Home » Audio » General » Bose buys McIntosh?!!
Bose buys McIntosh?!! [message #98080] Thu, 21 November 2024 12:32 Go to next message
Wayne Parham is currently offline  Wayne Parham
Messages: 18792
Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)

This has been the audio buzz for the past couple days, but I'm so busy I hardly paid attention. When I heard it on Tuesday, I mentally tuned it out as noise, thinking it some branded marketing rubbish.

Then just now, Kelly said to me, "Did you hear that Bose bought McIntosh?"

For some reason, her saying it made it resonate. I was sure she got that wrong, so I looked it up and sure enough. Bose bought McIntosh.

I've never been thrilled with Bose because of its original technology, the "direct/reflecting" loudspeaker. I always agreed that the reverberant field was important and that making it uniform and balanced with the direct sound was the goal. But the way to do that, in my opinion and frankly, I think most others in the industry, was by using controlled directivity and really, by controlling reflections. Make sure that the off-axis sound is uniform, but reduced. Bose did it by increasing off-axis sound, multiplying reflections.

In fairness, the multisub approach uses a similar idea, but it's done in the modal region, where sound isn't a reverberant field. Multisubs introduce something like a reverberant field in the sound range where it really doesn't exist. This is very different than the "direct/reflecting" approach that Bose used, which simply energized the reflected energies much more than the direct sound. To me, that has always been the wrong direction to go. It's interesting for a little while, but gets old quick.

But I digress. Bose has "come a long way" since then. They are no longer really a loudspeaker company. They are an electronics marketing company. I think they're probably better known for their noise-cancelling headphones than they are anything else. Today's younger buyers have probably never heard of the "direct/reflecting" approach that Amar Bose championed in the 1970s or its flagship, the Model 901, introduced in 1968.

Still, this has me wondering what's next for McIntosh. They've always been the Rock of Gibraltar in the world of audio. Nothing controversial about McIntosh. Maybe for a while - back when Bose was getting its sea-legs in the 1970s - McIntosh might have seemed dated as the hifi market moved towards solid-state. But they had been around for decades before that, and like the rock, they lasted steadfastly even as the hifi market changed. A few decades passed, and a resurgence of interest in tube amps brough McIntosh well into view. They're like a classic car, but one you can still buy.

So what gives with this Bose/McIntosh marriage? What do you think it'll bring? End of an era or beginning of something great? Or maybe an oddball marriage that lasts a couple years but then fizzles or ends with a bang?
Re: Bose buys McIntosh?!! [message #98081 is a reply to message #98080] Thu, 21 November 2024 19:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Barryso is currently offline  Barryso
Messages: 205
Registered: May 2009
Master
Mac has been owned by several companies over the past few decades. Most of those companies have pretty much left them alone to run their business much as they always have run it. So the company we see today is pretty much intact in spite of having gone through several owners.

I've no idea if Bose is smart enough to leave them alone. When buying other businesses many companies go in and muck around and change too much. I've not seen anything at all regarding the Bose track record in this regard.

Still remember going into stereo stores back when I was a teenager and drooling over the Mac gear. I sure didn't have the money for it back then but always figured "some day".

Re: Bose buys McIntosh?!! [message #98082 is a reply to message #98081] Thu, 21 November 2024 20:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Wayne Parham is currently offline  Wayne Parham
Messages: 18792
Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)

...and here we are at "some day!" Very Happy

I am going to be optimistic that this marriage between McIntosh and Bose is a good thing. I mean, nobody wants to buy something just to kill it.

Except Walmart. They killed Vudu. Well, they didn't kill it. Even worse. They abandoned it. They could have turned it into a service that was as big as Netflix, but they didn't. They just let it rot, and then sold it to Fandango at a loss. Oh, whoops, I meant an "undisclosed amount." I can't understand Walmart sometimes.

But I digress. Silly me. Rolling Eyes
Re: Bose buys McIntosh?!! [message #98083 is a reply to message #98082] Fri, 22 November 2024 16:42 Go to previous message
Rusty is currently offline  Rusty
Messages: 1192
Registered: May 2018
Location: Kansas City Missouri
Illuminati (3rd Degree)
Private equity likes to kill things. Sears, Toy R Us. And a lot of medical. I know first hand from that.
I've read it isn't just McIntosh. But more legacy name audio companies might fade from our collective memory. I guess many audio companies have been picked up several times and now may be their sayonara. What else, low sales volume.
The old stereo biz we all grew up with and seen their gradual decline may be put to rest finally. RIP, Klipsch, Denon, B&W. At least McIntosh gets a reprieve for awhile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18Aky9ZAcFg
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