AR update as of 9/05

[Steve F]

Here is the AR update from the CEDIA (Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association) trade show in Indianapolis earlier this month. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the various electronics industry trade shows, CEDIA is now more important to the “core” of the electronics business as we know it than CES—this is the show that highlights all the audio/video/custom AV gear, and this show really ignores all the non-AV gadgetry and communications stuff that has overrun CES.

The AR name is now owned by Audiovox. At the Audiovox booth, there was a small display of current AR speakers. They included a tall, slender floorstanding speaker with a side-firing 10” woofer and a mid-tweet-mid array on the front. The mids appeared to be 4” aluminum or aluminum-looking cones. This was a “powered tower,” with the 10” woofer powered by an internal 175-watt subwoofer amplifier. Interesting: This configuration has all but disappeared in recent years, as Paradigm, Boston, Mirage, etc. have all dropped the powered tower. Only Def Tech, who originated the design, continues to offer it. That Audiovox would put out a powered tower under the AR label would indicate that they are pretty far out of touch with the way the audio market is today.

There were also a couple of fairly generic-looking bookshelf models, ported, with 5 or 6” woofers. There were also some silver computerish/plasma-ish speakers with perf metal grilles under both the Advent and AR names. Nothing really noteworthy.

Incidentally, “Audiovox” is just a marketing name. Like the vast majority of today’s so-called “manufacturers,” they merely specify what they want and some large overseas facility makes it to their specifications. Sometimes, companies don’t even design their own goods. The overseas vendor often has a stable full of completed products and they offer those to companies who then simply put their logo on them. AR is manufactured by a company called The Solidex Group, with facilities in Taiwan, Shenzhen City (mainland China), and Hong Kong. Real garden-variety stuff. Don’t look for AR to make any meaningful return to the audio market anytime soon, that’s for sure.

Steve F.

[rrcrain]

Not exatly correct. Canton offers several models that are self powered, some with only the bass self powered as well.

[Steve F]

>Not exatly correct. Canton offers several models that are

>self powered, some with only the bass self powered as well.

I guess what I meant was that the major brands of home loudspeakers on the US market--except fpr Def Tech--don't offer powered towers any longer.

Polk is closing theirs out, the Bose tower models were DOA, and the other brands I mentioned have discontinued them. That covers 95% of the market.

Canton is not even a blip on the radar.

Steve F.

[Guest Bret]

>Don’t look for AR to make any meaningful return to the audio market anytime soon, that’s for sure.<

Unless a group of us gets together and buys the brand from Audiovox, I don't look for it to come back at all. By the time Audiovox finishes-off the brand with junk out of China it'll have the same reputation as Fisher and Emerson or worse. Who in their right mind would use the brand again?

And *if* we all won the lottery and bought it, I would expect it to take at least three years and more probably five years to undo the damage done to the name.

And then the big question, and one I think is worthy of discussion:

If you woke-up tomorrow morning and there had been a lottery and you won AR and any assets from the Jensen years backward in time that might still exist, what would you build?

I'll answer for myself - I'd take the products which achieved some margin of success (the Phantoms, the M1-M6, the 9/90/11 or 3a Improved, the 6)and do something with them. (The Holographic Series would have a chance of succeeding today, IMO)

Bret