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Author Topic: Truly sad  (Read 9688 times)

TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Re: Truly sad
« Reply #10 on: August 16, 2017, 10:05:47 AM »

Ummm, Meyer, L'acoustics, D&B, Digico, Avid, Fulcrum Acoustic, Danley, Clair, Yamaha.  Basically anything you see on a rider, right?
I'm not aware of Danley, Fulcrum, or Clair making their own drivers.  Maybe some of the others do - I don't know, but I doubt it.  Penny & Giles makes faders for many of the big-name desks.  Interestingly Behringer rolled their own fader for the X32, but they did so to cut costs.  Yamaha probably rolls more custom silicon than most, but even they use many off the shelf parts.

I know in the past companies like EAW have commissioned specific drivers from driver vendors, and I presume that is still possible from companies like B&C.

This shifting around happens all the time.  Companies like Sun used to make their own application-specific CPUs.  They were good at what they did and faster than a general-purpose CPU like an Intel...for a while, then Intel's $8,000,000,000 R&D budget overran them and a boring X86 chip became more capable than a special purpose chip through sheer brute force.

I have a feeling that B&C's R&D department is more capable and advanced than JBL's ever was.  At some point it becomes a business decision to focus on your competency and outsource component development to specialists that are better at it or cheaper than you are.

Time will tell how Samsung will treat Harman's professional brands, but I think it's a little early to declare the sky is falling.  We'll see.
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Truly sad
« Reply #11 on: August 16, 2017, 01:21:46 PM »

I'm not aware of Danley, Fulcrum, or Clair making their own drivers.  Maybe some of the others do - I don't know, but I doubt it.  Penny & Giles makes faders for many of the big-name desks.  Interestingly Behringer rolled their own fader for the X32, but they did so to cut costs.  Yamaha probably rolls more custom silicon than most, but even they use many off the shelf parts.

I know in the past companies like EAW have commissioned specific drivers from driver vendors, and I presume that is still possible from companies like B&C.

This shifting around happens all the time.  Companies like Sun used to make their own application-specific CPUs.  They were good at what they did and faster than a general-purpose CPU like an Intel...for a while, then Intel's $8,000,000,000 R&D budget overran them and a boring X86 chip became more capable than a special purpose chip through sheer brute force.

I have a feeling that B&C's R&D department is more capable and advanced than JBL's ever was.  At some point it becomes a business decision to focus on your competency and outsource component development to specialists that are better at it or cheaper than you are.

Time will tell how Samsung will treat Harman's professional brands, but I think it's a little early to declare the sky is falling.  We'll see.
Most speaker driver manufacturers will build custom drivers.

Nobody makes "all the parts" of the cabinets.

Even if the drivers are made by the manufacturer-is the wood?  What about the steel/aluminum in the drivers?  Do they mine their own copper for the voice coils?  And cut the trees for the cones?

At some point other parts are made by others.
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A complex question is easily answered by a simple-easy to understand WRONG answer!

Ivan Beaver
Danley Sound Labs

PHYSICS- NOT FADS!

Stu McDoniel

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Re: Truly sad
« Reply #12 on: August 24, 2017, 10:34:11 PM »

I just ran across this on the Lansing forum pages.

It is truly sad how corporations forget about the people who made them.
Then there was Altec Lansing.  I have a few sets of different multicells and several model compression drivers 1" and 291- 16b.  Mantaray horns as well and some cone drivers.   

I just have a hard time thinking about parting with the stuff even though it is in the basement.
Both JBL and Altec set the standards back in the day.

http://alteclansingunofficial.nlenet.net/proloudspeakers/lgdriverslit.html
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Bob Leonard

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Re: Truly sad
« Reply #13 on: August 25, 2017, 02:15:28 PM »

You guy's all know I bleed orange, no surprise there. To be sure though, as Tim states above, those good folks left over a year ago and the world hasn't come to an end yet. Plus, the majority of the work done by them was within the consumer division, not pro sound. Regardless, it's talent lost. However, I'm sure JBL will still be JBL in another 50 years.
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BOSTON STRONG........
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I did a gig for Otis Elevator once. Like every job, it had it's ups and downs.

