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Post by michaelcleary on Jul 5, 2022 8:45:56 GMT -6
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Post by Blackdawg on Jul 5, 2022 9:58:01 GMT -6
yeah not sure how i feel about this..
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2022 11:30:56 GMT -6
My goodness! Merging have always punched above their weight.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jul 5, 2022 11:32:05 GMT -6
yeah not sure how i feel about this.. Yeah most of these acquisitions are not a good thing, but I will say this Sennheiser has really done better with Neumann and K&H compared to most of the others have done. As a former Madison guy, I wish their US distributor deal with Turbosound would have ended with an acquisition. Let’s hope that like K&H this leads to a larger footprint in the market and that we just might see some of mergings tech trickle down. Also unlike most of these acquisitions Senn. Should have a bunch of cash from the sale of the consumer div. This investment also shows us that Senn. Wants to be a pro audio company and not a “ we are going to go out and buy every well known brand in audio to sell the same crap to every auto maker”, yeah you know who I am talking about. OK I’ll admit I have a special relationship with Senn., but most here know that won’t keep me from saying what I really mean. |
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Post by ab101 on Jul 5, 2022 12:08:19 GMT -6
This could mean more sustainability for Merging. (On a side note - if you do not want your company to merge, don't name it "merging."  ) |
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jul 5, 2022 12:17:12 GMT -6
This could mean more sustainability for Merging. (On a side note - if you do not want your company to merge, don't name it "merging." ) You also have to understand that the only real retirement fund for the owners of many of these companies is, the company itself. You would be shocked at how often the owners of these companies keep going simply because that is all they have. |
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Post by Quint on Jul 5, 2022 13:07:02 GMT -6
This could mean more sustainability for Merging. (On a side note - if you do not want your company to merge, don't name it "merging." ) You also have to understand that the only real retirement fund for the owners of many of these companies is, the company itself. You would be shocked at how often the owners of these companies keep going simply because that is all they have. And it's a narrative that happens all the time. 1. Company A invents/produces/sells a cool product(s), with great customer service to boot. 2. Company A grows and grows and develops a dedicated customer base. 3. The owner of Company A wants to retire, so they sell to Company B or go public as a way to pull cash out of the business to retire on. 4. Company B is run by bean counters with little or no interest in the longevity of the product and no historical context of the "brand" and the type of service that customers have come to expect. 5. Company B does away with quality customer service, cheaps out on the product itself, and generally runs the brand into the ground, eventually selling it off for parts. 6. Customers are sad. I'm not saying that will happen here, by the way, with Merging and Sennheiser. But this sort of thing does happen a lot. Or, like you said, the owner just stays with the company until they basically die. |
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jul 5, 2022 13:30:04 GMT -6
You also have to understand that the only real retirement fund for the owners of many of these companies is, the company itself. You would be shocked at how often the owners of these companies keep going simply because that is all they have. And it's a narrative that happens all the time. 1. Company A invents/produces/sells a cool product(s), with great customer service to boot. 2. Company A grows and grows and develops a dedicated customer base. 3. The owner of Company A wants to retire, so they sell to Company B or go public as a way to pull cash out of the business to retire on. 4. Company B is run by bean counters with little or no interest in the longevity of the product and no historical context of the "brand" and the type of service that customers have come to expect. 5. Company B runs the brand into the ground and eventually sells it off for parts. 6. Customers are sad. I'm not saying that will happen here, by the way, with Merging and Sennheiser. But this sort of thing does happen a lot. Or, like you said, the owner just stays with the company until they basically die. Yeah, it has always amazes me how few of the general gear buying community has no idea how much many of these companies are the entire life of the owners of these companies. I do find it a positive that many of the new stars of of our industry have day jobs when they start out, but even then most have no idea that many of these are main source of funding is MasterCard ! |
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Post by EmRR on Jul 5, 2022 13:39:59 GMT -6
It's like owning a restaurant, the kids either want to follow in the parents footsteps or it shuts down. The local 'Harman' is a growing chain that's bought up mom and pop restaurants as the owners age out, then homogenized and cut out what was unique.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jul 5, 2022 13:49:44 GMT -6
