Boston Acoustics and Snell bought by D&M Holdings

Sense D&M is a holding company, I don't think they have any interest in merging the companies or even lowering the standards of companies. I am glad McIntosh is no longer owned my Clarion. What I have seen in the last year at McIntosh is that they have not lowered there standard but raised it. I don't know if you have seen the pic's from CES 2005 ? but McIntosh has "raised the bar" on high end with there 3 box 2Kw Amps, A line of speakers that can handle them and the "out of this world" C1000 Preamp. I will be very surprised if it is not rated the "best preamp in the world" I don't think McIntosh would have been able to do this under Clarion. It does seem that D&M holdings is very interested in high end audio and is trying to make it a big piece of it's portfolio.

Mark

This is starting to look like the car industry...

Mark I appreciate your perspective and hope that you are right. I looked at you system, I also am a Mc owner MC 352, MX135 and MC7205. I just don't want to see my stuff de-valued prematurely. You make good sense. Thanks for your comments

I love to support the fewer and fewer remaining independents. The high end audio industry is becoming a corporate mega-monster! The good news is that designers and engineers producing exceptional gear, yet not having a good business sense, can have their products survive beyond the beta stage or a limited production run.

The bad news is that the "bean counters" and marketing divisions will be more influential in product development, redesign, and upgrades than the designers and engineers themselves!

I think there are some potential negative consequences to a sale of this type, especially as it relates product offerings and design control. There some positive ones as well. This can often mean in infusion of cash to get products off the drawing board and into production as well as the sharing of knowledge and technology between the companies in the same group.