I am from Connecticut and used to work for Madrigal Audio Labs. It was a great place to work and there were many dedicated people there.
My last project for the company was the operating software for their No. 32 (and '383 integrated) preamplifier. Those pieces, among others, represented the epitome of the care and craft that went into the design and manufacture of the Levinson products, all to the credit of the employees in Middletown.
I think what killed them in part was moving too far away from what they were good at, and developing some extremely complex products (No. 40 & DVD players) that they really didn't have the engineering manpower to design in a timely fashion. Their no-compromise design philosophy demanded that a lot of the software for the software-intensive products be written from scratch, and that represents a major engineering effort.
The company was not perfect; no company is-but almost everyone in Middletown was unusually dedicated to the company mission, both the employees and the state of Connecticut have suffered a great loss with the closing of Madrigal Audio Laboratories.
Another late great American consumer electronics manufacturer, which Harman will most likely exploit the good name of and then discard when the interest and revenue dry up...
My last project for the company was the operating software for their No. 32 (and '383 integrated) preamplifier. Those pieces, among others, represented the epitome of the care and craft that went into the design and manufacture of the Levinson products, all to the credit of the employees in Middletown.
I think what killed them in part was moving too far away from what they were good at, and developing some extremely complex products (No. 40 & DVD players) that they really didn't have the engineering manpower to design in a timely fashion. Their no-compromise design philosophy demanded that a lot of the software for the software-intensive products be written from scratch, and that represents a major engineering effort.
The company was not perfect; no company is-but almost everyone in Middletown was unusually dedicated to the company mission, both the employees and the state of Connecticut have suffered a great loss with the closing of Madrigal Audio Laboratories.
Another late great American consumer electronics manufacturer, which Harman will most likely exploit the good name of and then discard when the interest and revenue dry up...