4 pairs of linkbuds because they kept failing in ~6 months. I loved the idea of the design ("open back" earbuds with a hole in them to allow in outside sound, instead of using microphones), but the build quality just wasn't there.
  - silisili 1y ago
    Same boat. I made the unfortunate mistake of buying Samsung kitchen stuff. The fridge ice maker had to have been designed by a troll. One piece of ice every 10 seconds or so. It took a minute to fill a simple dinner glass! Then the microwave handle just...fell off the door. In all my years of owning bottom of the barrel to top end brands, I didn't even realize it was possible. The repairman said it was common, but because of all the plastic, they had to replace the entire door as the handle wasn't serviceable. Never again. Not even their phones.
    - elihu 1y ago
      My current phone is a cheap Samsung. It's awful. The usb-C connector has never worked for data and only barely works for power (the plug sits at a funny angle and doesn't charge unless it's "just right"). There doesn't seem to be any debris in the connector and I've tried a couple different cables, so my best guess is just the connector came from the factory misshapen. Phone reception is terrible where I live, but I'm not sure if that's the fault of my phone or the carrier.
      - MaKey 1y ago
        Over time lint and dirt builds up at the end of the USB-C port. It gets compressed there so you won't immediately notice it. Try to find something small enough to put in there and carefully scrape over the backside.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- adrr 1y ago
  They were owned by medical device company. Same company that sued Apple and why we don’t have an oximeter on Apple Watches in the US.
marcoc 1y ago
>Too many requests -- error 999. https://web.archive.org/web/20250507182014/https://www.engadget.com/audio/samsung-is-paying-350-million-for-audio-brands-bowers--wilkins-denon-marantz-and-polk-131514754.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250507182014/https://www.engad...
dsr_ 1y ago
There are lots of speaker manufacturers; I'm not too concerned about Polk and B&W. But! There are relatively few home theater receiver makers, and the Denon/Marantz siblings have been a big chunk of them for decades. (Sony, Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon. Nobody else covers the low and mid cost market.)
- neogodless 1y ago
  I'm curious how large this market is. Speaking only anecdotally, when I was in my 20s, I bought a Sony "home theatre in a box" which included receiver, small subwoofer, and small satellite speakers. Over time, I upgraded to an Onkyo reciever and Polk center, surrounds, and subwoofer. But... then I decided I wanted a more minimal look, and switched to a JBL sound bar + subwoofer, which has detachable surrounds -- but I almost never utilize them. For sure, the sound is nothing compared to what I had before, but I'm mostly OK with it. All that to say, how popular are sound bars, and how popular are dedicated receivers?
  - baq 1y ago
    Not very popular, but popular enough. If you care about sound more than looks (...and if you get the system set up and have a convincing story for your wife that it must be this way), it's the only way to experience movies 'properly'; mixed with an OLED TV, a proper subwoofer (like PB-1000 or similar) and bluray-quality content the system will be better than your average cinema experience. Now, whether that means anything when 99% of everything made for watching is just playing in the background while you're reading HN on your phone is debatable. Still wouldn't trade the setup even if I'm watching one movie per month. (I'm not even close to that high of a number...)
    - skydhash 1y ago
      There are some nice speakers that can fit nicely in a living room, but rears placement are always a problem. Especially if the sofa is isolated in the middle of the room. But my SO has enjoyed nice sounds so there was no struggle there (It was gradual with a 2.0 setup before the 5.1).
Animats 1y ago
must...have...name...brands Recently I was looking for a toaster. Target has a nice selection of toasters. Look down into the slots, and they are all exactly the same. There were, at peak, only three different VCRs. All those brands used one of three standard mechanisms. But you could get a hundred different cases.
- esperent 1y ago
  Funny you should say that about toasters... Because I've been down a toaster buying rabbit hole over the past year and toasters are not all the same. I mean sure, a €20 toaster is gonna be the same as all other €20 toasters. But beyond that they have massively different build quality and toasting speed, and don't get me started on how hard it is to find a toaster designed for real bread instead of square supermarket slices(+). My recommendation is actually to buy a commercial toaster. It'll toast twice as fast and last for years. Downside is that it will probably look ugly. I've heard good things about Dualit too though. (+) On the other hand if all you eat is white sliced pan, then go ahead and buy any €20 toaster. You're in luck, they were built for you.
  - jterrys 1y ago
    commercial toasters, tvs, washing machines, you generally can't go wrong with spending a premium for something that was built to last a LOT of use. Speedqueen makes commercial washing machines with a consumer lineup that's serious about lasting a while. Easily set me back $1600, but then looking at the build quality and 10 year warranty I was like "ok, they probably mean it". One thing I noticed about commercial build quality: simplicity. No touch bullshit. Small LCD displays. Here's some buttons and maybe a rotating knob. knock yourself out.
    - lrhegeba 1y ago
      I came to the same conclusion. My usual research routine nowadays starts at "what product is used by (semi-)professionals".
scblock 1y ago
Ah, so just like with AKG they'll get rid of everyone who knew anything and then slap old (and already lower tier through their own lack of efforts) audio names on hot garbage.
bob1029 1y ago
Polk used to produce some of the best bang-for-buck loudspeakers available in traditional retail channels. The RTi12 was easily the best floor standing speaker I've ever owned, potentially at any cost.
- jhfdbkofdchk 1y ago
  Polk speakers are an amazing deal.
bhouston 1y ago
I feel that sound bars + speakers directly attached to TVs has decimated the "home theatre receiver." "Back in the day", home theatre receivers made sense when you wanted Radio + CD inputs in addition to the TV input. But radio and CD players are gone. There is just TV. Even when I do audio, I run it through the TV. Thus why do you need a separate box? It just seems like a waste. Instead everyone these days are just attaching their speaker systems directly to the TV. And with wireless speakers, e.g. Sonos and similar systems, a centralized audio amplifier just doesn't make sense at all. So all that is left is ultra-high end applications and there are few of those.
- KerrAvon 1y ago
  Soundbars -- and also improved built-in TV speakers -- have eaten the low-end receiver market, for sure, but there are still a lot of other installations. A soundbar and stuff like Sonos are still compromises vs discrete channel speakers, and many people are still willing to pay for better sound. You don't have to go too high end to want better sound. Marantz gear in particular is great, and Samsung buying them seems really unfortunate. Might be better than some private equity randos though.
