IAG purchases Mission Speakers

AMCross

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now its downhill for another uk brand :mad:
 
Considering what they've done with Quad and Wharfedale,that hopefully may not be the case,and may be more of a brand/technology that fits well with their current market,going at a bargain price.

Have to wait and see...
 
And of course Mission were in such great shape before IAG bought them :suicide:.
 
IAG buying Mission is a step forward if you ask me, things did'nt seem too clever in the Mission camp for a while, but I think IAG should do a sound job.
 
This is great news!

According to what they did with TAG clearout prices we might get Pilastro for a grand now :D

One pair for me pleaseeeee!
 
Sorry, can't agree this is positive.

IAG is a cancer in the British audio industry. It takes out mostly the old/venerated but it also hits the occassional young victim.

OK, granted, there has to be some vulnerability that allows it to get a grip in the first place, but I've not seen any victim recover to the vitality they had in their better days. (Would someone care to name a few that are performing better with IAG involvment than they every did before? I'd be encouraged if someone can.)

Sad thing is that no-one seems to be working on a cure yet.
 
edward said:
(Would someone care to name a few that are performing better with IAG involvment than they every did before? I'd be encouraged if someone can.)

Quad and Wharfedale seem to be managing pretty well,and although the Tag Helpdesk isn't good,the help available from the Quad end of things is nothing less than excellent,even for long superceded items like the Quad IIs.
 
There goes the support for my Mission kit :(
 
nic my fear also
 
I think we're kidding ouselves, Alex, if we imagine that IAG will ever produce a QUAD product that grabs the same market share as the 33/303 did. Even in the now greatly enlarged market, I think they'd be hard pushed to make the same numbers, what ever they were.

Similarly, Wharfedale is unlikely to reach the market share it had in the days of the Dovedale either.

People would have sold bottles and and their younger brothers for those items. I think it is very unlikely that IAG could raise that kind of lust in the west these days. If you think otherwise, I'm listening. I don't mind being proven wrong on this.
 
edward said:
I think we're kidding ouselves, Alex, if we imagine that IAG will ever produce a QUAD product that grabs the same market share as the 33/303 did. Even in the now greatly enlarged market, I think they'd be hard pushed to make the same numbers, what ever they were.

No offence, but if Quad were owned by God, it would never achieve the same market share. If the designs were to retain any of the essence of Quad, then in this day and age, the market share they have is realisitically the best they can hope for- or perhaps you think that Joe and Joesephene public are all crying out for a pair of electrostatics and some tube amps? There are too many other makes offering too many products for any brand to be that successful.

As to Wharfedale, the same applies- my company for example has spent the best part of six years trying to take bites out of them (with varying degrees of success) as has everybody else. This is no more attributable to IAG than it is to the weather.
 
Yes, I think you're right. However, God would put serious bucks into R&D rather than buy IPR and hope the world stands still long enough to let him make a killing on it in a less discerning market.

Have to that when electrostatics speakers failed t give me the first 4 organ chords of Also sprach Zarathustra, I decided my foray into this stuff would not extend beyond headphones.

What you say about the Wharedale brand is a surprise. Acoustic Research had minimal brand worth when their R&D failed to keep pace. I didn't think Wharfedale under its current owners had done anything in that area. We live and learn.
 
As much as it pains me to say this about a rival brand, the latest Diamond 9 series kit is well built, innovative and uses excellent componentry- which to my mind would make it a fine spiritual descendent to the original Diamond series. Other products in the range are similarly impressive. Certainly, there seems to be no lack of investment in the recent product.
 
Wouldn't this be more helpful in the speakers section? :confused:

At least it's put an end to all of the rumours surrounding Missions future - hopefully we'll get more speakers like the old 77 series (just a reintroduction would put that series miles ahead of most of todays competition!). :)
 
Now that is encouraging. I wonder what their criteria for investment in R&D and marketing is - presumably linked to market reseach suggesting an attractive ROI. I wonder too when will it be evidenced in the AV32R DP and AV192R products where the market at present is still quite small but could be made a lot bigger with the right pricing and packaging strategy.

The problem is that high end markets expect products to be matched with an after-sales service of the same calibre, where the expectations of the Diamond 9 consumer is probably somewhat less demanding generally. Is there any evidence that IAG is capable of delivering this kind of service? From the experience of so many people here, it seems quite the opposite. Maybe they would make more money selling the TAG IPR on to a company that has that kind of corporate mentality. Any suggestions?
 
