whats up with Polk's website

steveopevo

Why does Polk still display the SR series when they've been discontinued? I've sent them various emails and even left a review of the mm571's and they don't respond. I've heard from some people on other forums that since they were bought out by directed they are going down the crapper like they did to Orion and PPI.

shawn474

Just because a product is discontinued doesn't mean that it should be erased from the website. There is still deadstock left somewhere I would imagine and people may want to look up specs, reviews, etc on the Polk website. Polk offers great customer support for their products, even on the discontinued lines. Your question doesn't need an answer from Polk; they choose to keep up the product page.

Jstas

Orion and PPI went down the crapper long before Directed bought them.

Orion had massive success with a quality product (much like Stillwater Kicker at the time) based out of Tempe Arizona in the late 80's all through the 90's. Up until about late 1997 though. The mid-90's recession pummeled them along with many other companies in the "not a necessity" type of hobby markets. They started cutting corners to make ends meet and quality went down the tubes. They were non-existent on the market by 1999-2000 'cause nobody wanted to deal with all the bad units they had to take back and/or repair. The only stuff that was still any decent was the subs and even then, only the hand built HCCA competition subs which cost a small fortune. Directed picked them up in 2001 and while quality control is back, they've never really been the same.

PPI was their own deal up until about 1998. Then they were bought by Phaze Audio which was making tube based amps and such. Phaze Audio was started in like 1995 or 1996 by a bunch of guys from RF, PPI and a couple other highfalutin' places. In 1998, Phaze bought PPI for the production capabilities. They were using Butler Audio designs and manufacturing prior to that. The PPI purchase added capacity and market expansion. But PPI was already in a tough spot like Orion was. The expansion hurt Phaze and PPI but since Phaze bought the rights to the Butler Audio designs (well, BK Butler himself), they owned it. But Phaze/PPI went belly up and were in receivership IIRC. They were still operating but in massive debt to suppliers. In late 1999, they were sold (Directed bought them). In 2000-2001, likely through an ugly lawsuit, BK Butler got his designs back and started a consumer arm of his Butler Audio (http://www.butleraudio.com/). Prior to that, Butler was a supplier/contract manufacturer of fairly high end stuff for alot of places. In fact, by the mid 90's, there were only like 10 real manufacturers building every piece of audio on the market over like 250 different brand names. That's why Kenwood and Alpine gear look different until you open the case and the PCB's are almost identical. I think Directed also picked up a/d/s at the same time as PPI. But all 3, a/d/s, PPI and Orion were in a bad way already. I don't think that in any of their heydays that they could have been bought without a massive cash outlay that made it unattractive to investors. Especially since they really didn't build stuff themselves but were contracting manufacturing and even licensing designs.

I dunno if Directed still owns PPI or if PrecisionPower is just the old PPI guys making another run at things without the PPI name. But all three companies that are listed in the top echelons of car audio from the 80's and 90's fell from grace on their own. Directed either saved them or resurrected them from the ashes.

Most of the people complaining about what you're talking about don't know what Orion, PPI or a/d/s actually were because all 3 were born, lived, thrived and died before the punk kids who trash them now were even born.

Ricardo

I drink to that

BeefJerky

Just to clarify, Directed bought Polk's car audio division? Or, am I confused. Either way, it is a crying shame that the SR line is discontinued. They are fantastic, and after putting the SR5250's in my CR-V, I couldn't imagine putting anything less in.

brgman

I've heard good things about the Butler amps.Any truth to that?

nadams

BeefJerky wrote: »

Just to clarify, Directed bought Polk's car audio division? Or, am I confused. Either way, it is a crying shame that the SR line is discontinued. They are fantastic, and after putting the SR5250's in my CR-V, I couldn't imagine putting anything less in.

Directed bought everything... Home, car, et all.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43620

There was buzz all over the internet (a quick google search will dig it all back up) that the acquisition was going to kill Polk's quality and customer service.

So far as I'm concerned, that never happened.

BeefJerky

nadams wrote: »

Directed bought everything... Home, car, et all.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43620

There was buzz all over the internet (a quick google search will dig it all back up) that the acquisition was going to kill Polk's quality and customer service.

So far as I'm concerned, that never happened.

LOL! Yeah, I'm not behind at all. I guess that is because the acquisition happened prior to me getting any Polk speakers or joining this forum. Anyhow, I agree that the quality and customer service has remained the same, which is good. I just hope it stays that way.

However, I'm still disappointed that they discontinued the SR series, which were fantastic. Maybe they are going to replace them with something based on the new LSiM's? That would be awesome if so!

steveopevo

Well I'm glad that Directed isn't the culprit in cheapifying companies. I really love my mm571's as well as the DB's I used to have. I was hoping to one day install some SR comps but what are they going to replace them with?