- neuroelectron 1y ago
  I feel like this is tied to the overall decline in movie and music quality. Maybe I'm just getting old. There is no more "Titanic" or "Nirvana". Lots of people have noticed the decline in audio mixing in movies as well, which has led to a generation of younger adults who need captions for regular movies. A discrete audio system would probably help with this but for what? How many times are you going to watch latest Avengers?
  - kyriakos 1y ago
    There are 2 problems currently with movie audio. One is that the channel separation is not as good as it used to be. New movies have 5.1 audio the effect is minimal which no longer justifies the expense on the sound system. People online are saying this is because many movies are made for primarily for streaming and that majority of people listen on their TV or sound bar instead of dedicated surround systems. The second issue is what you described, the mixing is just bad, sound effects and music are much louder than dialog making it impossible to comprehend without subtitles.
dredmorbius 1y ago
Well, that's four brands I'm never touching again. Far too many bad Samsung experiences.
- criddell 1y ago
  Last year I bought a Denon RCD-N12 - a mini system - for my office. I mostly use it to play CDs but can stream to it from my iPad too. The thing is great and for me, playing CDs while I work is perfect because it forces me to get up every 45 minutes or so to swap out the CD.
  - dredmorbius 1y ago
    Yep. Multi-disk players, either stackable or the big rotating wheel kind, are also fun. Those can give you most of a day's audio if you like.
fblp 1y ago
I wonder if this will flag antitrust issues?
- nfriedly 1y ago
  Seems unlikely. There are a lot of audio brands.
lysace 1y ago
"Hifi" was sort of mainstream for a while in the early 2000s. Remember when everyone went all-in on sound systems for their "home cinemas", very often spending serious money on 5.1 systems? Then Netflix, the race to the bottom in terms of bitstreams and portable devices happened.
- EnPissant 1y ago
  People just prefer soundbars because they are easier and less imposing while delivering 80% of the value. Samsung sound bars in particular are very good. Compared to a 5.1 setup, their biggest fault is lacking good stereo separation. Netflix delivers Dolby Atmos in bitrates that are indistinguishable from lossless audio. It's better, not worse.
tzs 1y ago
I've got a Samsung TV and a Samsung monitor in the same room. About 20% of the time when I use the TV remote from the couch to turn off the TV it also turns of the monitor. If I'm at the computer and turn off the TV with the TV remote it turns off the monitor the majority of the time. I wonder if Samsung will manage to make to so Denon and Marantz receivers will also sometimes turn off when you turn off a Samsung TV?
- mastercheif 1y ago
  This is because the remotes use IR for the power commands. There’s really no getting around it. A small piece of electrical tape over the IR window on the monitor will fix it.
  - tzs 1y ago
    The Samsung remotes are using RF. They may also have IR but if so it is operating in parallel to the RF. The TV remote will turn off the monitor even if I wrap the remote in a blanket which should block IR or hold it behind some blackout curtains.
    - hollerith 1y ago
      A typical blanket will transmit about half of light at 940 nm (the wavelength used by most TV remotes).
      - tzs 1y ago
        OK, this is getting interesting. I've done some tests. First, some pictures [1]. The first picture is the front of the TV remote and what I presume is the window in front of the IR diode. The second picture is what is supposedly the location of the IR sensor on the monitor. The third picture is my hand attempting to block the IR emitter on the remote. Here is what I've found. 1. If I block the emitter with my hand the remote has no trouble turning the TV on and off. Even if I've blocked it with my hand and am holding the remote behind the couch so there is no line of sight to the TV it still works. 2. It also still turns the monitor on and off, but the range is greatly reduced. I have to be within a meter of the monitor. 3. Blocking the receiver with a finger is similar, but the range reduction is more. I have to have the remote within maybe half a meter. 4. Blocking the remote with electrical tape has no effect on its effectiveness with the TV. 5. Blocking the remote with electrical tape almost completely prevents it from affecting the monitor. Maybe 1 in 20 times it will still turn the monitor on/off if near the monitor. 6. Blocking the receiver with electrical tape is similar. 7. Blocking the receiver by hand or electrical tape has no affect on the monitor's remote controlling the monitor. 8. The TV remote can turn the TV on and off and the monitor remote can turn the monitor on and off even if I go down the hall an into the bathroom and close the bathroom door so there is no chance that any IR signal is making it to the device. 9. The monitor remote does not turn the TV on/off even if held near the TV. 10. I also have an Amazon Fire Stick and its remote can turn the TV and monitor on and off. It uses IR for TV control functions (and RF for Fire Stick control). 11. As with the TV remote my hand fails to block the Fire Stick remote. From this I think we can draw some conclusions but also some questions are raised. • The TV remote can fully operate the TV using RF. The TV also responds to IR. • The monitor remote can fully operate the monitor using RF. The monitor also responds to IR. • The RF for each remote includes specific enough device identification that they do not operate the wrong device. The IR does not. • IR is hard to block. Why doesn't my hand stop it? With the TV remote the window is big and curved so I could see some of it not being quite covered, but the Fire Stick remote has a smaller window that is much flatter. When pressed tightly into my palm it should be completely covered. • Electrical tape almost seems to completely stop it, but I did still have an occasional signal get through. • When turning the TV off from the couch I should be able to stop it from affecting the monitor by simply covering the window with my palm. Even though that apparently still leaks enough IR signal it reduces the effective range, which should be enough to stop it from affecting the monitor. It will still work with the TV via the RF signal. [1] https://imgur.com/a/LcsqK4j https://imgur.com/a/LcsqK4j
EnPissant 1y ago
Samsung acquired Harman Audio some years ago. Harman owns several well-known brands like JBL, Infinity, and Revel. They've invested billions in audio R&D, and Samsung has clearly benefited from that. Their soundbars now exceed the sound quality of Sonos systems that cost twice as much (or three times as much during sales). Denon and Marantz are arguably the best AVR manufacturers. It’ll be interesting to see what Samsung does with them. The home theater market is pretty outdated compared to other areas of audio. Car audio, soundbars, and professional systems mostly use active speakers and tightly integrated setups. Meanwhile, home theater is still stuck with passive speakers and a component-based approach. While some might see this as a monopoly concern, there's a chance Samsung could use its combined brands to modernize home audio. Imagine a fully wireless, all-in-one home theater system with active speakers and centralized room correction. That could be a real step forward.
