Will AR's new owners do better?

[Mr. C]

Some grape vine news today, Acoustic Research has been sold to a consortium of Audio companies including Sonus Faber.
Seems they were a few Million $$ in debt, consequently leading to a meager £300K buy out!

[Filterlab]

Couldn't Audiovox make a go of it then?

[WikiBoy]

Some grape vine news today, Acoustic Research has been sold to a consortium of Audio companies including Sonus Faber.
Seems they were a few Million $$ in debt, consequently leading to a meager £300K buy out!

I worked for them in the mid 1970's as product manager for Teac and Tascam (they imported it) but also was involved to a degree in the loudspeakers. This was after Ed Vilcher and Ray Allison (who may have gone before that I am not sure) sold out to corporate America in the form of Teledyne. Well it was down hill from there, any available speaker thrown into any available cabinet and as if by magic they were supposed to work. Well surprisingly some did, the little 17 was a beaut, but the 16 was a screechy complete disaster and the 14 was a woolly boom box, so whos ears were ever applied, I tell you Ed Vilcher would have laughed at it, and when at the presentation I said so to the corporate yes boys over from the US that was me done and I was gone within a few months and set up my first company Tresham Audio (which was sold to Tannoy and they cocked it up ) so thanks to Teledyne.

Anyway there is so much we owe to Ed Vilcher an unsung audio hero if ever there was one and IMO Ray Allison is not far behind. LP12 thank Ed Villcher . Speakers designed to give good bass (Acoustic Suspension)and designed specifically for the up and coming solid state, thank Ed Vilcher. First effective dome (actually more nipple, but same idea) HF units, thank Ed Vilcher and in this case also Ray Allison. Omni dirctional techniques and room coupling designs that moved into the Isobaric and the Sara thank Ray Allison, who developed the pi - 2pi - 4pi equation for room coupling. Someone really should rediscover this, I used it in the Cube and Cubix designs of the early 90's.

Anyway one of the industries hero companies, it should never be allowed to die.

[MartinT]

A friend of mine had a pair of AR 2ax speakers when I was a teenager and I lusted after them. The 3a was a real classic for the times, proper acoustic suspension, well executed, and sounded nice with then available equipment.