It's like owning a restaurant, the kids either want to follow in the parents footsteps or it shuts down. The local 'Harman' is a growing chain that's bought up mom and pop restaurants as the owners age out, then homogenized and cut out what was unique. Yeah back in TX had some good friends who had built up one of Galveston’s destination restaurants, along comes a guy who had “chain restaurant experience” who made them a great offer they couldn’t refuse. New owner pissed off the chef by going cheap on key ingredients. Looks like it is under new management. I’ll bet the Houston based guys can guess what restaurant I’m talking about, hint you might want to swat it before it bites you. |
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Post by drumsound on Jul 5, 2022 20:55:01 GMT -6
Sennheiser, luckily, isn't Harmonsung. They actually have continues to offer high quality professional products. I've heard a lot of good things about Merging and hope maybe Sennheiser will continue that and make more people aware of quality conversion.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jul 5, 2022 22:06:41 GMT -6
Sennheiser, luckily, isn't Harmonsung. They actually have continues to offer high quality professional products. I've heard a lot of good things about Merging and hope maybe Sennheiser will continue that and make more people aware of quality conversion. Exactly, until Senn. Bought them K&H was as common in the US as unicorns. |
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Post by teejay on Jul 6, 2022 19:55:16 GMT -6
This could mean more sustainability for Merging. (On a side note - if you do not want your company to merge, don't name it "merging."  ) You also have to understand that the only real retirement fund for the owners of many of these companies is, the company itself. You would be shocked at how often the owners of these companies keep going simply because that is all they have. My day job is in the consulting world. Our particular industry is a hot-bed right now, with clear signs of continued exponential growth. A number of the largest firms have seen it and are quickly expanding their practices both by hiring large numbers of people away from the smaller firms and of course, acquisition. Same is true for the software side...acquisitions of small companies that have a corner on a particular approach or technology. I know a number of people (former co-workers) who have been involved in this niche for a number of years. They saw what was coming and left the corporate side to start their own consulting practices. Yes, they are hard workers and are very good at what they do. And while there is certainly risk in owning your own business, they don't intend to do so long-term. Their business plan is to grow their practice with the intent that they will eventually (sooner rather than later) be bought out for major dollars and have their "retirement" secured. They're all in their 30's, 40's, and early 50's. |
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Post by sirthought on Jul 6, 2022 23:17:58 GMT -6
I'm kind of surprised they are choosing to position the merger with Neumann instead of straight up Sennheiser. I guess they feel that brand is stronger.
Hopefully they can start by improving the Merging website. All their pages seem to take 2-3 minutes to load for me. I was just researching a Hapi earlier today.
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Post by notneeson on Jul 7, 2022 10:54:45 GMT -6
I'm kind of surprised they are choosing to position the merger with Neumann instead of straight up Sennheiser. I guess they feel that brand is stronger. Hopefully they can start by improving the Merging website. All their pages seem to take 2-3 minutes to load for me. I was just researching a Hapi earlier today. I thought it made total sense, we have fairly recent Neumann preamps and monitors, a branded converter seems a likely next step and the brand is positioned as much more premium than Senn. |
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Post by ericn on Jul 7, 2022 11:53:14 GMT -6
I'm kind of surprised they are choosing to position the merger with Neumann instead of straight up Sennheiser. I guess they feel that brand is stronger. Hopefully they can start by improving the Merging website. All their pages seem to take 2-3 minutes to load for me. I was just researching a Hapi earlier today. It’s an easy way of keeping it out of the most basic mom and pop MI dealers. Not every Senn. Dealer is a Neumann dealer. While Senn. Has significantly grown the Neumann dealer base ( Gotham had a no mail order majority of sales policy). This means at the very least you won’t have your GC “dude of the month “ selling merging, but your GC pro guy will be able to get it. Smart move. |
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Post by ab101 on Jul 7, 2022 13:40:46 GMT -6
I'm kind of surprised they are choosing to position the merger with Neumann instead of straight up Sennheiser. I guess they feel that brand is stronger. Hopefully they can start by improving the Merging website. All their pages seem to take 2-3 minutes to load for me. I was just researching a Hapi earlier today. I thought it made total sense, we have fairly recent Neumann preamps and monitors, a branded converter seems a likely next step and the brand is positioned as much more premium than Senn. I hear what you are saying. Sennheiser has some non-premium products. But in fairness to Senn., they also have some premium products as well. Senn. has fabulous shotgun mics, the 8020/8040 is excellent, some headphones are excellent, etc. |