Stephen Kirby

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Re: Truly sad
« Reply #14 on: August 26, 2017, 10:48:00 AM »

Years ago I worked with some extraordinary folks at Dolby Labs.  Pioneers in the audio industry.  These days in consumer electronics I work with bunches of young folks who's understanding of what goes on in a driver or cabinet amazes me.  The science of audio has progressed by leaps and bounds as computer analysis, instrumentation and modeling has evolved.  Things that seem latest tech, like FIR, is old hat for these kids who have grown up taking for granted the ability to model complex calculations.  There's still a few old guard around who have learned some of the lessons the hard way and can avoid a few pitfalls.  But we run as fast as we can to keep up with the overall picture these young folks see.

I feel that the future of audio is encouraging.  The next generation of bright folks is poised to make the next level of advances.  The amount of sound that my iPad Air makes is astonishing considering how thin it is.  While most of the efforts are in these little portable devices, these people know things.  And some of it will make it's way to pro audio.  Watch out.
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Truly sad-The pro side of things
« Reply #15 on: September 13, 2017, 05:09:37 PM »

You guy's all know I bleed orange, no surprise there. To be sure though, as Tim states above, those good folks left over a year ago and the world hasn't come to an end yet. Plus, the majority of the work done by them was within the consumer division, not pro sound. Regardless, it's talent lost. However, I'm sure JBL will still be JBL in another 50 years.
And now it affects the Pro side

http://www.avnetwork.com/systems-contractor-news/harman-pro-employees-face-massive-layoffs/127193
« Last Edit: September 14, 2017, 08:36:33 AM by Ivan Beaver »
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A complex question is easily answered by a simple-easy to understand WRONG answer!

Ivan Beaver
Danley Sound Labs

PHYSICS- NOT FADS!

Scott Holtzman

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Re: Truly sad
« Reply #16 on: September 13, 2017, 05:25:06 PM »

Quote
for the last two years to better serve our customers, increase our competitiveness, and accelerate new product innovations,

How are any of these goals furthered by cutting the workforce so dramatically?
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Scott AKA "Skyking" Holtzman

Ghost Audio Visual Solutions, LLC
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Stephen Swaffer

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Re: Truly sad
« Reply #17 on: September 13, 2017, 09:03:52 PM »

Sounds like marketing speak for exactly the same thing that happened at a factory here-were going to lay everyone off, and create "new positions".  You have no experience in this "new position", but we will be charitable and hire you for it at x% of your previous wage.

"These centers will allow the company's engineers to focus on critical product differentiations instead of requiring them to develop motors, mechanical structures, and other supporting elements. "

Aren't "motors, mechanical structures, and other supporting elements"  what should differentiate a quality product from a cheap gimmick?

 
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Steve Swaffer

Russ Davis

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Re: Truly sad
« Reply #18 on: September 13, 2017, 09:55:13 PM »

At Dell, downsizing was cheerfully called "right-sizing".  It really sucked not knowing who might be missing from the next engineering meeting.  People were escorted to their cars too swiftly to hand over their work to colleagues (accounts were immediately frozen because the company was paranoid about ousted employees sabotaging files), so "survivors" wasted countless hours recreating work that was already done.  When my time finally came up I had no hard feelings, but I regretted not being able to turn over my files to my remaining team members/friends.  When I was hired Dell had 5-year strategic plans; seven years later they were canning essential people quarterly, as knee-jerk reactions to appease nervous stockholders.
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Truly sad
« Reply #19 on: September 14, 2017, 08:36:05 AM »

At Dell, downsizing was cheerfully called "right-sizing".  It really sucked not knowing who might be missing from the next engineering meeting.  People were escorted to their cars too swiftly to hand over their work to colleagues (accounts were immediately frozen because the company was paranoid about ousted employees sabotaging files), so "survivors" wasted countless hours recreating work that was already done.  When my time finally came up I had no hard feelings, but I regretted not being able to turn over my files to my remaining team members/friends.  When I was hired Dell had 5-year strategic plans; seven years later they were canning essential people quarterly, as knee-jerk reactions to appease nervous stockholders.
My wife used to work as a sales engineer for a large telecommunications company who built a lot of the infrastructure that the internet now uses.

They had a MASSIVE (think tens of thousands of employees) layoff, which she was a part of.

The CEO got a nice 4-5 millon dollar bonus because of the 4th quarter profits.   Yeah-when you don't have payroll to meet.

But then there were no salesmen or enginners for future work, so the company died quickly.

But hey-as long as the stock holders got a nice bonus (and then sold off), they were happy---------
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A complex question is easily answered by a simple-easy to understand WRONG answer!

Ivan Beaver
Danley Sound Labs

PHYSICS- NOT FADS!

ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Truly sad
« Reply #19 on: September 14, 2017, 08:36:05 AM »


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