- gsibble 1y ago
  Sony already does some wireless surrounds. They sound like crap. The problem with wireless speakers is you can't really stream at a high enough bitrate to them to make for decent audio. Plus to really work, they need a plug nearby. People without a proper room really can't enjoy surround sound which is a shame. There's this whole world of high end home theater equipment most people never get a chance to hear. I try to show everyone my theater room to get more people excited. Several friends have run out and bought setups after hearing it. It's not too hard to run wires and mount speakers. I genuinely think most people just don't know what they are missing.
  - EnPissant 1y ago
    That’s not true about wireless speakers. Compressed audio that is indistinguishable from any loseless format is very small, and even if you compress beyond that, it is really hard to tell. Speakers and room acoustics dominate. Most people don’t have theater rooms, and they don’t want their living room to look like one. Most people who hear a Samsung q990x series soundbar are super excited too. I think you overestimate how much better a dedicated speaker setup is, especially if we are talking 5.1.
ivape 1y ago
I wonder how much Chi-Fi has to do with this. If they are buying brands, then I doubt they care about the hardware technology. They might have a strong idea to pump Chi-Fi into these brands and let the brands do the selling.
- numpad0 1y ago
  Lots of the hardware is already made in China if not Vietnam. Chinese engineers cutting out the middle men and taking Hi-Fi problems into their own hands is result of value shift out of hardware into services. I doubt China would be to blame for this when the entirety of developed world is nudging companies to add more salt and use less meat.
SoftTalker 1y ago
Marantz used to be top of the line home audio gear, hand built, point to point wired. Now just another stick-on label on generic Korean mass produced systems. Sad to see them and other former great names in audio reduced to that.
- starky 1y ago
  Marantz has been that way for more than a decade at this point. I bought my Denon AVR in 2013 and even then all of the Marantz lineup was just a different case they charged more for.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
trentnix 1y ago
Now there are more avenues for Samsung to shove bloatware down our throats. I have a modestly high-end home theater and it is utterly maddening waiting for devices to “boot” and “handshake”. And after the wait, I’m presented with another “User Agreement” to sign that insists on shoveling ads down my throat and harvesting data. How much do you have to pay for a quick boot, no ads, and a private movie or music experience? Just like every retailer has embraced usury with their credit card programs, every technology company has decided they are in the data harvesting business. I’m so over it.
- mcsniff 1y ago
  Sonarr, Radarr, Lidard are completely free, no ads, and private. Throw in JellyFin and Kodi and you're set -- no financial cost.
  - wlesieutre 1y ago
    Which one of those replaces a Denon AV receiver to accept a bunch of inputs in various formats (HDMI, phono, optical, etc) including Dolby Atmos and ARC support to drive a multi-room 15.4 speaker system?
    - AdamJacobMuller 1y ago
      Just pick better brands for your receiver. I have an Anthem pre and an LG TV, both of which are blocked from accessing the internet, and I have none of these issues.
      - nirvdrum 1y ago
        I think the point is with Samsung acquiring these other brands there are now fewer options. Denon AVRs have been solid options for home theaters, particularly if you have many different inputs. People buy them because they want a Denon/Marantz. If they wanted to buy Samsung that option is already available. The concern is Samsung will mar the brands, removing semi-affordable, quality options and forcing people that don't want Samsung bloat into potentially even more expensive alternatives. You'd run into the same issue if Samsung acquired your audio equipment manufacturer of choice.
mrandish 1y ago
I'm a little surprised these four companies combined sold for only $350M.
- getlawgdon 1y ago
  Same. Quite surprised.
  - hedora 1y ago
    Oof. Tariff panic?
- drodgers 1y ago
  Unfortunately the market is quite small and shrinking. I wish more people wanted great sound rather than phone/tv speakers (or soundbars).
  - mrandish 1y ago
    Indeed. My custom-built, sound proof, no-window, 150-inch screen, laser projector, 7.2.4 THX-rated speaker, 10 seat, dedicated home theater room is driven by about 80 pounds of dual rack-mounted Denon AVRs. I'm going upstairs now to disable automatic firmware updates before Samsung can start spamming me with ads.
  - wildekek 1y ago
    What also contributes to this, is that there are new (Chinese) players on the market that offer incredible value for audiophiles. Brands like Topping, Fosi Audio and SMSL completely outperform the incumbent brands.
    - ipsum2 1y ago
      You've listed DAC/Amp brands, what about actual speakers?
      - gsibble 1y ago
Alex_001 1y ago
[flagged]
Uptrenda 1y ago
Great, lets wait for samsung to ruin Denon.
cjk 1y ago
I spent several years at B&W prior to the Sound United and Masimo era, so this news makes me incredibly sad. I hope Samsung doesn’t run the company into the ground. There are lots of good people left at B&W. If they are afforded the autonomy they deserve, everything will be fine. If not…I guess we’ll see.
- bluGill 1y ago
  That if is the question. There in other industries examples of a good small company being bought out and it is for the better - they keep making quality things but now have the advantages of the big company. There however a lot of well known examples of a good small company being bought out for the name which is then put on junk while fooling people who still remember the name. Only time will tell.
ops_endurrra 1y ago
[dead]
lnx01 1y ago
I really hope they bring back the Denon AK-DL3
relistan 1y ago
These brands face massive competition from Chinese no-brand electronics on one end, and Apple, Sonos, and many others at the other end. Basically any time a market changes drastically you see older players consolidate. Too often that leads to one big collapse of the consolidated entity. We’ll see what happens in time.
numpad0 1y ago
> Too many requests -- error 999. In case anyone need it, here's[0] Wikipedia list article for HTTP status codes(200, 404, etc.) "Too Many Requests" is 429. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Etheryte 1y ago
  I think both the message and the code are wrong in this case. 429 too many requests indicates that you specifically as a client have spent too many requests, not that the site is being spammed to hell. If the site can't handle the traffic, a good option is 503 service unavailable, as that makes it clear that the problem lies on the server side, not the client.
- moontear 1y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20250507182014/https://www.engadget.com/web/20250507182014/https://www.engadget.com/audio/samsung-is-paying-350-million-for-audio-brands-bowers--wilkins-denon-marantz-and-polk-131514754.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250507182014/https://www.engad...
