Madrigal is Closed

I think this is nothing more than a result of their own success and their own corporate direction. A very popular and well-respected brand with very high build quality (although I personally never cared much for their sound), bought and sold and merged several times on the way up the corporate ladder. This has been going on ever since the departure of Mark Levinson (the man). They have always striven for greater market share and corporate success (witness their association with Lexus), and this is just one more step in that evolution.

I wouldn't read too much into it, but instead say that if it upsets you, then support the smaller "craftsmen" in this arena, who make excellent products but have no latent mega-corporate ambitions. E.g., Ayre, BAT, Lamm, Red Rose (duh!), and many many others. Small companies that are dedicated to making the best product they can, content with a small market share, and put their energy into sound quality rather than image. That's the beauty of the high end: it is one of the last bastions of American craftsmanship and quality left in the modern era. The departure of one brand to corporate heaven is no cause for grief IMHO, not when it was clear that that's where they wanted to go in the first place. Celebrate the entrepreneurs among us, for they are the last holdouts against the corporate juggernaut and represent that which is best in America.

Correction, Madrigal is not closed. What has taken place is as follows. Harmon International the mother company of Madrigal has recently purchased Lexicon. And due the brand name recognition that Lexicon has, they have decided to desolve Madrigal in name only. The new name or umbrella is Lexicon. All the Madrigal employees will become Lexicon employees and all the companies under the Madrigal Umbrella excist now as subsidiaries of Lexicon. This is a report received from a Madrigal rep direct. Evidently since the phones were off for a few days the rumor mill produced this rumor. As Mark Twain once said "the report of my death has been exagerated greatly" (give or take a word)

Theo, sorry to burst your bubble.
ALL of the hourly employees were cut; dead.
Most of the salary employees are being kept on for 2 months in an "on call" status; then terminated. (This includes the entire top end, high paid sales staff.)
VERY few employees were actually asked to relocate and become Lexicon employees.

The building is CLOSED!
Reps are reptiles! (Did you hear something from a rep firm or someone inside?) He is being told what to say for now because Lexicon doesn't have all of the details worked out; they don't plan on communicating the facts to the dealers or distributors until next week!

Madrigal used to run 5 brands:

Madrigal Imaging - Sold last year
Proceed - Dead
Audioaccess - JUST transferred before the end of the fiscal year to JBL/Harman Consumer Group
Revel - Was and will be manufactured in the JBL Pro plant in CA; Madrigal only administered the brand
Mark Levinson - The flagship of Madrigal will now be engineered and ASSEMBLED at Lexicon. The decisions have been made to farm out as much as possible (even if this means sending work to China).

Jayarr,

Thanks for the condolences. The plant was mismanaged for the past 7 years, leading up to this "tightening of the belts". The economy has definitely not helped, here or elsewhere.

Gorf, my appologies, but a rep was probably doing just that "damage control" You seem to be a lot closer to the fire than he is.
Best Wishes

I guess the only thing that bothers me is that the brand Mark Levinson was the people that made it, not some design in a CAD program that can be made overseas by cheap labor. I think Mark Levinson may of just taken the leap into Mid-Fi. I know Levinson product to be made in the US by US workers with the attention to detail that a fine piece of equipment deserves and requires. It was truly a luxury item, now I hope Lexicon doesn't turn it into some foreign made product with an American label, that would truly be sad.

~^~ Gadget ~^~