The history of audio-visual is...

Posted by DavidLD (A) on November 26, 2014 at 04:44:27

The history of audio-video over the past 75 years or more is populated with brainy engineers and acoustical design people who were very good at thinking up new ideas that capture the attention of the public.

A lot of these peple were good enough to be able to found companies frequently bearing their names.

These guys were great thinkers, engineers and designers, and in the audio area were blessed with golden ears too.

Most of them, however, were much better at designing stuff then they were in the practial problems of managing a company to make money from their good ideas (see related discussion on Saul Marantz & Superscope).

Think of all the loudspeaker manufacturers that were separate companies in the 1960s and 70s.

I can count the companies that are survivors on one hand, if that.

Advent under Kloss sold a gazillion small and large Advents. Part of the appeal was the sound of an AR3 at 1/3 the cost. I've heard that despite having a hugely popular speaker, the company barely broke even in the best years, if that. There was an expensive dealer network to feed and water. The wholesale cost maybe covered the cost of the drivers and cabinets, but there was no money to cover the overhead of the company. Kloss was more interested in getting a workable projection TV, and that drained any small amounts of money being made selling loudspeakers.

I've often thought about why there were so many manufacturers of loudspeakers. This continues to present more or less, but mostly at the very high end. The answer of course is that one could start a speaker company with only modest amounts of capital, and a really good designer could come up with a design that sounded way better than it should given only modest parts cost. If this is successful, margins could be excellent. So a lot of guys tried this. The vast majority failed over the longer haul in keeping the company operational.

A lot of audio people are critical of Bose, the designs and the pricing, but Amar Bose and his company survived and prospered. Bose must have gotten good business people and accountants around him very early on and never went the "sell it cheaper" route. Also, As the home audio market for speakers deteriorated, Bose formed alliances with automakers and also in PA and commercial audio that took up the slack and kept the company viable. I have always been more impressed with Bose products in those areas than their home audio products.

I'm listening to my Nakamichi headphones made by some company that must have bought the name along with the company history. Nakamichi made great 3-head cassette decks, expensive but superior to any others, but never figured out how to transition into the digital music era...Time marches on. The business world is often cruel to audio and video designers big and small (ask Sony about this, or Pioneer) and something newer and cheaper can render what you are doing obsolete nearly in an instant (Sony never really successfully transitioned from the Walkman to the mp3 player, and lower-cost but still high quality companies like Vizio (and Samsung) played havok with their TV business, not long ago considered among the best there was (Trinitron, Bravia).

David

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Topic - The history of audio-visual is... - DavidLD 04:44:27 11/26/14 (2)

RE: The history of audio-visual is... - Brian McGowan 05:37:41 11/26/14 (1)

RE: The history of audio-visual is... - Brian Levy 17:03:06 11/26/14 (0)

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