JKCalhoun 1y ago
How much do brands mean anymore?
- saltwatercowboy 1y ago
  Quite a bit in audio, consumer or professional. I've had my Bowers & Wilkins MM-1 desktop speakers for nearly a decade. Audio Technica are another trusted brand, especially for monitor headphones.
newsclues 1y ago
What is the alternatives (that aren’t Chinese)? Also why don’t TVs and AVRs use display port instead of hdmi (license costs)?
- morellt 1y ago
  Look into Schiit Audio! They're American designed and manufactured. Their receivers aren't as consumer friendly as those of sony/denon etc but the quality is amazing, they have low, mid, and high end devices for each category, and they dont have/require any wifi connectivity. I've been daily driving their headphone DAC and tube amp for the last 8 years with no problem.
  - newsclues 1y ago
    They don’t do surround sound
jmartin2683 1y ago
Audiophiles are forced to finally admit that their real hobby is just spending money.
steveBK123 1y ago
It's a shame that big box stores (Walmart, Target) / online retail (Amazon) / brand owned stores (Apple, Bose) have all conspired to reduce consumer choice. Even in big cities, there's practically no specialty stores to go to in which I can demo a product category across brands. Think pre-GFC peak Best Buy & the old CompUSA/Circuit City chains of the past or even Apple before they captured every other product category and actually had entire tables of headphone and speaker brands. It strikes me as very hard for any new brand to come about in this environment if they aren't already big enough to have their own storefront. As you are generally left shopping online by price (DTC / China alphabet soup branded sop on AMZN) or by known brand (I'll just get a Sony / Apple / Sonos / Bose).
- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  The consumer choice spectrum was pretty rad in the mid-to-late-1980s. I was often in the market for hi-fi stereo equipment, and I did it by accumulating discrete components one-by-one. In my home city, we had several electronics retailers who sold every kind of component stereo equipment, including car stereo and whatnot. So I could literally walk into a store and see a huge gamut of dual-deck cassette recorders, or turntables, or amplifiers, receivers, etc. And they were all set up for customer demo. It was fantastic. When the time came for me to shop for a CD audio player, I pre-purchased a few CDs to listen to for the demos. That was a great move; the place where I went for "auditions" had a dedicated listening room just chock-a-block with equipment that could be switched into whatever speaker system fit my home setup. And so in exactly one stop at a retail outlet, I was able to listen to that CD through several diverse systems, make a final purchase decision, and walk out of there with my favorite 7-disc CD changer, which served well for about 15 years after that.
- bluGill 1y ago
  The problem with showrooms is it is easy to go in, see what you need, then walk out and order from the cheaper mail order place that doesn't have retail overhead. The other problem is walmart with the generic stuff is good enough for most even though it is measurably bad, in a cheap but measurably bad listening environment - but they can thereby compete with online sales. That and a lot of expensive stuff is measurably no better than the "our best" walmark junk and so if you do find such a store there is no guarantee they are not pushing you overprice junk instead of the good stuff.
rayiner 1y ago
My left wing idea is that the government should be much more aggressive in preventing his sort of consolidation. Every industry is like the same handful of companies, with numerous “brands.” (These particular brands are all already owned by a single entity.) I’ve got an “Amana” heat pump. It’s really a Daikin, and is part for part compatible with Goodman, also owned by Diakin. But all the brands are sold to customers to create the illusion of choice. Maybe we could at least have a “real name” policy for companies and products.
- bluGill 1y ago
  Careful - it isn't clear that consolidation is bad. There is only a small market for this type of gear and less competitors can mean that the ones left actually have the money to design/build something good.
- s1artibartfast 1y ago
  My left wing idea is prohibition of preferential pricing after a certain size to mitigate monopoly leverage. If you have say 20% of a market for chips, eggs, or whatever and more than a billion in revenue, then you have to set the same price anyone can buy at.
ryukoposting 1y ago
How many people hear "JBL" and think "Bluetooth speaker" instead of "high end stereo gear?" How many people hear B&W or Harman-Kardon and think "logo on my car's speakers" rather than "high end stereo gear?" How many people hear "Mark Levinson" and think either "Lexus" or "who's Mark?" I genuinely didn't know that there were still real, standalone speakers and head units made under half these brands that aren't whitelabeled Bluetooth detritus.
t1234s 1y ago
My 2005 Marantz receiver just went up in value
vvladymyrov 1y ago
Fun fact that Masimo acquired Sound United in 2022 for 1B. Neither market nor investors were happy about this strange choice of company with health equipment focus doing this move. In 2024 Masimo changed CEO and now divesting audio brands business for just 350M.
justin66 1y ago
The most interesting recent acquisition of this kind I'm aware of is the Bose acquisition of McIntosh. As this article [0] notes: Dr. Amar Bose donated the majority of his namesake company to his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So technically, MIT now owns both McIntosh and Sonus faber, two of the biggest players in luxury audio. (MIT has non-voting shares of Bose, so although the university owns the majority of the company, it does not control business decisions.) [0] https://www.audioholics.com/news/bose-acquires-mcintosh https://www.audioholics.com/news/bose-acquires-mcintosh
TimByte 1y ago
Kind of wild to think that one company now owns such a wide swath of both mass-market and premium audio brands
wizardforhire 1y ago
Countdown to enshitification in three… two… I forsee a future where marantz amps have really annoying separate startup and shutdown songs and jingles for increments of volume obviously ascending and descending for increase and decrease in volume respectively with unavoidable long melodies for each power of ten, which of course can not be skipped or disabled by the user and also pause all ui inputs while being played causing the unit to grind to a halt if trying to change the volume too quickly and even causing the unit to crash as the melodies over lap and cause a buffer overflow… to be fixed never of course.
j45 1y ago
Disappointing. Time to grab current equipment while you can. Go a little nicer than you would normally for longevity. I have friends commenting that they have Samsung TVs infested with ads it did not have when they first purchased it.
stuaxo 1y ago
Remember Denon and Marantz being really good back in the day, will they be enshittified now?
- gnabgib 1y ago
  Doubt it, Masimo has been a terrible (recent) steward of this brand. "Warranty support" that includes shipping at your own expense, undefined reply times etc. This can only get better. Samsung is great on that side.

