Sound United is perhaps the closest thing we have to an audio conglomerate. Over the past few years it has gathered numerous companies under its wing. These include Denon, Marantz, Heos, Definitive Technology, Polk, Boston Acoustics, Classe and (though certain legal niceties still remain to be completed), Pioneer, Onkyo, and Integra. They recently held an annual dealer/rep get-together in New Orleans, inviting several members of the press as well, including yours truly.
It was a fascinating day. I wish I could discuss some of the upcoming products we were shown, but they won’t be available until the fall and we were sworn (and signed) to secrecy until then. The only new products for now were two midrange AV receivers about which we’ve already published news releases. But a number of the yet to be launched products are certain to be of interest to readers, including new loudspeakers from Definitive Technology and Polk. The latter will be introducing a speaker featuring a technology the company hasn't marketed in roughly 20 years—updated for 2019, of course. ‘Nuff said!
In case you haven’t yet run the numbers, the existing and new brand acquisitions puts Sound United in the driver’s seat in the AVR market. But there’s still Sony, Yamaha, Anthem, Arcam, and NAD (with apologies to others that might have slipped my mind). Speakers, of course, are a very different case, as there are something like 3257 companies in the world serving that segment. That leaves Sound United with a long way to go, but I’m certain that even as we speak planning is underway in this Audio Game of Thrones.
Despite the secrecy the day included several excellent demos of current Sound United products...
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