Why Porsche is the most overrated and overpriced brand in the world. “Look at me!! I bought a $200k 911 that cost $20k to manufacture. Is there anything more representative of a status symbol other than Rolex?
Wow! This forum sounds like someone threw a firecracker in a chicken coup.
I've seen corporate acquisitions/takeovers as a dealer who put his heart and soul, reputation, and more than a few shillings into brands we were passionate about. This included taking the brand (or even a product category) from a virtual unknown, to market dominance. These takeovers were sometimes neutral, sometimes beneficial, and sometimes an emotional and financial disaster for us. Watching an esteemed brand you took years, space, dollars, and human interaction to build, converter to an over-distributed, dumbed-down commodity can be down right brutal (on many levels).
It is dependent on the corporate strategy starting from the top, working its way to regional managers, to the boots on the ground guys/gals that come face to face with the dealer network -- and, the end user -- the customer. I'm hoping that Bose maintains the Mac staffers who understand the brand and what makes it work.
I doubt if we're going to see McIntosh hybrid SS/tube amps bulked stacked at Costco any time soon.
And, on yeah, Volkswagen owns Porsche and Lamborghini.
What are the chances that any of the suits involved actually listen to anything other than their own voices? Would love to hear from an engineer about the changes down the road.
"So you think Bose bought Mcintosch and SF to basically run them into the ground? Sure, that makes a lot of sense."
I best guess is that Bose bought McT and SF for the juice - They will substitute similar, lower quality parts (particularly in SF), increase marking $ to drive sales higher for a short time, then spin-off one or both to another PE firm.
That is the standard playbook... and I hope that I am wrong about this.
If that happens, the products of both premium brands will suffer significant damage to their perceived market-value.
How can this possibly be worse than McIntosh being owned by a private equity firm, which now sold McIntosh to a company that has been immersed in the audio business for a long, long time.
There’s no logic in many of these comments, speculating about the sky falling with cost cutting, reduction in R&D spend and staffing, short term profit focus, etc.
That’s exactly what private equity firms do and the previous owners didn’t, so there’s absolutely no reason to believe that Bose would do this.
It's too soon to tell. One thing is certain: cutting costs is on the top of the list. It always is in these modern roll ups. If cutting costs becomes "cheapen the product" Mac is doomed to Marantz's fate.
Alternatively; If there are economic efficiencies to be had- ie: sharing buying power, advertising discounts, etc. it would be good for Mc assuming it keeps it's corporate culture.
I'm hopeful that Bose puts a slug of cash into Mc and Mc improves their product offerings and ups their quality.
Sometimes a bespoke brand is a status acquisition and not a profit play ie: Acora buying Audio Research.
This is hardly bad news. A storied up-market home audio brand, made still in the USA, is bought from its PE owners by a well-known U.S. broad market audio company already well-established in the personal audio space, professional coms, in home audio and in automotive integrations, with a track record of innovative product offerings (noise-cancelling headphones, worn both in coach and in the cockpit.) It costs money to exist in the space McIntosh enjoys, and there are only so many ways to reach new buyers. Samsung has been buying many brands also. Some storied brands have been cut up, Sennheiser among them. Would that have been better? The blindered views of some around here who can't see the positives in things like excellent class-D products that reach new customers and address power and energy consumption issues in ways older technologies never will are more of an impediment to the hobby than Bose ever will be.
People expressing all the optimism are kiddong themselves. These kind of deals where a large company with an inferior product buys a company(or in this case two companies) that in comparison make something league's above them is never a good thing for consumers. I've owned Macintosh pre and power amps and tho I sold them as I felt there was more out there for me I still respect their brand and their unique sound, and now likely will never be the same. And how ironic I've had my eye on a pair of SF speakers. This gives me some urgency to purchase before they are no longer available and risk the new models being an inferior product. I'm not optimistic at all but that's probably because I live in the real world. I know that's just my opinion but I feel strong about it on this one.
While there will be some consolidation (usually marketing, finance, legal, HR, I doubt they will risk losing made in USA and Italy manufacturing given current situation between US and China) I wouldn’t see this as an asset striping exercise either, otherwise the VCs would have followed that route earlier. I do see Bose however using this to establish a presence in the higher end and use its resources to see what further market share it can achieve with these brands. Given the investments Bose are making it would be sensible to build upon rather than devalue their high perceived value. So swings and roundabouts, and no doubt it will be interesting to see the developments that happen over the next 5 years and the new realities emerge.
I've said for years that McIntosh is what certain people bought after they found out that Bose was consumer junk. The Mcintosh of the last century simply is no more and quite frankly the silly blue meters and green lights are just a tired and overused gimmick. Bose would do good to get rid of that eyesore and bring them the rest of the way into the consumer-grade audio market. From a quality perspective, they've been there for a while anyway.