217 points by thibautg 1y ago

notfed 1y ago

Great...Samsung buying the competition. Denon makes great audio receivers. I expect them to turn to junk soon.

snapetom 1y ago
Yeah, kind of a bummer. B&W makes great headphones. I expect it to be "made" pretty soon.
- fmajid 1y ago
  B&W is first and foremost a speaker brand, as used for mastering at Abbey Road Studios and a huge number of top recording venues. Their headphones are midrange at best.
AyyEye 1y ago
Maybe it's always been this way and I just never noticed but at some point in the last ten years or so Samsung became synonymous with bottom of the barrel quality, while still charging premium prices. I won't buy anything with a samsung sticker on it, even used, because it's inevitably going to have failing electronics, stupid design decisions, too many half-baked features, and horrible buggy software/firmware. Your typical no-name alibaba whatever is likely to be at least on-par with anything Samsung puts out while costing less. Even ignoring price, I can't think of a mainstream brand I consider worse from a quality perspective than Samsung. The only other brand I consider as bad is Sony, and that's more ideological than quality because of their shenanigans and contempt for their customers -- at least their hardware isn't almost across the board destined for the scrap heap. I've seen too many nearly new samsung appliances just die due to bad electronics and they want to charge nearly the cost of the appliance for a replacement circuit board. On topic for audio -- I got a samsung receiver for $20 from the thrift store and while it sort of does the job of being an amplifier, everything else about it is horrible. Worst interface of any receiver I've used since the 80s, its easy to change a setting accidentally while being difficult to change it back, and it doesn't power back on after a power outage requiring me to manually press the (capacitive/touch) power button on it. Also that (TOUCH!) Power 'button' is right next to the volume knob so you accidentally touch it while changing the volume, shutting the receiver off. But booting it back up requires holding the (capacitive) button. A quick press makes it flash so you think it is booting but the joke is on you, you need to hold it. Also you have to hold it properly, because sometimes it simply fails to register so after holding it for a few seconds and it doesn't boot, you have to take your finger off and try again. It's a receiver and you can't even select an input -- you need to cycle through all of them one at a time. So the one connected to your TV starts blasting erectile dysfunction audio at boosted commercial volume through your speakers when you're just trying to switch to bluetooth so you can listen to some lo-fi. You can't even make this stuff up. It's a joke and I don't believe anyone involved cared one bit about making a decent product.
- nfriedly 1y ago
  Prettymuch agree with you. I have a Samsung plasma TV from 10~15 years ago. The picture quality is and always was beautiful, I had to have the power supply replaced once, and the software experience is and always was terrible. I eventually factory-reset the TV to make it forget my wifi credentials so it would stop interrupting me to claim my internet connection was down, when actually their update server was down. (I was trying to watch a DVD, so it would have been fine even if my internet was down!) Now it's just connected to a PC and I completely avoid the samsung software. Also agree with you about Sony and their contempt for their customers. I went through 3-4 pairs of linkbuds because they kept failing in ~6 months. I loved the idea of the design ("open back" earbuds with a hole in them to allow in outside sound, instead of using microphones), but the build quality just wasn't there.
- silisili 1y ago
  Same boat. I made the unfortunate mistake of buying Samsung kitchen stuff. The fridge ice maker had to have been designed by a troll. One piece of ice every 10 seconds or so. It took a minute to fill a simple dinner glass! Then the microwave handle just...fell off the door. In all my years of owning bottom of the barrel to top end brands, I didn't even realize it was possible. The repairman said it was common, but because of all the plastic, they had to replace the entire door as the handle wasn't serviceable. Never again. Not even their phones.
  - elihu 1y ago
    My current phone is a cheap Samsung. It's awful. The usb-C connector has never worked for data and only barely works for power (the plug sits at a funny angle and doesn't charge unless it's "just right"). There doesn't seem to be any debris in the connector and I've tried a couple different cables, so my best guess is just the connector came from the factory misshapen. Phone reception is terrible where I live, but I'm not sure if that's the fault of my phone or the carrier.
    - MaKey 1y ago
      Over time lint and dirt builds up at the end of the USB-C port. It gets compressed there so you won't immediately notice it. Try to find something small enough to put in there and carefully scrape over the backside.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
adrr 1y ago
They were owned by medical device company. Same company that sued Apple and why we don’t have an oximeter on Apple Watches in the US.

marcoc 1y ago

>Too many requests -- error 999. https://web.archive.org/web/20250507182014/https://www.engadget.com/audio/samsung-is-paying-350-million-for-audio-brands-bowers--wilkins-denon-marantz-and-polk-131514754.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250507182014/https://www.engad...

dsr_ 1y ago

There are lots of speaker manufacturers; I'm not too concerned about Polk and B&W. But! There are relatively few home theater receiver makers, and the Denon/Marantz siblings have been a big chunk of them for decades. (Sony, Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon. Nobody else covers the low and mid cost market.)

neogodless 1y ago
I'm curious how large this market is. Speaking only anecdotally, when I was in my 20s, I bought a Sony "home theatre in a box" which included receiver, small subwoofer, and small satellite speakers. Over time, I upgraded to an Onkyo reciever and Polk center, surrounds, and subwoofer. But... then I decided I wanted a more minimal look, and switched to a JBL sound bar + subwoofer, which has detachable surrounds -- but I almost never utilize them. For sure, the sound is nothing compared to what I had before, but I'm mostly OK with it. All that to say, how popular are sound bars, and how popular are dedicated receivers?
- baq 1y ago
  Not very popular, but popular enough. If you care about sound more than looks (...and if you get the system set up and have a convincing story for your wife that it must be this way), it's the only way to experience movies 'properly'; mixed with an OLED TV, a proper subwoofer (like PB-1000 or similar) and bluray-quality content the system will be better than your average cinema experience. Now, whether that means anything when 99% of everything made for watching is just playing in the background while you're reading HN on your phone is debatable. Still wouldn't trade the setup even if I'm watching one movie per month. (I'm not even close to that high of a number...)
  - skydhash 1y ago
    There are some nice speakers that can fit nicely in a living room, but rears placement are always a problem. Especially if the sofa is isolated in the middle of the room. But my SO has enjoyed nice sounds so there was no struggle there (It was gradual with a 2.0 setup before the 5.1).

Animats 1y ago

must...have...name...brands Recently I was looking for a toaster. Target has a nice selection of toasters. Look down into the slots, and they are all exactly the same. There were, at peak, only three different VCRs. All those brands used one of three standard mechanisms. But you could get a hundred different cases.

esperent 1y ago
Funny you should say that about toasters... Because I've been down a toaster buying rabbit hole over the past year and toasters are not all the same. I mean sure, a €20 toaster is gonna be the same as all other €20 toasters. But beyond that they have massively different build quality and toasting speed, and don't get me started on how hard it is to find a toaster designed for real bread instead of square supermarket slices(+). My recommendation is actually to buy a commercial toaster. It'll toast twice as fast and last for years. Downside is that it will probably look ugly. I've heard good things about Dualit too though. (+) On the other hand if all you eat is white sliced pan, then go ahead and buy any €20 toaster. You're in luck, they were built for you.
- jterrys 1y ago
  commercial toasters, tvs, washing machines, you generally can't go wrong with spending a premium for something that was built to last a LOT of use. Speedqueen makes commercial washing machines with a consumer lineup that's serious about lasting a while. Easily set me back $1600, but then looking at the build quality and 10 year warranty I was like "ok, they probably mean it". One thing I noticed about commercial build quality: simplicity. No touch bullshit. Small LCD displays. Here's some buttons and maybe a rotating knob. knock yourself out.
  - lrhegeba 1y ago
    I came to the same conclusion. My usual research routine nowadays starts at "what product is used by (semi-)professionals".

scblock 1y ago

Ah, so just like with AKG they'll get rid of everyone who knew anything and then slap old (and already lower tier through their own lack of efforts) audio names on hot garbage.

bob1029 1y ago

Polk used to produce some of the best bang-for-buck loudspeakers available in traditional retail channels. The RTi12 was easily the best floor standing speaker I've ever owned, potentially at any cost.

jhfdbkofdchk 1y ago
Polk speakers are an amazing deal.

bhouston 1y ago

I feel that sound bars + speakers directly attached to TVs has decimated the "home theatre receiver." "Back in the day", home theatre receivers made sense when you wanted Radio + CD inputs in addition to the TV input. But radio and CD players are gone. There is just TV. Even when I do audio, I run it through the TV. Thus why do you need a separate box? It just seems like a waste. Instead everyone these days are just attaching their speaker systems directly to the TV. And with wireless speakers, e.g. Sonos and similar systems, a centralized audio amplifier just doesn't make sense at all. So all that is left is ultra-high end applications and there are few of those.

