esoteric products

Zephyr24069,

The Onkyo comment was just to stress how aggressive Gibson is going after both the home and pro markets...Nothing incendiary suggested!
My comments, together with Jon2020 may culminate as to why the "ebb and flow" have recently been more of a Dam in the river...:-)

These pieces are going for pennies on the dollar as opposed to just three years ago!

The loss of key personnel won't help turn that around, in my opinion...

The 1.9% mentioned was IN COMPARISON to they're most recent group of acquired brands as a percentage of return...NOT a good number!

Of course it is a question of tastes for ME Esoteric as always been a very good make BUT not my cup of tea,they are built like tanks BUT to ME they also sound like tanks my preference is for a much warmer sound ( Zanden )( Audio Research )( Ayon )( MBL )( Chord )Bow Technologies ) to name a few.

"The 1.9% mentioned was IN COMPARISON to they're most recent group of acquired brands as a percentage of return...NOT a good number!
Azjake"

Again, I say not necessarily. Percentage of return is one thing, profit is something else entirely. Esoteric, even though its owned by a bigger company, is still a separate business. And as long as the Esoteric brand returns a healthy profit, that’s always a good thing.

Another factor not to be overlooked, is access to designs and patents not currently available to the parent company. They can use Esoteric technology in any of the other divisions with no penalty. A good example of this type of thing is Arcam/dcs. dcs developed the ring dac, which ended up going in Arcam CD players as well. And if that's the case, you would have to look past the 1.9%. Esoteric may be used to add value to some of the other brands.

good point zd542! I just feel the combination of losing key marketing and a7r people, along with "lukewarm'acrediting of Esoteric may spell bad times ahead for those thinking of purchasing or about to try and sell this brand!

The consolidation means cutting costs, and usually the first step is to outsource R&D, then all manufacturing, mostly to China. That is what McIntosh, Denon and Marantz have done. You then find all the company lines being pretty much the same, except for the pricing and branding. Also, the legacy brands are running out of customers, they are dieing off. The future is firms like Oppo, and I would not be surprised if they enter other products in their line. Today's top of the line Oppo decks beat anything in the esoteric line.