If Bose wanted to place a marker solidly in the high end North American audio market, McIntosh and Sonus Faber would be a very solid start. Both brands are well respected and enjoy good shares of their (admittedly) small market. Neither need help as concerns visibility and both have loyal customer bases. Other similarly-placed companies are already owned by other conglomerates. Appreciated micro brands are too esoteric to be worth the trouble and most have no significant presence or product lines that are too small. McIntosh has long experience in the electronics space with every kind of design, monoblock tubes to class-D, HT, network, every kind of playback technology except perhaps RTR. They weren't independent under PE.