🚨 Onkyo Files for Bankruptcy 🚨
Kex
Posts: 5,200
Classic Japanese audio brand Onkyo files for bankruptcy. ⤵️
OSAKA -- Japanese audio equipment maker Onkyo Home Entertainment filed for bankruptcy at Osaka District Court on Friday, with total liabilities of around 3.1 billion yen ($24 million).
The Osaka-based company was delisted in August. It was unable to keep pace with changes in how people listen to music, as users shift from audio equipment like compact stereo systems -- once Onkyo's core business -- to devices like smartphones for streaming services.
Two Onkyo subsidiaries that handled original equipment manufacturing -- such as assembling speakers for other brands -- and sales representation of audio equipment filed for voluntary bankruptcy in March.
Since then, Onkyo has essentially stopped doing business except management of an already-sold subsidiary. The company told Nikkei it "tried to maintain business on a smaller scale, but could not stop cash-flow problems from worsening."
Established in 1946, Onkyo supported the audio boom as a household name for speakers, turntables and stereo receivers. But the market transformed in the 2000s as Apple's mobile audio player iPod and smartphones became popular. The dwindling market for analog audio equipment such as stereo sets led to a steady downturn in earnings.
In January 2021, when Onkyo's capital deficit raised the possibility of a delisting, shareholders approved a plan to grant stock options to an investment fund in the Cayman Islands to raise up to 6.2 billion yen in fresh equity. But only some of the options were exercised, resulting in a second consecutive asset deficiency in the fiscal year ended March 2022, which is grounds for delisting from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The company sold its core home audiovisual business to Sharp and U.S.-based Voxx International and its earphones and headphones business to an investment fund, both in September. A joint venture between Sharp and Voxx is expected to continue using the Onkyo brand.
"We explored every possible way [to continue business] but could not pay off our debts," the company said.
Yuji Masaki, head of the research department at Teikoku Databank's regional office in Osaka, said "[the company] tried to stay alive through various businesses such as headphones and earphones, but measures were halfway. [Their disposal of businesses] were one step behind in timing as well."
Alea jacta est!
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P.S. The header in the original post is also a link to the original article from Nikkei Asia.Alea jacta est!
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This is all Frank Malitz' fault...
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“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”— Thomas Jefferson -
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Maybe if they knew how to make a friggin HDMI board without the self destruct feature...
Swore them off years ago. Looks like I'm not the only one. -
Not knowing the details, but there are a number of reasons why companies go out of business. I doubt if it was because there isn’t a market for good stereo gear.Lumin X1 file player, Westminster Labs interconnect cable
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Three 20 amp circuits. -
They made a few nice Tuners over the years.
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They made lots of decent equipment over the years. Unfortunately the dreaded "HDMI board failures" kind of doomed them as far as HT receivers were concerned. I've never owned one of their HT receivers but have purchased quite a few "stereo" only pieces and never had a problem, ever. When they came out with their "R" series components it seemed like that would be a make it or break it kind of last hurrah. Unfortunately their reputation was tarnished, I think, severely with the HDMI board problems, no matter how good their other equipment might be/have been. Don't think many here will care anyway...Remember, when you're running from something, you're running to something...-me
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The earliest mention of Onkyo in Audio magazine is from 1980:
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SeleniumFalcon wrote: »The earliest mention of Onkyo in Audio magazine is from 1980:
Interesting, 'cause they were well established in midfi circles by the mid-1970s.
source: https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Lafayette-Catalogs/Lafayette-1976-Catalog.pdf
I very (very) seriously considered the Onkyo A5 integrated amplifier in 1977 (or maybe it was early '78), but went with a Yamaha CA-610II mostly 'cause I liked the latter's dealership (Soundscape) much better than the former's (I won't throw 'em under the bus here -- but I have done so before. They're long gone from the scene, though).
The Onkyo tuners of the late '70s (e.g., the T-7 and T-9) were, as already mentioned above by @pitdogg2, quite nice.
In fact, the one and only piece of Onkyo hardware I own is an earlier tuner (that T-4055 shown in the LRE catalog scan above). It is very good, both AM (?!) and FM.
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Strangely enough.. I have never owned any onkyo equipment...
Still sad to see a long term brand go- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit. -
A 1977 advertisement in Stereo Review:
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Strangely enough.. I have never owned any onkyo equipment...
First AV receiver I ever bought. I don't remember the model, although it was 75wpc up front and 15wpc on the back. Interesting enough it's still satisfying my son for a garage rig and it's still gets it done. Bought from Circuit City in the very early 90's. -
My Dad had an Onkyo TX-560 in the LR rig. Paired with Klipsch Heresey's? He had pretty good sound when I was a young lad. I believe my brother now has that receiver and he is playing it with the same speakers but now with a different TT. He likes the vintage sound.
They did make nice gear back in the day.
