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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

#261

Post by pmoriarty »

Frost1x wrote: post #196
wctawcta wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't this contradicts the "gone the way of the DSLR market" claim. Sonos and similar systems are simply good enough for most people. Whether it's TVs, cameras, surround sound systems, we reached a point of diminishing returns by cramming in more pixels or speakers. At that point, you're competing on factors like convenience. There will still be markets for 7.1+ surround sound or DSLR cameras, but they're smaller n…

With DSLRs my main complaint to this day is still the lack of a good modular lens system for phones (I understand some of the challenges and tradeoffs). For most people's camera habits (selfies, food shots, group pictures...) the lenses your modern flagship phone provides are mostly great. What's seriously lacking though is in the say 50-70+mm focal length range. I have an old Canon DSLR in my office storage collecti…

Another huge problem I've experienced with phone cameras is that they seem to all need to autofocus before taking a shot. This is horrible for, say, trying to take a picture out of a car's window as the car is moving, as the phone camera keeps refocusing on different parts of the scene, so I often miss the shot I need to take.

Any DSLR (and even many non-phone point-and-shoot cameras) have manual focus, so this is just not an issue with them.

Other problems with phone cameras are relatively slow shutter speeds and poor low light performance compared to DSLRs.

Phones can also only do digital zoom, which is horrible compared to a DSLR with a zoom lens. There's no way to put lens filters on phones either. They can't do infrared photography, etc, etc.

Lots and lots of ways that phones simply haven't caught up to DSLRs yet.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#264

Post by syockit »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #27
agumonkey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea Denon was related to Onkyo :)

Denki Onkyo and Onkyo were two different companies. "On" is an obsolete / traditional pronunciation of "sound" so it's not surprising to find it in many audio company names.

It's not obsolete. It's the Chinese pronunciation.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#265

Post by hilbert42 »

christoph wrote: post #156
movetheworld wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spinn…

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

My Sony 100W per channel amplifier dates from around 1972 - '73 and it still performs perfectly. Moreover, none of the potentiometers (volume control, etc.) has gone scratchy with age, nor has any of the electrolytic capacitors lost sufficient capacity to a point where hum is induced in the output. Essentially, this 50 year old amplifier is still in perfect working condition.

Oh, BTW, it has a handbook complete with circuit diagram and a list of replacement parts if anything were to go wrong but I've never had to use it in earnest.

When I look at the poor state and quality of electronics products these days I often wonder why we consumers let their quality and the service thereof fall to such a shocking low standard over recent decades.

By not complaining sufficiently, we've only ourselves to blame.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#266

Post by bryanlarsen »

syockit wrote: post #264
bryanlarsen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denki Onkyo and Onkyo were two different companies. "On" is an obsolete / traditional pronunciation of "sound" so it's not surprising to find it in many audio company names.

It's not obsolete. It's the Chinese pronunciation.

It was the Chinese pronunciation 600 years ago.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#267

Post by dylan604 »

retcon wrote: post #78
dylan604 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The switch to little bitty teeny tiny speakers just makes me sad. I miss my towers with multiple drivers and crossovers accordingly.

[Edit] (large format) ,[/] Surround American made monitors designed by the Pet Sounds engineer Alan Sides. https://oceanwayaudio.com/as-the-sea-level-rises-for-immersi... British (also available in consumer version and pretty finishing): ATC SCM150 https://atc.audio/hi-fi/loudspeakers/classic-series/scm150/ American: JBL M2 https://jblpro.com/products/m2 (Or just buy JBL commercial theater smaller models like many in…

Audiophiles, aka audio nerds, have always given me a chuckle in a good spirited way. The Ocean Way link is a great example. Just look at the image of that mix bay. The first one looks normal-ish with a left-front and right-front cluster and assumingly a matching center channel right in front of the console. Alongside that center channel is probably a few near field L/R pairs. So far, so good. Scroll down though, and we start to see the where the -phile takes over. The introduction of the side speakers are where the true geeky levels start oozing. You can see the side channels in pair of near field speakers as well as the rear surrounds in the very top of the image. However, it's the fact that there's now a bit of rigging brought in to fly a couple of speakers directly overhead. I'm also guessing there are more speakers on the rear wall that were not in the frame. I'm guessing it sounds pretty amazing, but no mere mortal can afford the home version of that making it well outside the acceptability of main stream. Hence the plight of DVD-Audio.

I am always amazed at the sound field imaging that can be created from some very well produced stereo. Just 2 n-way speakers, a good amp, and the mind of a great engineer.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#268

Post by devrand »

christoph wrote: post #125
devrand wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW they do support DTS (but not DTS-HD) now.

Poor/late timing, as DTS is essentially dead at this point[1] in the streaming market which I’m guessing is generally what they are catering for. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30942269

I was actually surprised they bothered to add it at all. It's definitely not for their target audience: people using streaming services. What they provide is actually great for that audience.

My best guess is that they keep pushing into the home theater space and wanted to grab a bit of market share from the higher-end bucket without having to pay too much in licensing.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#269

Post by albrewer »

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 had an Onkyo receiver that suddenly stopped working. I always attributed it to a nearby lightning strike frying it (and only it), but now your comment makes me wonder if it was just straight up defective.

Re: Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy

#270

Post by saveferris »

girvo wrote: post #236
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.…

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.

Not 100% certain but seems you are looking for smaller a 2 channel amplifier. This one from Emotiva may be what you are looking for.

https://emotiva.com/collections/amps/products/basx-a2m-stere...

I've had their XPA amplifiers for years and they work great, good value for the performance on a lot of the Emotiva gear

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