Strategy in TECH...
Strata-gee reader Jeff (see comments here…) asks, “What’s up with the revival of Thiel Audio’s website thielaudio.com?” That is a good question, as the company has been shut down, and all inventory, factory, and office goods were auctioned off just under three years ago. Shortly after the auction, Thiel Audio’s website went dark and has been that way ever since.
Boulder, CO-based PS Audio, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketer of higher end audio electronics products, announced this week that they are launching a record company called Octave Records. The company says Octave “is dedicated to preseving the art of high-fidelity recordings and compensating musicians fairly.”
Sonance announced today that they have entered into an agreement to acquire Minden, NV-based James Loudspeaker. This is the first major acquisition by Sonance since the purchase of Sound Advance in 2005, and is truly a marriage of two companies with a strong resonance in their approach to the custom integration industry.
Strata-gee reported just yesterday that Sonos, Inc. has sued Lenbrook Industries Ltd. & Lenbrook America – the maker & marketer of Bluesound – for patent infringement. Undoubtedly emboldened by their near-complete victory over Denon’s HEOS brand a little over a year ago, Sonos appears to have targeted Lenbrook to be next in line.
However, Strata-gee has learned that Lenbrook is not the only company targeted for such potential actions by Sonos. There are more – perhaps many more – in our industry lined up for this “hit” parade.
Como Audio, Tom DeVesto’s latest innovative venture and maker of fine streaming smart speaker systems, has launched a funding campaign on Wefunder, seeking to raise between $100,000 to $1,000,000 in equity investment. Investors on the Wefunder site can buy preferred shares of Como Audio stock priced at $2.50/share and own a piece of the company.
AudioControl, the Seattle, WA-based specialty electronics maker of innovative solutions, announced three new gems at CEDIA Expo 2018 – a new Rialto 400 zone amplifier, the Avalon G3 four-channel amplifier, and a new CM Series 70-volt line of commercial amplifiers. These new products are not only clever solutions to integrators needs, they absolutely personify the concept of flexibility.
It was only a matter of months ago that Strata-gee broke the news that EVA Automation founder Gideon Yu, the new owner of Bowers and Wilkins (B&W), had dismissed Doug Henderson, President of the B&W Group North America. It was a move that was to send shock waves around the industry and presaged a round of additional staff departures (and additions) as Yu worked to restructure the company.
Now we can report that Henderson is the new Senior Vice President of Home Audio at JL Audio, the scrappy upstart that launched first in the 12-volt business, but has since expanded into the marine, powersports, and home audio segments as well.
Just when you thought it was all over, Strata-gee has learned that a new suitor – Vista, CA-based Sound United – has emerged to make a bid to acquire Classé Audio from current owner B&W Group. Classé was shut down by B&W on October 6th, as we reported at the time. However, because the company was still sitting on a relatively significant level of inventory – and was considering producing an additional small run of certain models to balance out their inventory to facilitate liquidation – B&W executives often maintained it was still in business.
When deals with three previously interested parties failed to come to fruition, B&W made the decision to close Classé’s Montreal headquarters, dismiss all Classé staff, and turned over service and support functions to B&W facilities.
Shortly after we published our BREAKING NEWS report on the Bowers & Wilkins dismissal of President Doug Henderson, we obtained a copy of an email that was apparently sent by the company to all B&W dealers explaining the situation. We’d like to be able to say this note answered all questions surrounding the upheaval their actions caused, but it raised as many questions as it answered.
We learned this week that Thiel Audio (Thiel) has had another significant round of layoffs, including CEO Tom Malatesta, Chief Revenue Officer Stuart Levine, Director of Music Industry Relations Mark Mason (no relation to engineer Mark Mason who left much earlier), as well as two other lower level staff – who have all been let go within the last six-to-eight weeks. Furthermore, Chief Brand Officer Rebecca Abrahams, who led the launch of their Aurora live music performance and streaming studio, left the company in January of this year. No reason was given for any these separations and, true to form, Thiel has made no official public announcement regarding the dismissals.
