Classe closing it's doors on October 6
 

According to Strata-Gee.com Classe closing on October 6 the Montreal operation will cease to operate. Warranties will be honored by B&W New England. The end of a fine company. Strata-gee tells the full story.:tears:

Forte 4A.......I think this comes as no surprise after the restructuring of the B&W Group. Classe owners will no doubt be disappointed with the closing.

Sad. (I got 4 of their amps! Great amps btw).

I have a Sigma Amp 5 which is great.

Unfortunately my Sigma SSP faces numerous upgrade issues which are all not available (and likely won't ever be available).

Very sad

Sign of times. Audio industry is dying a slow death and has been for some time. Some of the dealers are primarily doing home automation now. Classe was a solid performer. Sad to see it go.

Wow! That's terrible news.......A Classe CA 100 was my first high end amplifier, so kind of sentimental to me. The first major high end system I ever heard was a pair of Sonus Faber Extremas being driven by a Classe CA 400. Sad news to be sure.

- Buck

That is very sad news. Classes was one of the finest and most accommodating companies in audio without the arrogance and nastiness that pervades much of the high end companies lately. The Omega SACD, Preamp MkII and MkIII and the Omega Monoblock amps were one of the finest combos out there. Very sad for all the good people at Classe and customers that will be affected.

I had a CDP-10 player many years ago. Well made highly rated CD player. Also had a SSP-30 surround preamp. Great for music and movies. Excellent 2 channel company but always over the past few years were one step behind the competition in HT.

My heart goes out to those losing their jobs especially given the Canadian economy is expected to get worse.

I wonder what brand of amp B&W will now push given that Classe has such great synergy with their speakers.

Classe nor B&W are listed as exhibitors at RMAF 2017 next week. That's unusual IIRC & a shame B&W isn't represented by the factory nor local dealer.

Best Sirs,

Bob

Yes it's true they are closing... I've been corresponding with a cable dealer in Canada today. He said Classe was using his cables in their factory and he just got back this morning as they called him to come and retrieve his cables since they were closing.

That's terrible news.

Classe had been a top performer for many years.

Listen Up
 

Cool Beans:

Listen Up has many rooms, most of them on one floor. It is highly likely that one or more of these rooms will have Bowers & Wilkins speakers.

It is highly unlikely that there will be any Classe equipment present.

sad :(

Very sad. :tears:

I agree, very sad. I have enjoyed my cp-800 but just decided to sell it on the marketplace to upgrade to a new preamp.

Sad News. I had their DR-25 amp and DR-6 Preamp.

That didn't happen to be at Hi-Fi Buys in buckhead did it? I only ask because I see you are in Atlanta and that was one of the systems we had setup for a while in the Sound Gallery in the Buckhead location. Was awesome equipment for sure!

it is what it is ...................the times they are a changin' , personally I think Serge is correct.

Moi? I'll stand corrected RG. Just looking at Vendors who have registered & nix on either.

Best Sir,

Bob

Sad to see a great company die...

Indeed.

Welcome to the death of the middle class. Seeing the market more and more bifurcating between great value at the lower end and ridiculously priced high end aspirational pieces.

I enjoyed my time with the CAM600 mono... It was actually a very very good amplifier that I wish I kept.

Agree on bifurcation, but it's more between the ultra high-end and the mearly high-end.

Not sure if Classe is a "middle class" brand. The median U.S. household income is about $59,000 per year. I don't know too many "regular" folks with Classe gear.

Sad, especially as they seemed to be a strong brand, especially with B&W depth, in a tough business.

One of my best sounding systems was the Classe CP700, CDP202 and M400's powering the 800D's. They have made some great gear over the years.

Wow. Didn't realize how cheap their gear is relatively speaking - mostly below $10k. Guess they got eaten alive by all the new and existing players - the market is hyper competitive in the sub-$15k space.

What I'm seeing in the market is a crazy amount of action sub-$15k and then action $50k and above. In between seems to be a wasteland - good products but little interest as it's too expensive for 90% of the market and not exclusive enough for the whales.

Too sad. Even as the number of people in the world grows.
Makes one wonder how long it will be before ARC moves to Binghamton or McIntosh to Minneapolis. Or, both to China.

Ummmmm, no way! That's exactly where it was! That was one of the first true high end systems I had ever heard at the time and was main thing that got me into this crazy hobby! I remember I had a CD of Dire Straits Brothers in Arms (of course). Blew me away!

Buck

Is it sad??? No... not really. I saw it coming. I'll tell you why.

About a two years before the Sigma Series hit the stands I asked Dave (Nauber) what were the development plans for the company. He would normally divulge a few nuggets of information whenever I would ask such a thing but not at that time. He kept what he knew pretty close to his chest which I thought was a little uncharacteristic given our relationship. Six months before the official unveiling, the new series leaked out. I reached out to him to confirm if the rumors of a lower cost Sigma Series were true and he did. I expressed some reservations of the strategy and I asked him if he had any concerns of cannibalizing the Delta Series. He didn't say. I sold my equipment shortly thereafter... ALL OF IT. (Get where I am going?)

Fast forward another year or so to the ill conceived idea B&W had to sell their business to a home automation company. The first thought I had, literally, was... What does this mean to Classe??? After all, EVA wanted to marry their technology with B&W. Well... wait a minute, that is WHY B&W acquired Classe to begin with! So how was this going to work??? Well it wasn't going to work. I suspected they would just sell the brand off but that didn't pan out so here we are.

So is it sad? YES, its sad that the brand became diluted and I warned him so.

I’m sad today. I have been waiting for the new Delta series a long time and now I read that Classé is going out of business. Sad day

We've had some disastrous buy outs recently Thiel and Classe. On the plus side CJ sale looks like it has a healthy future.

I had a Classe' Model 15. Sounded great, and was built like a tank.

High end audio is a merciless beast, fortunes change in a heartbeat. Doesn't even seem to matter how good or bad the gear actually is.....

https://youtu.be/rY0WxgSXdEE

Think Thiel's fate was sealed when the founder died. Hopefully, CJ will soldier on. Terrific gear and service.

This is sad to hear. I think it's a great question, as to what B & W will pair their speakers with. McIntosh is such a wonderful pairing with B & W, I hope they go that route.

In all of their blog posts for the past year or so they showed Rotel electronics and not Classe Audio electronics. Maybe that was a signal.

Will guess that of B&W's production will soon move to China, like Rotel.

Rotel and B&W are 2 separate companies. Rotel has a business agreement w/B&W to ship their products through the B&W distribution chain. They also share advertising. Rotel makes it's own decisions in terms of product and product development.

All of B&W's manufacturing had already moved to China, except for the production of the 800 series that remains in the UK.