KerrAvon 1y ago
Soundbars -- and also improved built-in TV speakers -- have eaten the low-end receiver market, for sure, but there are still a lot of other installations. A soundbar and stuff like Sonos are still compromises vs discrete channel speakers, and many people are still willing to pay for better sound. You don't have to go too high end to want better sound. Marantz gear in particular is great, and Samsung buying them seems really unfortunate. Might be better than some private equity randos though.
neuroelectron 1y ago
I feel like this is tied to the overall decline in movie and music quality. Maybe I'm just getting old. There is no more "Titanic" or "Nirvana". Lots of people have noticed the decline in audio mixing in movies as well, which has led to a generation of younger adults who need captions for regular movies. A discrete audio system would probably help with this but for what? How many times are you going to watch latest Avengers?
- kyriakos 1y ago
  There are 2 problems currently with movie audio. One is that the channel separation is not as good as it used to be. New movies have 5.1 audio the effect is minimal which no longer justifies the expense on the sound system. People online are saying this is because many movies are made for primarily for streaming and that majority of people listen on their TV or sound bar instead of dedicated surround systems. The second issue is what you described, the mixing is just bad, sound effects and music are much louder than dialog making it impossible to comprehend without subtitles.

dredmorbius 1y ago

Well, that's four brands I'm never touching again. Far too many bad Samsung experiences.

criddell 1y ago
Last year I bought a Denon RCD-N12 - a mini system - for my office. I mostly use it to play CDs but can stream to it from my iPad too. The thing is great and for me, playing CDs while I work is perfect because it forces me to get up every 45 minutes or so to swap out the CD.
- dredmorbius 1y ago
  Yep. Multi-disk players, either stackable or the big rotating wheel kind, are also fun. Those can give you most of a day's audio if you like.

fblp 1y ago

I wonder if this will flag antitrust issues?

nfriedly 1y ago
Seems unlikely. There are a lot of audio brands.

lysace 1y ago

"Hifi" was sort of mainstream for a while in the early 2000s. Remember when everyone went all-in on sound systems for their "home cinemas", very often spending serious money on 5.1 systems? Then Netflix, the race to the bottom in terms of bitstreams and portable devices happened.

EnPissant 1y ago
People just prefer soundbars because they are easier and less imposing while delivering 80% of the value. Samsung sound bars in particular are very good. Compared to a 5.1 setup, their biggest fault is lacking good stereo separation. Netflix delivers Dolby Atmos in bitrates that are indistinguishable from lossless audio. It's better, not worse.

tzs 1y ago

I've got a Samsung TV and a Samsung monitor in the same room. About 20% of the time when I use the TV remote from the couch to turn off the TV it also turns of the monitor. If I'm at the computer and turn off the TV with the TV remote it turns off the monitor the majority of the time. I wonder if Samsung will manage to make to so Denon and Marantz receivers will also sometimes turn off when you turn off a Samsung TV?

mastercheif 1y ago
This is because the remotes use IR for the power commands. There’s really no getting around it. A small piece of electrical tape over the IR window on the monitor will fix it.
- tzs 1y ago
  The Samsung remotes are using RF. They may also have IR but if so it is operating in parallel to the RF. The TV remote will turn off the monitor even if I wrap the remote in a blanket which should block IR or hold it behind some blackout curtains.
  - hollerith 1y ago
    A typical blanket will transmit about half of light at 940 nm (the wavelength used by most TV remotes).
    - tzs 1y ago
      OK, this is getting interesting. I've done some tests. First, some pictures [1]. The first picture is the front of the TV remote and what I presume is the window in front of the IR diode. The second picture is what is supposedly the location of the IR sensor on the monitor. The third picture is my hand attempting to block the IR emitter on the remote. Here is what I've found. 1. If I block the emitter with my hand the remote has no trouble turning the TV on and off. Even if I've blocked it with my hand and am holding the remote behind the couch so there is no line of sight to the TV it still works. 2. It also still turns the monitor on and off, but the range is greatly reduced. I have to be within a meter of the monitor. 3. Blocking the receiver with a finger is similar, but the range reduction is more. I have to have the remote within maybe half a meter. 4. Blocking the remote with electrical tape has no effect on its effectiveness with the TV. 5. Blocking the remote with electrical tape almost completely prevents it from affecting the monitor. Maybe 1 in 20 times it will still turn the monitor on/off if near the monitor. 6. Blocking the receiver with electrical tape is similar. 7. Blocking the receiver by hand or electrical tape has no affect on the monitor's remote controlling the monitor. 8. The TV remote can turn the TV on and off and the monitor remote can turn the monitor on and off even if I go down the hall an into the bathroom and close the bathroom door so there is no chance that any IR signal is making it to the device. 9. The monitor remote does not turn the TV on/off even if held near the TV. 10. I also have an Amazon Fire Stick and its remote can turn the TV and monitor on and off. It uses IR for TV control functions (and RF for Fire Stick control). 11. As with the TV remote my hand fails to block the Fire Stick remote. From this I think we can draw some conclusions but also some questions are raised. • The TV remote can fully operate the TV using RF. The TV also responds to IR. • The monitor remote can fully operate the monitor using RF. The monitor also responds to IR. • The RF for each remote includes specific enough device identification that they do not operate the wrong device. The IR does not. • IR is hard to block. Why doesn't my hand stop it? With the TV remote the window is big and curved so I could see some of it not being quite covered, but the Fire Stick remote has a smaller window that is much flatter. When pressed tightly into my palm it should be completely covered. • Electrical tape almost seems to completely stop it, but I did still have an occasional signal get through. • When turning the TV off from the couch I should be able to stop it from affecting the monitor by simply covering the window with my palm. Even though that apparently still leaks enough IR signal it reduces the effective range, which should be enough to stop it from affecting the monitor. It will still work with the TV via the RF signal. [1] https://imgur.com/a/LcsqK4j https://imgur.com/a/LcsqK4j