Tom~ In search of accurate reproduction of music. Real sound is my reference and while perfection may not be attainable? If I chase it, I might just catch excellence. ~ -
It's not really clear to me what the impact of this bankruptcy is if the Onkyo home audio business was already sold last year to Voxx, which already runs a few other brands including Klipsch. I haven't seen if anywhere if the Pioneer brand went with the sale of the Onkyo brand.
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It's not really clear to me what the impact of this bankruptcy is if the Onkyo home audio business was already sold last year to Voxx, which already runs a few other brands including Klipsch. I haven't seen if anywhere if the Pioneer brand went with the sale of the Onkyo brand.
Good point(s)!
Oh what a tangled web they weave.
Maybe they'll try to wrangle Twitter away from the Elan Must guy...
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I hate to hear this. The first receiver I bought new was an Onkyo, 45 watts per channel. It had the best turner I've ever owned. All you had to do is get it close to a station and when you let go of the knob it would pull the station in. I think they called it phase locked tuning or something like that. It never gave a minutes trouble until I sold it years later.
EDIT: I see now that it was called Quartz-Locked tuning.- SDA 2BTL · Sonicaps · Mills resistors · RDO-198s · New gaskets · H-nuts · Erse inductors · BH5 · Dynamat
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Strangely enough.. I have never owned any onkyo equipment...
First AV receiver I ever bought. I don't remember the model, although it was 75wpc up front and 15wpc on the back. Interesting enough it's still satisfying my son for a garage rig and it's still gets it done. Bought from Circuit City in the very early 90's.
My first “real” home theater was an Onkyo receiver, a Panasonic DVD player, and a Polk RT setup including RT1000P and a CS400 center. All bought from Circuit City, RIP.
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The late 80s(?) digital Onkyo receivers weren't bad, either -- come to think of it.
Come to think of it^2 -- I do have a few Onkyo components of that era (couple of CDPs and one CD changer) still.
-- although none of the receivers. A couple of those black-facade, digital Onkyo receivers did pass through here, though, and I kinda liked 'em. I gave one of them to our son's HS photography teacher, now that I reflect upon those long-ago times. 
Onkyo made (or at least sold) a few nice cassette decks over the years, too. Never "A list" for any of them, but very respectable and even fairly (usefully) feature-rich.
The name Onkyo, if memory serves, is related to Japanese words pertaining to sound.
("Sound acoustics", or "Sound resonance", per Onkyo's website, per google)
Speaking of which -- sort of -- Denon's name (again, if memory serves), is a contraction of [Nippon] Denki Onkyo. Interestingly, Onkyo started life (per Wiki-p) as "Osaka Denki Onkyo K.K" in 1946, entirely unrelated to Denon (again, per Wiki-p).
... and I'm not even going to mention Dokorder -- yet another Denki Onkyo.
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Umm that sound like it has a sack attached....🤣😂Dokorder -
Dokorders -- kinda belonged in a sac(k).
They were somewhat notorious for poor reliability.
source: https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-HiFI-Stereo/70s/HiFi-Stereo-Review-1975-09.pdf
source: https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-HiFI-Stereo/70s/HiFi-Stereo-Review-1975-04.pdf -
That was years ago and it was a bad run, I know we carry Integra and I replaced so many receivers and preamps it wasn't even funny.Maybe if they knew how to make a friggin HDMI board without the self destruct feature...
Swore them off years ago. Looks like I'm not the only one.
Since that bad run, they have not had those issues. Not to mention I think Integra is one of the top Receiver makers. They are fantastic with the setup, feature sets and sound quality. We moved to Sony as our main AVR brand.
Dan
My personal quest is to save to world of bad audio, one thread at a time. -
Sad to hear Ive had my Onkyo TXNR838 for 6 years nary a problem the front three run of a Parasound Halo A31 the onkyo handles the rears and side surrounds with ease and the phono stage on it is pretty decent I like it over the Denon i still have and the Yamaha Advantage that i couldn't get rid of fast enough pretty happy with the Onkyo hate to see them go.Home Theater
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My Dad had an Onkyo TX-560 in the LR rig.
Holy (omitted)....that was like, 2K in USD back then.....back when a brand new Oldsmobile Cutlass SS was 3.4K.
Tom
~ In search of accurate reproduction of music. Real sound is my reference and while perfection may not be attainable? If I chase it, I might just catch excellence. ~ -
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“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”— Thomas Jefferson -
All good things eventually come to an end.
I miss my A8190 integrated and knew I wouldn't be able to find a new amp board for it. Unfortunately will be looking at replacing it with ?, that may sound similar?Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists. -
vader540is wrote: »
Well that looks like great news! Thanks Vader -
They are claiming that Klipsch is the number one speaker brand in the world. That's a lot of bad sound.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
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That's funny. I wouldn't mind hearing the new RP-600m version 2s. They get a lot of rave reviews.afterburnt wrote: »They didn't speak a word of English, they were from South Carolina.
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