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  #41  
Old 10-02-2017, 10:02 AM
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Formerly YB-2 Formerly YB-2 is offline
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Originally Posted by Forte 4A View Post
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.
That's like saying ARC & McIntosh are two different companies. B&W and Rotel are owned by the same person. That makes them the same company as far as the world is concerned. The top person(s) at each report to the same person at the top, who is Gideon Yu of Eva Automation in Silicon Valley (also the owner of the 49ers).
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  #42  
Old 10-02-2017, 10:09 AM
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RIP to a great company.
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  #43  
Old 10-02-2017, 12:11 PM
Allman779 Allman779 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RebelMan View Post
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.
Perfectly written. Same here, I was waiting for the new Delta series when I heard the first whispers. I went away from b&w (as a group), there are enough alternatives out there.

But still very sad, the Classe CAP-2100 was the first ‘serious’ piece of equipement I bought.
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  #44  
Old 10-02-2017, 04:09 PM
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To survice you need to have dealers that want to carry your product. Viable dealers are able to pick and choose from the wealth of audio products currently available. I think we are going to see more of these old favorites disappear. Will the priciest brands along with those that appeal to the mass market survive will mid priced high end like Classe disappear?
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  #45  
Old 10-08-2017, 12:19 PM
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Very, very sad. I was looking forward to the new Delta line-up.
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  #46  
Old 10-13-2017, 12:01 AM
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Definitely sad news. I noted a while ago they retreated from the higher echelon of amplification equipment when they didn't continue the Omega series. The Delta series was very good and competed with most high-end gear, but not in the stratosphere.

One question that comes to mind is whether or not they considered divesting Classe from the acquired B&W Group. Classe had a following (me included), and it sounded like the next Delta generation already had significant amount of development completed. The brand would not compete with Rotel or Bowers & Wilkins. One thing I CAN see as a limitation is that many high-end brands are headed by relatively well known designers such as Charlie Hansen, Dan D'Agostino, David Wilson, Richard Vandersteen, Alon Wolf, etc. who serve as company spokesperson and design evangelist. Established companies with brand recognition, e.g. - Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, Bowers & Wilkins, etc. that have been acquired by conglomerates and/or the founders have retired seem to be able to survive. Classe probably isn't in that echelon unfortunately.
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  #47  
Old 10-15-2017, 06:40 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2 View Post
That's like saying ARC & McIntosh are two different companies. B&W and Rotel are owned by the same person. That makes them the same company as far as the world is concerned. The top person(s) at each report to the same person at the top, who is Gideon Yu of Eva Automation in Silicon Valley (also the owner of the 49ers).


Rotel is not owned by the BW group (EVA now). Rotel is still a family owned Japanese company, with manufacturing in China. Bowers and Wilkins distributes Rotel globally, provides them with product planning and marketing resources.
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  #48  
Old 10-28-2017, 03:14 AM
Crunchyriff Crunchyriff is offline
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Very, very sad news that is new to me. Really had high hopes for them moving fwd after the Sigma line and the anticipated new Delta gear ... wow.
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  #49  
Old 11-22-2017, 05:59 PM
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For all you Classe lovers, the world has not ended. Just come over to Bryston and you will be fine.
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  #50  
Old 11-22-2017, 08:28 PM
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