Ohm for Sale

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.

There was a video tour of the Ohm shop in Brooklyn done several years back. The focus was on how small, meager and blue collar the shop was. Brooklyn is not a cheap place to do business but Ohm managed to deliver so much with so little, practically nothing on the grand scale of things. Amazing really. That was all John and his very tiny crew. Lots of personal know how seemed to go into John’s products. That is NOT something that is easily transferred and scaled up, but I am sure if he is in good health that JS is up to the task of planting the seed needed somewhere where things might really take off. Transfer of knowledge would seem to be the key. Also a willing buyer. I suspect that will be a matter of who makes the best offer rather than if. Hoping! We will see.

Time will tell the tale, as goes with most things....

Meanwhile, I'll keep plunking along with my diys'; don't have the $ and wouldn't live in or next to NYC.

Hope for the best, cringe at the worst...

Against the backdrop of potentially bad news for the Ohm brand, the comment from the author of the article that "Devore Fidelity...might be one of the few [high-end speaker manufacturers] actually growing in a shrinking market" was encouraging to read.  As Devore is a privately held company, I suspect the author doesn't know this for sure, but it validates the general environmental sense that indeed Devore is growing.  I hope this is true because in addition to being a happy Devore customer, I also appreciate the entrepreneurial story of the company John Devore built.  If Ohm does indeed fade away, the founders of Ohm can always have the satisfaction of knowing they had a great company that built terrific products - and that others like Devore are following in their footsteps.