I've had alot of cars. worked hard.my therapy was doing the open road races in america.there are 2 in Texas 2in Nevada 1 in Nebraska. Look up silver state classic .big bend open road race and sand hills open road challenge.they shut the road down closed course helicopters airplanes ham radios course workers every mile for 60 miles.ambulances fire trucks and yes at 200 mph like the f1 in Vegas you can buck things off the road.lets you use your car currently a fully caged zr1 215 mph wot.what does this have to do with mcintosh? Like car manufactures they go through restructure hopefully for the best.just like opening the cars up on the track some of my mcintosh have 4 kw transients and at times I set them free wide open.enjoy the music Google the open road races for some fun.i mention this as a point of education.and yes the Porsche panther twinning turbo ran the fastest in the rain.
I appreciate that. Would the wall of sound be better or worse with this news? Im nostalgic but if the optimism here is true then great. Bose integrated tube preamps at 160 wpc would be perfect.
When I started working there in 1997 they were owned by Clarion,they were owned by D@M holdings for a while (Dennon@Marantz) The current Presedent,COO. of the McIntosh group is heavily invested in the company and has held it together for almost 30 years.Seems like they have A new owner every 7 or 8 years.They are celebrating there 75th year in the same building.They will only grow stronger and better.No worries..
I actually appreciate the feedback. I was sorry when I saw the news today but I own a Bose wireless speaker and headphones. I will enjoy what I have but am still disappointed. Another example of homogenization in society. For all of you super niche be ready
I'll be optimistic for you True Believers and hope the merge will allow the Mac lines to retain its' status and admiration of y'all.
But...too many times, the Git Rich Quick types have run to rags other notables in search of the bigger yacht and/or the estate in NZ and the Ferrari that they have to drive midst the Toys and Fords....
5 days in NYC and I only spotted ONE 6 figure car...headed into a parking structure....
I think I'll keep my pigheadedness' and dig about for the truffles that aren't pretty but run good 'nuff to satisfy....diy my steampunk Walsh and enjoy them.....
"It's the end of the world as we've known it, and I feel fine...."
...well, not 'fine'. per se...... 'Tired' of the squabbles, the endless bs, the education that didn't. the government that can't. and all the answers that don't....
...and an audio company that really doesn't matter in the scope of it all....
Sonus Faber 901’s an improvement ? Lol. McIntosh will sell as long as it’s black gold and blue, N.P. it’s all going to be one big company eventually.
Cheers
Thanks I think.. I’m not a car guy but I appreciate a well made car over a status symbol. I guess I’m sad that Mc and SF are officially that. Glad my 2019 4 runner will last before Musk buys them
Sounds to me like a company that does well in the 21st century marketplace buying itself some prestige. It could become like that conglomerate that bought Panavision and then renamed itself Panavision.
Far too early to know how this will play out and after all, Mr. serblin was Sonus Faber and he’s been out for many years. we don’t know anything about this deal, whether it is dilutive or accretive, or what redundancies can be eliminated without having any impact on the engineering of the product. in any acquisition, The purchaser will always look to take out cost. As far as we know, this was a reasonably strong brand financially and distress sales usually end up with the biggest cuts to the core of the business because they are losing money.
I doubt there will be much change at least at the reference end of the SF line. The market for those products is too thin, and the buyers are generally pretty knowledgeable. Any significant reduction in quality would not go unnoticed and would kill their market at the top end. I would expect more bleed over between Bose and SF at the lower end of their offerings. Im not a fan of Bose-owned two Bose products, neither good But in all honesty, these are things that will probably play out for a couple of years. Too early to know whether it will be really good or really bad or, what is most likely, somewhere in between
Definitely manager count , Marketing and Logistic cost will be reduced. May be price reduction can be expected(low possibility). But if Bose want to fiddle with R&D of Macintosh that's will be the different story, Only time will tell.
I don’t own any McIntosh or SF gear, though I wish I did, but I’m hoping it’s like when Porsche started producing the Cayenne. Porschephiles were freaking out that they succumbed to the SUV market. But really, it allowed the company to prosper and ultimately build better sports cars than they otherwise would have been able to. Leverage the scale of Bose to continue producing excellent equipment. Again, a large dose of hopium over here.
MC was already owned by a private equity firm. This is just a change in ownership to another mega corp. It could be good because Bose is a 3 billion a year in sales company so might be some nice investments to allow for new products and R&D. Bose is a long standing company so I don't think they will do anything to run them into the ground and diminish their investment.
Fair enough but the private equity firm that was the previous owner did not do that, and that business model is notorious for that type of thing. However, marketing McIntosh branded head phones for the masses would not be great.
Shareholders behind Bose are no different than shareholders behind other companies. They want quick returns on their investments. Does anyone here really think they're into high end like we are?
They'll keep the image, promote the myth and cut corners, milking as much as they can out of the carcass. Ascribing altruistic, high end audio intent to them is what they'd like one to do.
@nonoisethe article seems to imply Bose are buying into the high end market and not looking to slash and burn to make McIntosh and Sonus Faber available to the masses. Diluting the brand would seem counter productive. Maybe I’m just being hopeful.
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