What does this mean for our kick ass Empeg team. Hopefully they don't get sucked up into the parent company of Denon Ltd. and Marantz Japan Inc.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/030321/tech_sonicblue_2.html

Not good.

That sucks! Will Pearl or the new OEM car product see the light of day?

I don't get it. They're filing for reorganization, but are selling off all of their product lines (Rio, ReplayTV, and GoVideo). What do they plan to reorganize once they're done? Their moribund Diamond line?

Wow. It was extremely hard to see this one coming... With SonicBlue's* legendary marketing, customer service, and order fulfillment practices, I figured they'd be around forever.........

Let's hope whatever new company is in charge of the Cambridge shop has a better clue as to how to serve customers and market their products.

Goodbye, SonicBlue, we hardly knew ye.




* "SonicBlue" and "customer service" above refer to the service from the parent company, and should not be construed as criticism of the customer service which came directly from the Cambridge team.

Well, I'll give them this. Denon and Marantz are "high-end" consumer audio brands that have much broader market penetration than SonicBlue products were ever able to get. I'll bet that this could put our favorite empeg software into Denon-manufactured hardware, resulting in quality products at reasonable prices.

I just hope they can get another release of 2.0 software out before there's a chance for anybody to pull the plug.

I'm wondering if I should start buying stuff, does anyone know if the "go video" line of products was/is any good? I need a surround sound setup and don't want to shell out an arm and a leg (but would like it to be decent)

Another interesting factoid: look at the stock over the past few months. The market took a noticable up-tick and SonicBlue stayed flat, finally collapsing today with this announcement. The flat response could well imply that some people anticipated something like this was in the offing (although the trading volume is so light, that it looks like nobody really gave a crap, one way or another).

I looked at some of the GoVideo stuff and it is really lightly constructed. Judge for yourself but it doesn't seem to have much metal in the frame, etc. Probably be OK but I backed off of buying a combo DVD/VCR when I picked it up.

I basically want it for the speakers... I need a new set of surround sound stuff.....

I don't know how much you are looking to spend, but these take a lot of beating for the price

I have been watching their stock price over the last several months. They were due on a note payment on March 17, 2003. Guess they couldn't make it ... so Ch 11.

Actually, what I had been calculating was the value of the "Empeg" company purchased by SonicBlue based on original purchase price of $1.9MM and relative stock prices from the date of the purchase to present. Based solely on that criteria, with SonicBlue trading at 9.82 in Novmber 2000 and the current price of ~ 0.07 the value of that business unit is $13,543... give or take.

Hopefully they don't get sucked up into the parent company of Denon Ltd. and Marantz Japan Inc.

Well, better to get sucked up somewhere rather than nowhere....and better, I'm thinking (for The Guys anyway), to actually have a Chapter 11 buyer than disappear in some other Chapter (like 7?).

Not sure that Denon/Marantz would shell out 50 million if they didn't see some of the products/code/people continuing. Let's cross our fingers.

Given Rob's recent upbeat posts about pearl, were the team rather blindsided by this or no?

-Zeke

Hell, I have most of that in my bank account. I'll buy it! Pearl WILL see the light of day.

Does anyone have $10.00 to spare for an initial production run?

Crap. You'd think with kick-ass products like the Empeg, the original mp3 players and ReplayTV they would be doing ok. I bought the original PNP300 32mb player from Rio back when it came out, and later the Rio branded MKII. They have always seemed to be on top of the curve and trying to deliver what people actually want, not what the industry dictates. Remember the hububb over the original PNP300? It almost wasn't released over FUD!

Given Rob's recent upbeat posts about pearl, were the team rather blindsided by this or no?

There was a public announcement in January that buyers were being sought. We didn't know who it would be until today, but Marantz and Denon are both great audio brands. I'd love to get a staff discount on some of their separates!

Development here is continuing as normal. All sorts of official processes have to be gone through before anyone can talk about the future, but we're up beat.

Rob

I'd love to get a staff discount on some of their separates!

Really! Jim *like* Denon.

If y'all are upbeat, I'm upbeat.

Could it have been driven by RePlayTV's legal costs?

Hope you guys weren't being paid in stock options..

True, true. I tend to look at things more from a "solid product" standpoint and sometimes don't think about the hidden business costs behind the curtain.

Assuming that the buyers keep the empeg development team then this could be a good thing - Denon are established in the car audio market.

I would hope that this sale doesn't kill the Visteon deal, and also that the Visteon deal isn't exclusive. It would be great to see competing empeg-technology-based car players on the market.

What I meant by "sucked up into the parent company" was, they stop development on our beloved player and future products. I know the company who bought them make high-end stuff (I'm a NAD person myself).. hehe.

So hopefully good things happen the original team! Maybe Empeg II ?? or Rio Car II??

FYI - My Original Empeg player is now 1 year and 5 months old (Paid $699us for it) Best money I've ever spent. And far better then the NEO 35 which only worked for 8 months. Thanks for the great player, and best wishes on the future!

What I meant by "sucked up into the parent company" was, they stop development on our beloved player and future products.

Oh, I know what you meant and I agree that there is uncertainty as a result of the shift. I just guess that, as someone who is about 6 days away from *not* getting sucked up into any parent company, I am more inclined to look on the bright side WRT Denon/Marantz!!

Hope you guys weren't being paid in stock options..

My empeg options were due to vest in a couple of months. Guess I won't be buying that Porsche now

Rob

My empeg options were due to vest in a couple of months. Guess I won't be buying that Porsche now

That blows, everyone deserves a Porsche.

I notice that D&M also own McIntosh.

For whatever it's worth, Marantz does know how to deal with expensive, very limited market, highly complex (for the user) hardware products. They still sell home-theater remote controls related to the Phililps Pronto series. Great devices, I have two.

Don't options vest immedietly when the company is bought or goes IPO??

Edit: Rather, check to see if they do.. Stock option agreements are never standard.

Oh, hey, that would rock if that were the case. Rob could get his Porsche early.