esoteric products

"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.

From filings it appears that TEAC annual revenues are around $185M. I don't know how much of this is attributable to its audio divisions, but assuming 1.9% of total revenues, Esoteric is no larger than $3.5M. This is decent revenue for a high-end audio company-- doubtless much higher than sales of any of its direct competitors (e.g. DCS, MBL, EMM). However, viewed within the broader landscape of consumer/pro electronics it is(like most other high-end audio manufacturers) a tiny number. But so are Corvette sales.... Hopefully Gibson will understand the value of a statement brand. I have doubts, but am very much enjoying a new K-01X.

Understood and agreed on all comments...did not think any of the comments were incendiary at all. I share some of the same misgivings on resale value drops, etc....but still see this as a platform that for my ears, gives me a great experience. When I compare to some of the other gear prices on the market from other multi-box stack vendors built on Oppo/other platforms, I am content to stay where i am for the time being and enjoy the music!!!