Audio Research in Receivership.

That is very sad news. Second piece of sad new I received today ( a dear friend passed away a day after back surgery). I believe that Audio Research could have revived their brand, by appealing to the average income audiophile. Those that can afford a whole system around Audio Research’s latest product line are not many. That choice inevitably means running into very stiff competition from brands that are dominant. It would have been interesting to see Audio Research design products for the market to compete with more affordable brands.

@4afsanakhan I have been led to believe that sales wasn’t the problem, it was top end overhead and debt service. Oh, and there isnt a viable business model building gear in America for the market segment you described above. The dealer network, the loyal dealer network, isn’t built to sell affordable to the masses boxes. It isn’t worth the trouble and doesn’t align with the brand equity.

@4afsanakhan I think that’s what they were trying to do with the new 50 series.

@ghasley, if you will pardon my saying so, sales is always the problem. One would have to think that the requisite number of sales to service the debt, then generate a working profit, was not attained, likely over a period of years. The challenge for ‘high-end’ companies is finding enough wealthy customers with sufficient disposable income to support the increasingly stratospheric pricing structure. Audio Research must have had difficulty in appealing to enough of these customers.

Example of a successful brand bridging the gap; Technics (by Panasonic).

Let us qualify affordable. I did not intend to say generic lower end hifi, but more upper tier that is still affordable by ‘the masses’ as you put it. Let’s take another example, Devialet. Their Expert Pro 220 offers a decent enough streamer compatible with Qobuz, Apple Music, Spotify etc., a terrific DAC, a superb amp / preamp, and to crown it off, a truely superb phono stage. All this for 10k. Are there better, yes. Are they 20k 30k 40k and more better, decidedly not. Iconic brands such as Audio Research, McIntosh, Conrad Johnson, and Mark Levinson are experiencing stiff competition from European and Asian brands. The question is how many can hang on if the uber high-end market shrinks further?

I don't know why their amps look like a cheap Kenmore oven. For this much money, couldn't they look nice(r)?

I know, it's subjective mostly, the sound matters a 50 times more