Kenwood to stop selling home electronics

[squeegy200]

See article:

http://www.avrev.com/news/0305/25.kenwood.html

[risabet]

See article:

http://www.avrev.com/news/0305/25.kenwood.html

Good, they haven't had good sound in years.

[Woochifer]

I guess this means yet another once proud name that could soon be up on the auction block for some bottomfeeding opportunist to scoop up. This would be much the same way that cheap and low quality products bearing the Sansui, Dual, Akai, Advent, and Curtis Mathes nameplates, among others, today have no connection whatsoever to the companies that built up those brands several years ago.

I thought that Kenwood had carved out a pretty good niche for itself in the entry level price points in recent years. Unfortunately for them, their higher line models were never competitive with their peers. Quite a descent from their heyday of making some of the better amps on the market in the early-70s.

[kexodusc]

Hmm, are they enduring difficult times as a company, or have they just finally realized that the home audio/video market is too competitive, with knowledgable consumers, saturated competition, and low margins and decided to shift focus in favor of the mobile-audio market where margins are high, performance expectations are low, and tons of kids driving Honda Civics will spend rediculous amonts of money to make their stereo's louder than a jet engine?

If this is a trend, the consumers could end up being the losers here...the last thing you want is fewer alternatives.
Are we placing bets on who's next?

[shokhead]

I'll bit. JVC next?

[anamorphic96]

I got into this hobby with Kenwood back in 85 when my mother bought me one of there rack systems. I used to love Kenwood until I started reading and listening to other stuff. Kenwood seem to take a marked turn for the worse in the late 80's and early 90's. Not to familiar with the stuff from the 70's but I did get to own one of the amps from there BASIC series which was a tank and built in the mid 80's. I never saw gear like this from Kenwood again.

[MARTINLOGAN123]

Kenwood Excellon, Kenwood's high end car audio line, was once some of the top pf the line stuff as well, but with all of the problems that the faceplate and gears had, they were faced to lower their head in shame. The once high end line now has been dropped by Crutchfield, Tweeter, and Circuit City, and now has a place next to pyramid, road gear, and Xplod at Pep Boys. Very sad as I was a huge fan.