EnPissant 1y ago

Samsung acquired Harman Audio some years ago. Harman owns several well-known brands like JBL, Infinity, and Revel. They've invested billions in audio R&D, and Samsung has clearly benefited from that. Their soundbars now exceed the sound quality of Sonos systems that cost twice as much (or three times as much during sales). Denon and Marantz are arguably the best AVR manufacturers. It’ll be interesting to see what Samsung does with them. The home theater market is pretty outdated compared to other areas of audio. Car audio, soundbars, and professional systems mostly use active speakers and tightly integrated setups. Meanwhile, home theater is still stuck with passive speakers and a component-based approach. While some might see this as a monopoly concern, there's a chance Samsung could use its combined brands to modernize home audio. Imagine a fully wireless, all-in-one home theater system with active speakers and centralized room correction. That could be a real step forward.

gsibble 1y ago
Sony already does some wireless surrounds. They sound like crap. The problem with wireless speakers is you can't really stream at a high enough bitrate to them to make for decent audio. Plus to really work, they need a plug nearby. People without a proper room really can't enjoy surround sound which is a shame. There's this whole world of high end home theater equipment most people never get a chance to hear. I try to show everyone my theater room to get more people excited. Several friends have run out and bought setups after hearing it. It's not too hard to run wires and mount speakers. I genuinely think most people just don't know what they are missing.
- EnPissant 1y ago
  That’s not true about wireless speakers. Compressed audio that is indistinguishable from any loseless format is very small, and even if you compress beyond that, it is really hard to tell. Speakers and room acoustics dominate. Most people don’t have theater rooms, and they don’t want their living room to look like one. Most people who hear a Samsung q990x series soundbar are super excited too. I think you overestimate how much better a dedicated speaker setup is, especially if we are talking 5.1.

ivape 1y ago

I wonder how much Chi-Fi has to do with this. If they are buying brands, then I doubt they care about the hardware technology. They might have a strong idea to pump Chi-Fi into these brands and let the brands do the selling.

numpad0 1y ago
Lots of the hardware is already made in China if not Vietnam. Chinese engineers cutting out the middle men and taking Hi-Fi problems into their own hands is result of value shift out of hardware into services. I doubt China would be to blame for this when the entirety of developed world is nudging companies to add more salt and use less meat.

SoftTalker 1y ago

Marantz used to be top of the line home audio gear, hand built, point to point wired. Now just another stick-on label on generic Korean mass produced systems. Sad to see them and other former great names in audio reduced to that.

starky 1y ago
Marantz has been that way for more than a decade at this point. I bought my Denon AVR in 2013 and even then all of the Marantz lineup was just a different case they charged more for.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

trentnix 1y ago

Now there are more avenues for Samsung to shove bloatware down our throats. I have a modestly high-end home theater and it is utterly maddening waiting for devices to “boot” and “handshake”. And after the wait, I’m presented with another “User Agreement” to sign that insists on shoveling ads down my throat and harvesting data. How much do you have to pay for a quick boot, no ads, and a private movie or music experience? Just like every retailer has embraced usury with their credit card programs, every technology company has decided they are in the data harvesting business. I’m so over it.

mcsniff 1y ago
Sonarr, Radarr, Lidard are completely free, no ads, and private. Throw in JellyFin and Kodi and you're set -- no financial cost.
- wlesieutre 1y ago
  Which one of those replaces a Denon AV receiver to accept a bunch of inputs in various formats (HDMI, phono, optical, etc) including Dolby Atmos and ARC support to drive a multi-room 15.4 speaker system?
  - AdamJacobMuller 1y ago
    Just pick better brands for your receiver. I have an Anthem pre and an LG TV, both of which are blocked from accessing the internet, and I have none of these issues.
    - nirvdrum 1y ago
      I think the point is with Samsung acquiring these other brands there are now fewer options. Denon AVRs have been solid options for home theaters, particularly if you have many different inputs. People buy them because they want a Denon/Marantz. If they wanted to buy Samsung that option is already available. The concern is Samsung will mar the brands, removing semi-affordable, quality options and forcing people that don't want Samsung bloat into potentially even more expensive alternatives. You'd run into the same issue if Samsung acquired your audio equipment manufacturer of choice.

mrandish 1y ago

I'm a little surprised these four companies combined sold for only $350M.

getlawgdon 1y ago
Same. Quite surprised.
- hedora 1y ago
  Oof. Tariff panic?
drodgers 1y ago
Unfortunately the market is quite small and shrinking. I wish more people wanted great sound rather than phone/tv speakers (or soundbars).
- mrandish 1y ago
  Indeed. My custom-built, sound proof, no-window, 150-inch screen, laser projector, 7.2.4 THX-rated speaker, 10 seat, dedicated home theater room is driven by about 80 pounds of dual rack-mounted Denon AVRs. I'm going upstairs now to disable automatic firmware updates before Samsung can start spamming me with ads.
- wildekek 1y ago
  What also contributes to this, is that there are new (Chinese) players on the market that offer incredible value for audiophiles. Brands like Topping, Fosi Audio and SMSL completely outperform the incumbent brands.
  - ipsum2 1y ago
    You've listed DAC/Amp brands, what about actual speakers?
    - gsibble 1y ago

Alex_001 1y ago

[flagged]

Uptrenda 1y ago

Great, lets wait for samsung to ruin Denon.

cjk 1y ago

I spent several years at B&W prior to the Sound United and Masimo era, so this news makes me incredibly sad. I hope Samsung doesn’t run the company into the ground. There are lots of good people left at B&W. If they are afforded the autonomy they deserve, everything will be fine. If not…I guess we’ll see.

bluGill 1y ago
That if is the question. There in other industries examples of a good small company being bought out and it is for the better - they keep making quality things but now have the advantages of the big company. There however a lot of well known examples of a good small company being bought out for the name which is then put on junk while fooling people who still remember the name. Only time will tell.

ops_endurrra 1y ago

[dead]

lnx01 1y ago

I really hope they bring back the Denon AK-DL3

relistan 1y ago

These brands face massive competition from Chinese no-brand electronics on one end, and Apple, Sonos, and many others at the other end. Basically any time a market changes drastically you see older players consolidate. Too often that leads to one big collapse of the consolidated entity. We’ll see what happens in time.

numpad0 1y ago

> Too many requests -- error 999. In case anyone need it, here's[0] Wikipedia list article for HTTP status codes(200, 404, etc.) "Too Many Requests" is 429. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Etheryte 1y ago
I think both the message and the code are wrong in this case. 429 too many requests indicates that you specifically as a client have spent too many requests, not that the site is being spammed to hell. If the site can't handle the traffic, a good option is 503 service unavailable, as that makes it clear that the problem lies on the server side, not the client.
moontear 1y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20250507182014/https://www.engadget.com/web/20250507182014/https://www.engadget.com/audio/samsung-is-paying-350-million-for-audio-brands-bowers--wilkins-denon-marantz-and-polk-131514754.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250507182014/https://www.engad...

