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Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#151

Post by elzbardico »

7speter wrote: post #98
wyldfire wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But doesn't the brand itself have value outside of Japan? When liquidating the company, why not license it to another manufacturer?

Whats the good of licensing a brand if the company was known for high quality products? Its kind of like how toshiba made laptops 25 years ago that still work today but now they just license their name out to be stamped on cheap crappy laptops that barely make it through their warranty period.

This worked for years for whatever entities bought the brand Samsui, same for modern-day Marantz brand.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#152

Post by overcast »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #147
overcast wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You can't change physics. What usually suffers is the midrange(woofer) because everything is tiny. So you get high frequencies, and then usually some paltry subwoofer. There is no replacement for displacement.

This!. I've been searching for a set of speakers for my lounge room with a nice big cone in them, but I just cant find that is not priced for audiofiles. I have been looking second hand, but everything I can find is over 40 years old and the cones have all started disintegrating.

Yeh, unfortunately you're going to have to spend some bucks for quality. I'm still using my fathers 50 year old ESS Model 5's in my upstairs office and they sound amazing. Original woofers too! I just refoamed them, easy. I love the sound of the HEIL air motion transformers.

Downstairs is all Totem I bought 20 years ago.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#153

Post by darig »

christoph wrote: post #105
chmod600 wrote: post #77

There's no doubt that, for a lot of people, there is just a better convenience/quality trade-off. I had a good size Onkyo system for watching movies and I configured it meticulously. But it's hard to explain to others why there is so much ceremony and bulk, especially when watching habits degenerate from immersive movies to binge watching netflix serieses. Part of the experience with hobbies is some kind of sacrifice…

Weirdly in the last couple of weeks we’ve been clearing out our house and I found three(!) Onkyo home cinema amp boxes in the attic. I don’t own a single Onkyo amplifier anymore. Every single one got returned due to a serious fault (from suddenly producing no sound, to literal smoke coming out of it) within a year or 18 months, and typically swapped for another, slightly newer model Onkyo amp - rinse & repeat yearly.…

No post body was provided.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#154

Post by theandrewbailey »

I'm using a 7-year old Onkyo 7.1 surround sound system right now. It sounds great, but when you use the menus (like browse a DLNA server) or switch inputs (or something cuts out), there's a second or two lag on everything.

I wish that AV receivers had USB inputs for PCs.

"But Andrew," I hear you say: "Go to $store and search for receivers with USB ports. There's hundreds!"

Those USB ports are for playing MP3s off a flash drive. A PC isn't a flash drive. Do you have a receiver like that? How do you connect a PC to it with USB?

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#155

Post by moralestapia »

rixrax wrote: post #59

I feel that the AV-receiver market has gone the way of the DSLR market. Compact speaker systems like Sonos (that don't need a separate AVR) simply got good enough. Thus the need for buying a separate AVR to drive your Dolby / DTS / etc. setup has all but vanished except maybe for the most determined audiophiles (and even most of these would do well to simply get a compact wireless speaker setup instead of some monstr…

>Compact speaker systems like Sonos (that don't need a separate AVR) simply got good enough.

I don't like em. I am not the stereotypical smug audiophile but the sound on most of these new systems, soundbars, headphones, etc... is absolute trash.

Any pair of moderately-decent bookshelf speakers blows them out of the water and you can get them for ~300USD so they're actually cheaper than "high-end" speakers from brands like Bose, Sonos, etc... which sound terrible IMO.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#156

Post by christoph »

movetheworld wrote: post #124
christoph wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly in the last couple of weeks we’ve been clearing out our house and I found three(!) Onkyo home cinema amp boxes in the attic. I don’t own a single Onkyo amplifier anymore. Every single one got returned due to a serious fault (from suddenly producing no sound, to literal smoke coming out of it) within a year or 18 months, and typically swapped for another, slightly newer model Onkyo amp - rinse & repeat yearly.…

And here I am: still using my first receiver ever, an Onkyo. It's still runs great after being in use for over twenty(!) years. My Philips CD player won't open the tray and my Aiwa Cassette deck won't play any cassette, but my Onkyo is still kicking. Maybe the models from the recent years don't have the quality as it used to be. By the way, I just checked the backplate and it's an Onkyo TX-9031 RDS receiver from 1993…

Isn’t it lovely when you realise you have electronics that have lasted nearly three decades and are still useful?

Onkyo were always well known for packing cutting edge features into home cinema amps. They always had way more features and codec support than anyone else. Nobody else came close for “bang for buck”, but they definitely had serious reliability issues.

Thinking about it tonight, just having some slow spinning fans probably would have alleviated 90%+ of their issues. But I guess the “audiophiles” would have complained about that…

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#157

Post by dylan604 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #143
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have 2-way coaxes. I do like the sound, but they tend to bundle so the sweet spot is small.

I understand the cross-over also destroys phase — so I think you're still losing the headphone-like quality that full range give you.

You keep stating this phase destruction like it is gospel. However, if a crossover is negatively affecting the phasing, something is wrong. Maybe it's a cheap design on a cheap product, or a poorly made something with a good design, but if you have a crossover doing this, then replace the crossover.

Many many sound systems do not have this issue that you seem to be convinced is normal operation of a crossover. If this was a normal thing and accepted by everyone everywhere, then loud music would never sound right. I'd suggest stop buying equipment from Radio Shack ;-)

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#158

Post by lowbloodsugar »

starky wrote: post #65
boulos wrote: post #6

It's too bad Denon (DENki ONkyo) didn't buy this Onkyo to make the merger complete :). I'm guessing it wasn't worth it to go downmarket via Onkyo, and it sounds like Onkyo had been accumulating debt for years.

Denon is already the downmarket brand for D&M though (Marantz being the high end), there wasn't much difference in cost between Denon and Onkyo.

Both are downmarket now. They are shells of their former selves.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#159

Post by cookingrobot »

christoph wrote: post #105
chmod600 wrote: post #77

There's no doubt that, for a lot of people, there is just a better convenience/quality trade-off. I had a good size Onkyo system for watching movies and I configured it meticulously. But it's hard to explain to others why there is so much ceremony and bulk, especially when watching habits degenerate from immersive movies to binge watching netflix serieses. Part of the experience with hobbies is some kind of sacrifice…

Weirdly in the last couple of weeks we’ve been clearing out our house and I found three(!) Onkyo home cinema amp boxes in the attic. I don’t own a single Onkyo amplifier anymore. Every single one got returned due to a serious fault (from suddenly producing no sound, to literal smoke coming out of it) within a year or 18 months, and typically swapped for another, slightly newer model Onkyo amp - rinse & repeat yearly.…

I bought an Onkyo 5.1 receiver at a garage sale yesterday for $5. This house I moved into has prewired surround speakers and I felt like I should take advantage.

What a hassle though, I can’t get audio flowing from the tv, can’t get it to drive all the speakers, it runs super hot.

It really seems like a hardware hobby more than a way to enjoy movies so far.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#160

Post by nsteel »

philjohn wrote: post #70
Gordonjcp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any of those compact speaker systems that actually sound good, though?

Yes - the Sonos Arc + sub + 2 rear channels sounds amazing after using the built in sound tuning, and got a pretty damn good review in What HiFi.

Doesn't everything get a good review in What HiFi? I gave up with it.
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