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Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

asia.nikkei.com

231–240 of 297 posts

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aiwa Cassette deck won't play any cassette If you're interested in fixing this: it sounds like power comes on. So maybe the drive belt has disintegrated? Recently replaced a belt on a thing from the late 1970s. The belt was no longer elastic, which means it had snapped, and you could "cut" it some more by merely touching it. On Amazon you should be able to find packs of cassette rubber belts, and one or more of the…

I recently tried to replace the belt on a mini perl cassette recorder. The shape of the belt wasn't round, it was a semicircle on the outer side and a wedge shape on the inner. How does one even Google that XD

"v belt cassette recorder" Duckduckgo gave me a gem: cassettedrivebelts.com

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#232
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all comes down to demand I guess... Most people seem to like Beats headphones or think their Airpods have top quality sound and don't care that $200 headphones exist that blow them out of the water. Most people use bluetooth with low quality codecs that distort the sound. In addition, most people listen to their music on streaming services that compress the heck out of tracks that are already heavily (dynamic rang…

Streaming services don't compress dynamic range, rather the opposite - because every streaming service employs loudness normalization the loudness wars have largely ended. Compressing your track to hell in an effort to get it to sound louder doesn't work anymore because every streaming service will just normalize it anyway. Spotify at least uses 320kbps vorbis for their "high quality" setting which is at the point wh…

>because every streaming service employs loudness normalization the loudness wars have largely ended

This is a joke, right?

Although I applaud their efforts, it has just created a second loudness war on how to maximize loudness despite the normalization.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#233
post #123
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…

I think soundbars have taken over for home theater setups. annoyingly, you can't get a system without a wireless subwoofer. I have a soundbar that creates a wifi access point for the subwoofer and it's really annoying. I really just want a wire. So, I've been considering an a/v receiver and dedicated speakers, which means I can't mount them on the tv

Do it. It'll sound much better than any soundbar.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#234
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…

Old audiophile saying, "there's no replacement for displacement".

No amount of whizz-bang tech is going to get around the problem of tiny speakers crammed into a small box in a ridiculous location.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#235
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all comes down to demand I guess... Most people seem to like Beats headphones or think their Airpods have top quality sound and don't care that $200 headphones exist that blow them out of the water. Most people use bluetooth with low quality codecs that distort the sound. In addition, most people listen to their music on streaming services that compress the heck out of tracks that are already heavily (dynamic rang…

I recently wanted up upgrade from 2 to 5 channels. Previously I just had 2 powered studio monitors hooked up to my tv via 1/8th inch. All I wanted was a D2A box that took the atmos signal and let me plug in more speakers. Turns out these are crazy expensive and it’s way cheaper to buy the giant box.

You don't really need Atmos for 5 channels - you could probably pick up an old surround AVR sans Atmos for pretty cheap.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#236

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.…

My Yamaha 2.0 amplifier is “buggy” in that it sometimes fails to turn on, so I have to pull it’s power cable and plug it back in to get it to turn on again.

But it’s also 6 years old, and was a cheap model. I’m still trying to find a decent amplifier for my home setup that’s not some 7.2 giant monstrosity but I’ve not had much luck.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#238

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.…

This. We had some Onkyo speakers and an amplifier.

One of the speaker got broken and the amp was acting "weird" like sometimes not outputting any sound but turning it off and on was literally fixing, etc.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as an audiophile, although I don't exactly agree with your specific choice of headphones (I have to say that or I wouldn't be an audiophile) I strongly agree with using good headphones driven by any old thing. Audio quality these days only really depends on the transducers - i.e. whatever converts things to or from electricity, which, unless you've got a turntable, means just your headphones and/or speakers.…

I have a pair of nice headphones (Hifiman Aryas, planar magnetics) that need to be driven fairly hard compared to most dynamics, and to that end, I've found that an outboard DAC + amp with enough juice to drive them properly makes a big difference. And not an "unnoticeable to audiophiles only" difference but a very obvious one.

That's an electrical compatibility thing more than a quality thing. iPhones+headphone jacks have high quality DACs (better than "audiophile equipment" which is a scam) but aren't good with high impedance, partly because it'd drain the battery.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#240
post #236

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.…

My Yamaha 2.0 amplifier is “buggy” in that it sometimes fails to turn on, so I have to pull it’s power cable and plug it back in to get it to turn on again. But it’s also 6 years old, and was a cheap model. I’m still trying to find a decent amplifier for my home setup that’s not some 7.2 giant monstrosity but I’ve not had much luck.

I bought a Yamaha amp in 2000, still works perfectly.

If I needed a new one I think I would go the DIY route; there are many models for less than $50 that seem very appealing. You can make a case around them to fit whatever setup or shelf organization you have.

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