JKCalhoun 1y ago

How much do brands mean anymore?

saltwatercowboy 1y ago
Quite a bit in audio, consumer or professional. I've had my Bowers & Wilkins MM-1 desktop speakers for nearly a decade. Audio Technica are another trusted brand, especially for monitor headphones.

newsclues 1y ago

What is the alternatives (that aren’t Chinese)? Also why don’t TVs and AVRs use display port instead of hdmi (license costs)?

morellt 1y ago
Look into Schiit Audio! They're American designed and manufactured. Their receivers aren't as consumer friendly as those of sony/denon etc but the quality is amazing, they have low, mid, and high end devices for each category, and they dont have/require any wifi connectivity. I've been daily driving their headphone DAC and tube amp for the last 8 years with no problem.
- newsclues 1y ago
  They don’t do surround sound

jmartin2683 1y ago

Audiophiles are forced to finally admit that their real hobby is just spending money.

steveBK123 1y ago

It's a shame that big box stores (Walmart, Target) / online retail (Amazon) / brand owned stores (Apple, Bose) have all conspired to reduce consumer choice. Even in big cities, there's practically no specialty stores to go to in which I can demo a product category across brands. Think pre-GFC peak Best Buy & the old CompUSA/Circuit City chains of the past or even Apple before they captured every other product category and actually had entire tables of headphone and speaker brands. It strikes me as very hard for any new brand to come about in this environment if they aren't already big enough to have their own storefront. As you are generally left shopping online by price (DTC / China alphabet soup branded sop on AMZN) or by known brand (I'll just get a Sony / Apple / Sonos / Bose).

AStonesThrow 1y ago
The consumer choice spectrum was pretty rad in the mid-to-late-1980s. I was often in the market for hi-fi stereo equipment, and I did it by accumulating discrete components one-by-one. In my home city, we had several electronics retailers who sold every kind of component stereo equipment, including car stereo and whatnot. So I could literally walk into a store and see a huge gamut of dual-deck cassette recorders, or turntables, or amplifiers, receivers, etc. And they were all set up for customer demo. It was fantastic. When the time came for me to shop for a CD audio player, I pre-purchased a few CDs to listen to for the demos. That was a great move; the place where I went for "auditions" had a dedicated listening room just chock-a-block with equipment that could be switched into whatever speaker system fit my home setup. And so in exactly one stop at a retail outlet, I was able to listen to that CD through several diverse systems, make a final purchase decision, and walk out of there with my favorite 7-disc CD changer, which served well for about 15 years after that.
bluGill 1y ago
The problem with showrooms is it is easy to go in, see what you need, then walk out and order from the cheaper mail order place that doesn't have retail overhead. The other problem is walmart with the generic stuff is good enough for most even though it is measurably bad, in a cheap but measurably bad listening environment - but they can thereby compete with online sales. That and a lot of expensive stuff is measurably no better than the "our best" walmark junk and so if you do find such a store there is no guarantee they are not pushing you overprice junk instead of the good stuff.

rayiner 1y ago

My left wing idea is that the government should be much more aggressive in preventing his sort of consolidation. Every industry is like the same handful of companies, with numerous “brands.” (These particular brands are all already owned by a single entity.) I’ve got an “Amana” heat pump. It’s really a Daikin, and is part for part compatible with Goodman, also owned by Diakin. But all the brands are sold to customers to create the illusion of choice. Maybe we could at least have a “real name” policy for companies and products.

bluGill 1y ago
Careful - it isn't clear that consolidation is bad. There is only a small market for this type of gear and less competitors can mean that the ones left actually have the money to design/build something good.
s1artibartfast 1y ago
My left wing idea is prohibition of preferential pricing after a certain size to mitigate monopoly leverage. If you have say 20% of a market for chips, eggs, or whatever and more than a billion in revenue, then you have to set the same price anyone can buy at.

ryukoposting 1y ago

How many people hear "JBL" and think "Bluetooth speaker" instead of "high end stereo gear?" How many people hear B&W or Harman-Kardon and think "logo on my car's speakers" rather than "high end stereo gear?" How many people hear "Mark Levinson" and think either "Lexus" or "who's Mark?" I genuinely didn't know that there were still real, standalone speakers and head units made under half these brands that aren't whitelabeled Bluetooth detritus.

t1234s 1y ago

My 2005 Marantz receiver just went up in value

vvladymyrov 1y ago

Fun fact that Masimo acquired Sound United in 2022 for 1B. Neither market nor investors were happy about this strange choice of company with health equipment focus doing this move. In 2024 Masimo changed CEO and now divesting audio brands business for just 350M.

justin66 1y ago

The most interesting recent acquisition of this kind I'm aware of is the Bose acquisition of McIntosh. As this article [0] notes: Dr. Amar Bose donated the majority of his namesake company to his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So technically, MIT now owns both McIntosh and Sonus faber, two of the biggest players in luxury audio. (MIT has non-voting shares of Bose, so although the university owns the majority of the company, it does not control business decisions.) [0] https://www.audioholics.com/news/bose-acquires-mcintosh https://www.audioholics.com/news/bose-acquires-mcintosh

TimByte 1y ago

Kind of wild to think that one company now owns such a wide swath of both mass-market and premium audio brands

wizardforhire 1y ago

Countdown to enshitification in three… two… I forsee a future where marantz amps have really annoying separate startup and shutdown songs and jingles for increments of volume obviously ascending and descending for increase and decrease in volume respectively with unavoidable long melodies for each power of ten, which of course can not be skipped or disabled by the user and also pause all ui inputs while being played causing the unit to grind to a halt if trying to change the volume too quickly and even causing the unit to crash as the melodies over lap and cause a buffer overflow… to be fixed never of course.

j45 1y ago

Disappointing. Time to grab current equipment while you can. Go a little nicer than you would normally for longevity. I have friends commenting that they have Samsung TVs infested with ads it did not have when they first purchased it.

stuaxo 1y ago

Remember Denon and Marantz being really good back in the day, will they be enshittified now?

gnabgib 1y ago
Doubt it, Masimo has been a terrible (recent) steward of this brand. "Warranty support" that includes shipping at your own expense, undefined reply times etc. This can only get better. Samsung is great on that side.