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Post by notneeson on Jul 7, 2022 13:46:50 GMT -6
I thought it made total sense, we have fairly recent Neumann preamps and monitors, a branded converter seems a likely next step and the brand is positioned as much more premium than Senn. I hear what you are saying. Sennheiser has some non-premium products. But in fairness to Senn., they also have some premium products as well. Senn. has fabulous shotgun mics, the 8020/8040 is excellent, some headphones are excellent, etc. I love my HD650s, and my vintage 421. Speaking more about how they market the two brands than anything. I'd rather have an MKH 8050 than a TLM103, but to the average pro audio consumer I suspect Neumann has more of a halo. |
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Post by ab101 on Jul 7, 2022 14:15:10 GMT -6
Well said, notneeson.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jul 7, 2022 14:45:40 GMT -6
I hear what you are saying. Sennheiser has some non-premium products. But in fairness to Senn., they also have some premium products as well. Senn. has fabulous shotgun mics, the 8020/8040 is excellent, some headphones are excellent, etc. I love my HD650s, and my vintage 421. Speaking more about how they market the two brands than anything. I'd rather have an MKH 8050 than a TLM103, but to the average pro audio consumer I suspect Neumann has more of a halo. Other than Neve or maybe API is there a brand with more of a halo with the 47, M49 and KM84? I know gearpimps who love the rebranding of KH because it took away explaining who KH was, everyone knows Neumann. It’s also why they really fight Gefell using the Neumann history, it confuses the average buyer. Also why Neve fought RND so much That name. Considering the Rep of JBL I have always been surprised the ALtec Lansing name hasn’t held more Value “ Altec the original Lansing “. |
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Post by Ward on Jul 8, 2022 9:14:35 GMT -6
Congrats, michaelcleary on the acquisition! I’m sure your company will take very good care of them! Kindest regards Ward |
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Post by Hudsonic on Jul 9, 2022 8:34:27 GMT -6
Claude Cellier, the mind behind Merging, deserves every reward for his genius.
What a great guy.
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Post by sirthought on Jul 9, 2022 13:12:29 GMT -6
I know nothing about the DSD technology (direct stream digital) they are using at Merging. A thread on the other site (actually on the Quantum Interstellar) has a few folks bringing up Merging and saying this DSD technology is dead because almost no one uses it after a decade plus of opportunity to latch on.
Thoughts on that? I admit I can't think of another brand that even brings it up amongst the main studio equipment developers.
It will be interesting to see if a Neumann device goes another route. The knock on the Anubis is that expanding the I/O is so expensive compared to other options on the market. Otherwise Anubis seems like a really nice desktop option for the price---if their converters are really as good as advertised.
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Post by Blackdawg on Jul 9, 2022 14:04:11 GMT -6
I know nothing about the DSD technology (direct stream digital) they are using at Merging. A thread on the other site (actually on the Quantum Interstellar) has a few folks bringing up Merging and saying this DSD technology is dead because almost no one uses it after a decade plus of opportunity to latch on. Thoughts on that? I admit I can't think of another brand that even brings it up amongst the main studio equipment developers. It will be interesting to see if a Neumann device goes another route. The knock on the Anubis is that expanding the I/O is so expensive compared to other options on the market. Otherwise Anubis seems like a really nice desktop option for the price---if their converters are really as good as advertised. They are as good as they say. The Anubis is already found in a lot of mastering houses. Same for hapi and Horus. Of all the people I know running pyramix very very few do dsd. Most are doing dxd. And there are quite a few people doing that. It's a heavy price tag to get into for sure which is probably the biggest reason it isn't more popular. But the software, while one of the most powerful multi point editors out there, is not really dialed in. It's getting better but who knows now. |
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jul 9, 2022 17:54:57 GMT -6
I know nothing about the DSD technology (direct stream digital) they are using at Merging. A thread on the other site (actually on the Quantum Interstellar) has a few folks bringing up Merging and saying this DSD technology is dead because almost no one uses it after a decade plus of opportunity to latch on. Thoughts on that? I admit I can't think of another brand that even brings it up amongst the main studio equipment developers. It will be interesting to see if a Neumann device goes another route. The knock on the Anubis is that expanding the I/O is so expensive compared to other options on the market. Otherwise Anubis seems like a really nice desktop option for the price---if their converters are really as good as advertised. Having the $ and exposure Sennheiser brings to the table could change that. |
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