Remember speaker R&D doesn't cost that much compared to AV - typically it's one speaker designer and a collection of technician types who get high on chemicals building prototypes out of chipboard! Also hifi speaker design hasn't really progressed much at all and typically it's the same ol' design principles with a few tweaks to keep it up todate with the current market trends, latest drivers and price. If you have a large speaker manufacturing plant (like IAG) that needs to be kept busy to stay profitable then buying up a dead Brit speaker company makes sense. It gives you an incentive to ensure that the product ranges are kept competitive otherwise low sales = low demand for manufacture = why did we buy this company in the first place?

AV development is expensive to do it properly. Involves reasonable size teams of specialist software and hardware engineers, all the million and one licences that are not exactly cheap, product certification and lengthy debug times, high risk (some chipsets are unusable due to fundamental bugs or get discontinued very quickly) and products have a short sales life, hence you are permanently investing in R&D to keep your products leading edge.

That's why most audio companies buy in the core technologies and just do the analogue bits, power supply, front display and box... you can't really make a leading edge product though using this strategy as everyone else can use those third party bits.

If you want to be in the high-end AV business either make sure you've got a great market share as there isn't much to share in the first place, or run the business for the love of it and have deep pockets! :eek:)
 
Here is my input re the TAG IAG helpline - I have had nothing but brilliant support from IAG with my purchase of TAG equipment (from Sevenoaks Brighton). They were helpful and knowledgable when I phoned for some help during set-up. As far as I am concerned IAG owning Mission will enhance the Mission brand. :smashin:
 
Simonsound said:
As far as I am concerned IAG owning Mission will enhance the Mission brand. :smashin:

Knowing some problems mission had in recent years it might be the truth in the end.
Now, come on IAG, we want to see Pilastro offered for "IAG" price .....
 
Simonsound said:
Here is my input re the TAG IAG helpline - I have had nothing but brilliant support from IAG with my purchase of TAG equipment (from Sevenoaks Brighton). They were helpful and knowledgable when I phoned for some help during set-up. As far as I am concerned IAG owning Mission will enhance the Mission brand. :smashin:

I found Tag brilliant when answering my questions re new sales, many companies are, but I think the wheat is separated from the chaff when servicing is needed :lesson:
 
Simonsound said:
Here is my input re the TAG IAG helpline - I have had nothing but brilliant support from IAG with my purchase of TAG equipment (from Sevenoaks Brighton). They were helpful and knowledgable when I phoned for some help during set-up.

I'm pleased to read you comment, Simon. But a quick trawl through this site will show you that you are, unfortunately, part of a very small minority.
 
Stevesky said:
If you want to be in the high-end AV business either make sure you've got a great market share as there isn't much to share in the first place, or run the business for the love of it and have deep pockets! :eek:)

So I'm still wondering why they wanted the IPR for the TAG AV stuff, or did they get it so cheap they could hardly refuse? (I've heard of a Bank being bought for one pound when the contents of its private wine cellars was worth thousands of times that much).
 
Having worked for IAG long before TMA, as soon as TMA were taken over by IAG, I knew I wouldnt be there for long.

IAG's current products, in direct comparison to the best of TMA's, are dull, unexciting and are foul to listen to in an 'audiophile' sense.

They fill the gap in the shrinking violet that is the 'What Hifi' veiw of our hobby but fail toi nspire me, as a customer, to put my hands in my pockets and actually buy something.

The Quad service centre is only good because it is staffed by the original Quad service staff, they are still pationate about the old Quad range. When you are passionate about a product, that comes across. Unfortunately, there are only a few dedicated TMA people in IAG, which comes across in the half hearted helpdesk attempt.

The same will happen to Mission, no way will they fill their shipping department with countless containers full of just one speaker - the 753, unless there is a change in command at IAG UK.
 
That would be especially hard as the 753 hasn't been built for nearly 6 years.
 
i think thats what Roversd1 meant since they have not built a decent priced speaker since the 753 :D
 
The 753 was good but I'd suggest that the e82 was (is?) bloody good as was (is?) the 782se. I have little doubt in my mind that a 753 would be beaten up by much of the competition at that price available now.
 

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