Samsung Acquires Masimo's Audio Business For $350 Million (engadget.com)
- Reference: 0177371765
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/05/07/1915252/samsung-acquires-masimos-audio-business-for-350-million
- Source link: https://www.engadget.com/audio/samsung-is-paying-350-million-for-audio-brands-bowers--wilkins-denon-marantz-and-polk-131514754.html
> Samsung purchased Harman International back in 2017 [3]for $8 billion , though it allowed the company to operate as an independent subsidiary. Harman's brands include JBL, Harman Kardon, AKG, Mark Levinson, Arcam and Revel. If and when the acquisition pushes through, Masimo's audio brands under Sound United will be added to the list, including Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, Marantz and Polk Audio. [...]
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> As noted by [4]The Verge , Samsung [5]published a press release, where it briefly talked about the history of the brands it's acquiring. It mentioned some of Bowers & Wilkins' most iconic products, such as the Nautilus loudspeaker (pictured above) and its Zeppelin wireless speaker, as well as Denon's history as an early adopter of the CD player. Harman had a 60 percent market share in portable audio devices last year, and the company is looking to maintain that position with this purchase. Samsung also plans to apply the new brands' audio technologies to its smartphones, TVs, wireless earphones, soundbars and other devices in the future.
[1] https://news.harman.com/releases/masimo-to-sell-consumer-audio-business-to-harman-international
[2] https://www.engadget.com/audio/samsung-is-paying-350-million-for-audio-brands-bowers--wilkins-denon-marantz-and-polk-131514754.html
[3] https://slashdot.org/story/16/11/14/1520234/samsung-to-acquire-connected-car-firm-harman-for-8-billion
[4] https://www.theverge.com/news/662437/samsung-harman-masimo-aquisition-audio-empire
[5] https://news.samsung.com/kr/%EC%98%A4%EB%94%94%EC%98%A4-%E5%90%8D%E5%AE%B6-%ED%95%98%EB%A7%8C-%E7%BE%8E-%EB%A7%88%EC%8B%9C%EB%AA%A8%E7%A4%BE-%EC%98%A4%EB%94%94%EC%98%A4-%EC%82%AC%EC%97%85%EB%B6%80%EB%AC%B8-%EC%9D%B8%EC%88%98
Masimo never should have had it (Score:4, Interesting)
So it turns out Masimo, maker of medical devices, really should never have bought Sound United in the first place, but hey the CEO was an audiophile and decided to force his hobby into the company.
That didn't go down well. They paid $1bn for Sound United, and in the process it wiped $6bn from their company value. Their stock never recovered. They have been trading at half their peak value since. Anyway fast forward to the end of 2024 and the CEO was fired by shareholders after a board sponsored vote to remove him. Now that he's gone it makes sense to offload his pet project too.
At least Samsung makes sense to own consumer AV brands.
Ah, nostalic sounds (Score:2)
Reading all those brand names took me back to my youthful audiophile years regularly visiting the high end audio shop to see and listen to what was new, and occasionally buying a second hand top piece of equipment and high quality recordings on CD.
That is, until I designed my own final loudspseaker system, which doesn't need high end electronics to outperform any system I had heard.
It's no wonder all those brands disappear or merge when the audio quality was already the same forty years ago. Only build qual
Circle the wagons (Score:3)
You see this pattern everywhere in contracting markets. I've always thought of it (From the PoV of company leadership) : "We must circle the wagons to protect ourselves against the customer who has too many choices."
So, all these companies coalesce like the large black hole at the end of a universe which collapses in on itself. What is left of value in this situation? You have a collection of companies which didn't innovate out of the contracting market and/or refused to do so, and now they have dubious value to investors. The only thing left of value is the brand name and their reputation which was once great.
Think of the companies buying up these brand names as collectors of goodwill? No, I don't think so. They probably just want the name to fool consumers into buying something from them. Look at all the things branded "Polaroid" which weren't instant cameras.
Samsung actually makes good gear, thanks to Harman (Score:2)
Not everything Samsung makes is good, but Harman is great, as is Revel. Meanwhile, Denon is great. So it looks like some great brands combined. Hopefully B&W can get some engineering from Revel and make good speakers for once. Polk can be quite good, so no foul there.
It's Samsung vs Audiovox now. Then again, it already was.
Iâ(TM)ll take it if they give me a small form (Score:2)
By small, I mean small footprint. Make it a class d amp for all I care if it has decent power and clean sound. But make it small! The size of a Mac mini is about right.
Capitalism is dead. (Score:2)
Any competitors have merged so that they don't have to compete with each other.
In the end it will be like a company town, except it's the company planet.
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like I'll be keeping my existing Bowers & Wilkins setup for a long time, since the enshittification and cost cutting will be coming along shortly after this deal closes.
None of this is good news for the market in the long term. This is all headed towards a simplified product catalog of diluted quality available from many brands, just like any other market that experiences extreme consolidation and removal of competition.
Re:Capitalism is dead. (Score:4, Interesting)
> Looks like I'll be keeping my existing Bowers & Wilkins setup for a long time, since the enshittification and cost cutting will be coming along shortly after this deal closes.
On the one side, what makes you think enshittification will result from this. Samsung also have owned Harman for nearly a decade now which in turn bought Revel nearly a quarter of a century ago. Yet they remain some of the best speakers you can get in their price category. Samsung have shown to take a very hands off approach to their subsidiaries. There's been virtually no influence on their other speaker brands.
That said B&W have been shit for a long time already. Forget Samsung, they were briefly owned by a former Facebook tech-bro who tried to turn them into a home assistant company backed by VC funding from the Formation group (which is why B&W have a product called Formation). They were competitive 20 years ago, but these days their speakers are insanely overpriced and not worth the money.
Keep your B&Ws, especially older ones were great. But if you're in the market for something new, I highly recommend you look elsewhere. ... errr. like to Revel.
Re: (Score:2)
B&W have always had shitty frequency response. Never great, except for the finishes. My friend worked for them during the VC phase. I kind of rolled my eyes at all he said then smiled at him.
Re: (Score:2)
Your B&Ws are shit with shiny boxes. You screwed yourself when you bought them.
Re: (Score:3)
Errr no capitalism is not dead. This *IS* capitalism. Capitalism in its raw form has a single monopoly as the only stable end solution at the core. Capitalism by definition is an attempt through competition to eliminate competitors. Competition is a an unstable condition in this concept.
Re: (Score:2)
Sort of like a false vacuum in a universe, except there are an infinite number of metastable states; each one shittier than the one which proceeded it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum
Re: (Score:3)
It's almost impossible to make audio gear now without being a huge company now. I remember reading an article about how the niche audio manufacturers are so high-priced because pretty much every aspect of tech in a receiver, media player, or anything in the AV world is attached to an IP license model and you would need to pay for 20+ patent licenses for a basic product. From Dolby 5.1, Atmos, DTS and a ton of other features, it's pretty much locked up with the huge corporations. I always thought consumer st
Re: (Score:2)
> From Dolby 5.1, Atmos, DTS and a ton of other features, it's pretty much locked up with the huge corporations. I always thought consumer standards should always be open and not proprietary. Good for Dolby, bad for consumers.
I have not heard this myself, but apparently it is pretty good. [1]https://www.schiit.com/product... [schiit.com]
[1] https://www.schiit.com/products/syn