Music and Audio Company Consolidation
HEADLINE (Dec 5 2011): Gibson Acquires KRK, Stanton, and Cerwin-Vega.
I’m not a fan of this. It leads to decreased competition, price controls, and a decrease in innovation. Take a look at the handful of companies that now control a majority of the Music and Pro-Audio world:
HARMAN INTERNATIONAL
- AKG microphones
- BSS signal processors
- Crown amplifiers
- dbx signal processors
- Digitech guitar products
- JBL pro audio
- Lexicon digital processing
- Soundcraft mixing consoles
- Studer mixing consoles
LOUD TECHNOLOGIES
- Alvarez guitars
- Ampeg bass guiar amps
- Crate amplifiers
- Blackheart guitar amps
- EAW pro audio
- Mackie mixing consoles
- Martin Audio
FENDER MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS CORPORATION
- Charvel
- Genz-Benz
- Gibralter
- Gretsch
- Guild
- Fender
- Hamer
- Jackson
- LP
- Ovation
- Sabian
- Sunn
- SWR
- Tacoma
- Takamine
- Toca
GIBSON GUITAR CORPORATION
- Baldwin
- Epiphone
- Gibson
- Kalamazoo
- Kramer
- Slingerland
- Steinberger
- Tobias
- Valley Arts
- Wurlitzer
BOSCH
The Bosch Group is the parent company of Electro-Voice, Telex, Memorex, Dynacord, RTS, and others. It actually has 350 subsidiaries in 60 countries.
NOTEABLE EXCEPTIONS
I salute the following companies, who brave out the free market on their own terms:
- Ashly signal processing
- Meyer pro audio
- DPA microphones
- Shure microphones
- Radial Engineering
Jermination 
December 7, 2011 at 11:03 am
What if it means these smaller acquired companies and products staying alive vs. going under if left on their own however? Seems like the pros outweigh the cons?
December 7, 2011 at 11:15 am
In many cases, it means they just bought the name to remove the competition. A lot of the smaller guitar brands now owned by the mega corps do not even put out any models. They just vanished. All so we can walk into a Guitar Center and see 200 Fender Strats hanging in the same store.