(Almost) OT: Behringer Buys Midas/KT

[kruntz]

This is not a joke:
http://www.behringer.com/EN/Our-Story/Midas-and-Klark-Teknik-Join-the-Music-Group.aspx
http://www.midasconsoles.com/
http://www.klarkteknik.com/

[mloretitsch]

At least they can't get sued now for copying those two brands.

Too bad..I love my KT eq's...dearly :)


This is not a joke:
http://www.behringer.com/EN/Our-Story/Midas-and-Klark-Teknik-Join-the-Music-Group.aspx
http://www.midasconsoles.com/
http://www.klarkteknik.com/

[sjpaul]

wow!

Love them or loathe them, Behringer have allowed a lot of people to get on the ladder in music production. I've found some of their offerings to be cr4p and some surprisingly useable.

KT and Midas I've always felt were overpriced and over hyped.

[RBIngraham]

wow!

Love them or loathe them, Behringer have allowed a lot of people to get on the ladder in music production. I've found some of their offerings to be cr4p and some surprisingly useable.

KT and Midas I've always felt were overpriced and over hyped.

Really? Pricey yes. But anytime I've had the experience of using KT or Midas gear they worked well and sounded very nice and clean. It's hard to say for sure of course, but when almost all of our gear was analog, it seemed to me that you ussually got what you paid for more often than not.

I think what this purchase more shows is that analog is dead, or at least dying. Both of those companies are heavily linked with analog gear, despite Midas finally getting into the digital console game, fairly late in my opinion. The digital revolution has really turned the idea of you get what you pay for and bang for the buck on it's head.

[Pedro Itriago]

Gee, I wonder if someone will start to call Midas consoles crap now that they're Behringer.

Will be nice to see the ADA's mixed in there somewhere.

[Trackzilla]

Gee, I wonder if someone will start to call Midas consoles crap now that they're Behringer.

Won't surprise me at all...plenty of gear has had it's reputation vacillate with company brand ownership changes, sometimes deservedly, sometimes not...

Crest, Fender, EAW, Cerwin-Vega to name just a few...

and Behringer itself when they changed from the fine, cheap German company they were to a Singapore-owned, German-named, Chinese-manufactured brand for primary sale in the US...

[Ogmeister]

Won't surprise me at all...plenty of gear has had it's reputation vacillate with company brand ownership changes, sometimes deservedly, sometimes not...

Crest, Fender, EAW, Cerwin-Vega to name just a few...

and Behringer itself when they changed from the fine, cheap German company they were to a Singapore-owned, German-named, Chinese-manufactured brand for primary sale in the US...

Yes,
I have some of the older German made Behringer stuff and it is very good for the price I paid for it. Once they started doing the China manufacturing thing it all went down hill.

I agree that Analog is a dying beast. But I think there will always be some that want to use this at least for a while.

I have two Midas consoles and they are just not seeing the use they once did. All my Riders are for Digital now. Even the small productions are asking for these.

[Mark Stebbeds]

When Ford bought Jaguar, the cars started to look like the Ford Taurus and lost their unique indentity. When Daimler bought Chrysler, both the design and assembly line quality control went way up ...and then way down again when they sold the company to an investment firm a few years later.

When Toyota created the Lexus line, it was a luxury version of the world's most reliable car, and maintained the quality and further improved the service.

We'll have to wait and see what happens with Midas.

Mark

[Brent Evans]

It would be interesting to see if Behringer (intelligently) integrates some of the Midas tech into their lower end stuff to make it better, or (more likely) integrates the Behringer technology into Midas to make the line profitable.

I have to admit though, I can't see this as a match made in heaven. The companies aren't even close to being competitors, even though they make the same type of stuff. I remember the Sprint-Nextel fiasco from working in the industry, and this seems very similar (Company A in a market market buying Company B in the same market, even though most of the customers of Company A are not able to afford the products of Company B, and most of the customers in Company B unwilling to use the product of Company A).

[RBIngraham]

Well it's not exactly like Bosch was a great fit with Midas/Klark either. :)

From what I've read and heard in the rumor mill this is more of the parent company of Behringer buying Midas and not Behringer buying Midas. There is a difference, albeit very slight.

As someone on the theatre sound list put it, Midas, like Cadac and other big players in the analog desk market were just late to the digital market and that is where all the sales are at now.

Hopefully they will grow the brand and not destroy it. But who knows. It has been reported that most of the Midas staff is still around (even from before they were bought by Bosch) and they will be retained now.

[ssrsound]

My guess is it's an attempt to address all market segments. Behringer couldn't reach the high-end... that brand was too looked-down-upon by high end audio people. So you make a parent company, and have one brand to address each market segment. ...or in this case 2 for the high end, since they got KT too.

It's the same thing LOUD did by having Tapco on the low end, Mackie in the medium end, and EAW on the high end.

[Brent Evans]

My guess is it's an attempt to address all market segments. Behringer couldn't reach the high-end... that brand was too looked-down-upon by high end audio people. So you make a parent company, and have one brand to address each market segment. ...or in this case 2 for the high end, since they got KT too.

It's the same thing LOUD did by having Tapco on the low end, Mackie in the medium end, and EAW on the high end.

Perhaps, but LOUD's brands don't have (and haven't really ever had) a quality/reliability issue (whether percieved or real).