"Over the last six decades, we've delivered the best premium audio experiences possible. Now, with McIntosh Group in our portfolio, we can unlock even more ways to bring music to life," said Lila Snyder, CEO of Bose Corporation. “We look forward to honouring the heritage of these brands, investing in their future and pushing the boundaries of audio innovation to bring customers experiences they’ve never heard before.”
The companies will maintain their focus on their respective product lines and market categories. Bose will continue producing headphones, speakers, and soundbars, while McIntosh and Sonus faber will concentrate on the high-end: receivers, amplifiers, loudspeakers, and turntables. The press release also suggests potential collaborations, noting that the acquisition "allows Bose to integrate its advanced audio research and technology into the high-performance and luxury market."
Daniel Pidgeon, chief executive officer of McIntosh Group, commented, "Gaining access to Bose's expertise as a pioneer in automotive audio will help us accelerate our presence and deliver solutions that match our reputation and performance standards."
The Companies
Industry heavyweight Bose is one of the best-known brands in audio. Its Model 901 speaker remains an iconic design, though the company is now best known as the market leader in noise-cancelling headphones. Founded in 1964, the company is based in Framingham, Massachusetts, and MIT—yes, the university—is the majority shareholder thanks to a donation by the company founder, Dr. Amar Bose. However MIT does not actively participate in the company's management.
McIntosh Laboratory was founded in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1949 by Frank McIntosh, but later moved its main office to Binghamton, New York, where it remains today. Early on, McIntosh was praised for its innovative amplifier designs, such as the unity coupled transformer, which produces high power with low distortion. The company provided sound systems for the 1969 Woodstock music festival and several presidential inaugurations.
Sonus faber is famous for making high-end audio equipment by hand, especially loudspeakers. It was started in 1983 by Franco Serblin in Arcugnano, Italy and is renowned for its handcrafted designs that embody Italian craftsmanship.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed—an industry standard for acquisitions.
COMMENTS
I have to say, as much as Bose had some wonky home audio designs, they pioneered the lifestyle sub/sat market in a big way.
And the Quiet Comfort full sized noise cancelling headphones flat out ROCK. Best thing ever for traveling and on airplanes. Say what you will about the sound quality, the technology is flat out effective.
These are the reasons why they’re able to buy an older brand like Macintosh and not the other way around. High end is a niche.
People don't seem to understand, or just don't know, that most of the companies reviewed here and other publications are small privately held businesses. They don't have always have the resources to weather the regular business cycle, let alone a black swan event like Covid. It's also why they cost more; no economy of scale to offset R&D at low consumer cost plus small batches are inherently more expensive.
As long as they learn the lesson of Theil Audio's fall (beyond Jim dying) they'll be fine. McIntosh has been making lifestyle products for a while now, those will probably be "Boseified" but so what they're lifestyle products and that's Bose's wheelhouse. Their home theater stuff has been rebadged Marantz pre-pros for years. Also, it's not like Bose will make worse speakers than McIntosh XD
Bose Quiet Comfort headphones are indeed f'ing awesome for air travel. Say what you want, their engineers don't suck and their small PA systems are actually popular enough that JBL and Electro Voice have copied them.
... great disturbance/disruption in the force.
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/leading-through-disruption-requires-the-gene-for-change
Before "Made in China" labels show up.
I give it a year....
Before "Made in China" labels show up.
But...it is already built in China.
Audio gear, currently US made.
Anyone that has what could have been (with good design theory) a powerfull stable solid state poweramp in D'Agostino class, but then to "transformer couple it"!! is just as plain crazy as Bose way of speaker design were/is, the best they made the 901 disaster.
Good to see the 2 x companies together now. Just keep up the Blue Meters and Lights, the "glitz brigade" will still be all over them to buy them, even though they have no ears.
But real audio lovers will still remember the old 60's-70's tube gear McIntosh made for memory made with the much loved Tango output transformers?.
Cheers George
Bose is a stable company, and known name. They make products for small venue sound reinforcement as well as their (actually quite good) noise cancelling headphones. Along with McIntosh and Sonus Faber they also get Wadia digital and Sumiko among others. This will make them a well rounded audio company, hope they make good use of it.
I doubt they'll mess much with McIntosh, its' inertia is seemingly part of its' appeal - McIntosh always sounds like McIntosh and people will pay extra for it being made in the USA. Same with Sonus Faber, their Italian style is a big part of their appeal. I have no idea how they sound, but they often look quite good.
Sound United is in a lot more trouble, they own B&W. Voxx Int'l is also not doing well, and they own Klipsch.
