Rumors of Audio Research Sale Are True But No Deal Yet Tube electronics legend Audio Research is officially on the block but, contrary to the rumors circulating in the AV industry, there is no buyer yet. There has been a rumor of a $1,500,000 purchase from rival Conrad Johnson however Lew Johnson, one of the founders of CJ, says “that is absolutely not the case.” Talk of other Chinese and Japanese companies have surfaced but Dave Gordon of Audio Research says that no one fitting that bill is even on the radar.

The once mighty Adcom electronics company has been sold by its current owners (who now represent Kef and Celestion loudspeakers in the US) to Klein Technology Group LLC. The Kef group will continue to support the Kef and Celestion brands of loudspeakers however it is unclear or perhaps too early to know what the new group has planned for Adcom. Adcom in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s was dominant in the high performance audio component markets with amps, preamps and CD players that offered significantly more performance than the mainstream receivers and CD players on the market at that time. In the mid-1990s Adcom struggled to make a successful transition to home theater products failing especially hard with their surprisingly innovative “Adcom Ball” AV preamp and system controller. Additionally, in the same period of time competition got severe with ...

House Ear Institute Finds Hearing Loss in 15 to 25 Percent of Audio Professionals Preliminary observations compiled by the House Ear Institute (HEI) from free hearing screenings at the three largest pro audio industry tradeshows (AES, NSCA and NAMM) indicate a noticable pattern in the degree of hearing loss experienced by music and audio professionals. These observations were gathered informally in variable conditions, to get an overview of how hearing loss might vary between individuals in different niches within this industry.

Marantz To Merge with Denon Marantz Japan Inc., its largest shareholder (49%), Royal Philips Electronics, and Denon, Ltd., its largest shareholder (98%), Ripplewood Holdings L.L.C. today announced the establishment of D&M Holdings Inc. a joint holding company, to merge the operations of Marantz and Denon, two leading companies in the specialist home entertainment products market.

Aston Martin, Linn Partner On Car Audio System for New V12 Vanquish Much like the Mark Levinson and Lexus partnership in 2001, Aston Martin and Linn have announced that they will work together in a new partnership that will result in a unique audio system being offered on the V12 Vanquish.