Ohm for Sale

Good on you Map, nice when something just works and sounds so good, and has been a part of your system for so long. Nice to be able to keep things going! 

I imagine John will do everything he can to make sure things are in good hands with the handoff, if/when the time comes. 

When I went to buy my Ohm 1000s four or five years ago, I asked them about their business continuity plans since I knew John was getting up in years. I was told that Evan was the next generation of management. I last heard from Evan this past February, just a few months ago, when he answered a question I had.

I'm guessing that John wants out but Evan doesn't have the needed money to purchase the company himself, hence the search for an outside buyer or investor.

While I'd be sad if they can't arrange a suitable sale, I'm not too worried about my speakers. I don't listen loudly enough to burn them out, and any manufacturing defects would have shown up long ago. My speakers are pretty certain to outlive me.

I also wonder how this might affect the German distribution, Audible Emotions. It would also be a shame for that to go away. Mathias Ertl at AE is a good fellow, and does what he can do to see that Ohm goodness is brought to Germany. Time will tell, and all will play out. 

I think we will see this kind of thing a lot in the coming years the market is changing and getting more competitive. That said Ohm makes a pretty unique product and has a great track record the right owner could make it a winner again I'd imagine.

I’m interested to see how this pans out. 

On one hand, OHM’s are a pretty unique product with a LARGE established customer base.   So, from that perspective there is appeal.  

From my own perspective, I think there probably is a lot that could be done to streamline and improve new product production, shipping, grills, and some additional standardization of quality.  While I would HATE to see it, offshore production would always of course be an option.  

But the flip side to that is that much of the established customer base is that because of the support for 50 year old products, that is VERY, VERY hard to maintain.  I also get a feeling that OHM in many regards is mom and pop in it’s operations and so much of the magic is John, and what has been handed to Evan at this point.  I know they want old parts back when you upgrade, and a big part of that is supporting the older products in one shape or another.  

It’s a very unique sale/company even in the world of loudspeakers.  Salk recently tried to sell his company for a pittance of a price also but the speaker business is hard, real hard particularly with US production and what I assume to be an aging primary customer base.  

I’d love to see someone take a shot here and move OHM forward in many ways that are needed, while somehow maintaining the unique product, and value proposition they have.  Very unique opportunity within the speaker industry.