I suspect from Sound United and Voxx about the only locks for brands that will make it are B&W and Klipsch. Some that may have brand value are Polk, AR/Advent, and maybe Denon and/or Marantz. The rest? As someone noted above, you might start seeing their names on very cheap knockoff products.
Me too, seems like yesterday Dave Reich used to stop in at Opus Audio on Decarie to say hello. That’s where I heard his amplifiers and was mightily impressed. Speaking of amps that blew me away, I discovered yesterday that Victor Sima, formerly of Sima Electronics and SimAudio, passed away last week. He sold the company in the 90s, and it later became Moon by Simaudio. No mention of his passing has been posted anywhere in my former hometown, not on Moon’s website or any periodical I follow. Maybe I am not looking in the right places, but he was a skilled designer who started in the early 80s with the affordable PW2000 amp, which sounded great. I still own a few of his components. Great guy.
He was a pioneer. Thanks for telling me.
but that's not the point. These deals seldom end well. Best of luck.
Just a press release and a bunch of people have already an "informed" opinion and are able to predict the future. Nobody has a real clue, and probably nobody has an audio company, but everybody feels compeled to criticize, and spew whatever is crossing their minds, usually in a negative tone. McIntosh is a geat company and produce great amps. Many of those who critizice MC cant afford one and point to people who can buy them and appreciate them, as idiots hipnotized buy the bue meters. A guy says "I do not have an idea how a Sf sounds", but he has an opinion anyway. Another says high end is a niche, yeah man by definition high end HAS TO BE a niche. Get a life guys, live and let live, enjoy music and keep your negativism for yourselves. That way you will perhaps contribute to make this world a little bit better.
Alberto - do know how ironic it is of you to accuse others of negativity, don’t you?
Man,, I'm so glad I have the Mac equipment I always wanted already. before the plants move to China.. and bose destroys the focus of quality and performance that Mac has always had. Zero chance this is not a major blow to the legacy. If there were any other Mac equipment I wanted, it would be on order this week. WOW, this is so disappointing, and I like bose as a company. but not as an owner of true high-end brands. This is a total FAIL.. IDENTICLE TO CLASSE'
Ain't nobody moving mfg to the PRC any more. There's a whole lot of lower cost nations in Asia to which manufacturing can be moved. Indonesia, Vietnam, India, etc. In fact, due to recent (last ~10 years) geopolitical events most companies are looking to exit the PRC and either going to lower cost nations or onshoring due to Covid disruptions.
The PRC has actually gotten pretty good at manufacturing, which is part of why they're no longer the lowest cost option - expertese ain't free. Some of their home grown brands are actually good as well.
another signal of the shelf life, or in other words one of the last gasps of the (high end) audio industry.
I really wonder who of the big and richest investors/shareholders (with long term vision, so not those reprehensible activists) has shares in the (high end) audio industry? Anyone?
by and large are privately held enterprises so there are no "shares" to buy. Personal finances/leverage, and SBA and other biz loans are likely their biggest sources of capital.
I suspect cash flow issues are their biggest cause of failure.
Has instantly become vintage classic. Wonder how fast prices will go up.
I find it odd that Alberto Arebalos doesn’t sense the irony in posting by far the most negative, critical comment on here, whining about others’ supposed negativity.
Alberto, you are unintentionally hilarious. Some of us have watched the industry and have a crystal ball… something that seems to irk you.
Two brands who've spent a lot more of their budget on marketing than on actual R/D compared to most manufacturers. Anyone with an objective set of good ears can find much better music reproduction equipment (that is still very visually presentable) for the same money. “birds of a feather flock together”
but probably not McIntosh.
They're a luxury brand and Bose can use that to improve their image as long as they don't funk up the Sonus Faber mojo.
This may have unfortunate consequences for McIntosh and Sonus Faber. There is no doubt that they manufacture excellent products that fully justify their prices. In the 2000s I worked at Sound Plus in Vancouver. We sold Linn, Wilson, KEF, Bryston, McIntosh etc. It was a high-end store. B&O was a line that we lost and the owner replaced it with Bose to cover the "Lifestyle" niche. Our credibility with the audiophile community cratered because of this and sales of two channel equipment dropped off a cliff. Custom was all that kept the company alive. Even so, the business went under in a few years. Judging by some of the comments, Bose continues to have a bad reputation with audiophiles.
If both companies were doing well, there would be no reason to sell so obviously either Bose offered a price that was well above what they were worth or that the people that owned the brands wanted out for whatever reason. Hopefully, the marketing budget of Bose will help both companies get exposed to new people.
On the other hand, maybe The Empire won.
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