Stereophile remarks on the "Clubhouse Forum" at Club Polk

aaharvel

NEWS DESK:

Polk Audio acquired by Directed Electronics

August 27, 2006 — On August 21, Directed Electronics, Inc. announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Polk Audio for $136 million in cash, with the deal to close in Q3 of 2006. Current Polk management will join Directed, and company founder Matthew Polk and Polk president Jim Herd will sit on Directed's home audio advisory board. File this one under the you can't make this stuff up department: Sandy Gross, founder of Directed's other loudspeaker company, Definitive Technology, already sits on the board, which makes Polk's presence there a homecoming of sorts, since Gross was a founding partner at Polk.

With Definitive and Polk, Directed might well become probably the number-one best-selling loudspeaker force in the US market. If it seems that acquisitions have been coming fast and furious lately—the recent acquisition of API by Klipsch and last year's D&M acquisition of Boston Acoustics, for example—that is probably "less a reflection of dire times in component audio and more a reflection of founders wanting to tap into the wealth they built up in companies that they founded as long ago as the 1970s," Directed's president Jim Minarik told TWICE's Joe Palenchar.

Since Directed is publicly traded, there are strict rules about what can be said, printed, and leaked about the sale. The one thing that seems certain is that the acquisition was a friendly one. Given the price paid and Matthew Polk's continued presence on Directed's home audio advisory board, it's clear that Directed did not acquire Polk to gut it or, probably, even change its operation much. Polk, after all, did about $86 million last year.

Polk has generated an immense amount of customer loyalty over the years and we refer everyone to its website and The Clubhouse forum for a tutorial on how to cultivate customer loyalty and comport yourself with class. Polk marketing manager Paul DiComo announced the Directed acquisition there on August 22, and Polk aficionados vigorously debated whether it was a good thing or the end of the company as they know it.

On August 23, the man whose name is on the speakers weighed in. "One thing I've learned about change is that if you don't stay ahead of it, you'll be victimized by it," Polk wrote. "I like what I'm doing and intend to keep doing it. Plus, I've got quite a few interesting ideas I want to pursue. So, you can expect to find me in the usual place working the same strange hours. However, while we were working this all out, I did have sort of a funny discussion about this with the guys at DEI. I guess that they were worried that I'd take all the money and retire to the Caribbean or something. So, they wanted to know exactly what is it that I 'do' at Polk Audio.

"An interesting question. After all, I don't have a place on the organizational chart. No one reports directly to me. And, I have no formal job responsibilities. But, I seem to show up every day and work really hard at whatever it is that I 'do' and it seems to take up all of my time. So, they asked me, what will you do if we make this deal? 'Well,' I said, 'pretty much the same—whatever [that] is.'"

http://www.stereophile.com/news/082706polk/

polkatese

Cool find, Andy!

audiobliss

Wow, now that's awesome! Just goes to show how you have to watch everything you say, everywhere you say it.

Strong Bad

Thats awesome!

$86mil in sales last year....impressive!

Keep kickin **** Polk!

PolkThug

very cool!

Shizelbs

Super cool.

mhardy6647

Isn't that nice? (and I am not being facetious). Polk's customer support and general tolerance of people like me who haven't actually bought a new Polk product since the 1970's (!) is outstanding customer relations, IMNSHO.

Klipsch is (still) pretty good at this sort of thing, too, BTW.

zombie boy 2000

Stereophile even gave us a good review:D

Is there anything they don't absolutely adore?

faster100

ive found on many a yahoo searches for what ever, links to our forum threads.. so we are out there and what we say is very important as many people can see it..

Shizelbs

faster100 wrote:

ive found on many a yahoo searches for what ever, links to our forum threads.. so we are out there and what we say is very important as many people can see it..

Same thing here. Sometimes even my dumbass comments will come up.

noimposse

Sweeeet.

We rule!

AndyGwis

True. I was trying to research some of my gear using google, and it kept taking me to questions I've posted on this forum.

If you write, speak, or even think something, google can find it.

brettw22

I'm famous, I'm famous, I'M FAMOUS!!!!!!!!!

Show some respect, bizatches......:p

amulford

WTF...like you need a bigger head...:p

bobman1235

Wait, you mean THEy can see me? NORMAL folk? Crap....

Skynut

No mention of my name????


I'm hurt.:mad:

Early B.

Aaahh, we're not important. Stereophile was just kissin' Polk's **** so they could make some advertising dollars.

disneyjoe7

Kool

Polkersince85

Maybe we should start voicing our opinions on things. ';;)

George Grand

"Is there ANYTHING they don't absolutely adore?"


In 1989 I bought a brand new pair of RTA11t's. The same day I brought them home, I received my first issue of Stereofool. Guess what was reviewed? The RTA11t's! Guess who hated them?

I don't think Stereofool liked a Polk product until they reviewed the little $300 jobs a couple years back. They loved those. But they were also seriously losing subscribers at that time. Who KNOWS what they really like those clowns.

Polkersince85

George Grand wrote:

" Who KNOWS what they really like those clowns.

Probably in their real listening room, they have a TFM-55 pushing a pair of SDAs.

MacLeod

Hpmh. They didnt mention my name. Must be a rag of a magazine.

dorokusai

Paul DiComo talks up our forum quite a bit when he's traveling and spreading his Polk seed. This is a valuable part of their business and while they may not participate very often, they read everything.

Great stuff.

univera

dorokusai wrote:

Paul DiComo talks up our forum quite a bit when he's traveling and spreading his Polk seed. This is a valuable part of their business and while they may not participate very often, they read everything.

Great stuff.

How does this forum compare to others out there i.e. other brands, whether it is amp companies, speak co's or generic, all encompassing A/V? Is there even one that compares? One of the more mentioned ones (can't recall) that I have referenced are really boring and uninvolving. I feel like I am in the white world of the Matrix. Cold and sterile. This site has a very tubey feel (based on my reading, not experience.:) This is a very friendly site (aesthetically, not the people:D ) Unbi-assed opinions....

F1nut

How touching.

Anthony.....CLASSIC!!!

Holydoc

univera wrote:

How does this forum compare to others out there i.e. other brands, whether it is amp companies, speak co's or generic, all encompassing A/V? Is there even one that compares? One of the more mentioned ones (can't recall) that I have referenced are really boring and uninvolving. I feel like I am in the white world of the Matrix. Cold and sterile. This site has a very tubey feel (based on my reading, not experience.:) This is a very friendly site (aesthetically, not the people:D ) Unbi-assed opinions....

Univera,

To put my two cents worth, the AVS Forum is VERY active but it is also full of very young opinionated people. As long as you are careful and understand that you should not believe everything you read, you can get some great information about Home Theatre there. The site also includes a huge amount of good information and tweaks. The moderators are a bit over bearing at times and allow no discussion about price of equipment that is not directly referencing one of there advertisers.

The Home Theatre Spot is a bit more layed back. However besides SVS info and DVD info, I have never gained much from it. The site is also very bias and the moderators tend to block any mention of advertisers they do not like.

The Outlaw Saloon is very quiet. However if you own an outlaw product, it contains superb information from the few "live-ins" that frequent the place. All types of discussions are encouraged without much moderation but there are just too few people that frequent the place to amount to very much.

Hope this gives you some idea of the other sites. As you can tell, I am a HT nut so the forums I frequent are dedicated to improving HT and not so much two-channel.

Polk65

It's ironic that magazines who once used the word gimmick in their reviews will one day be knocking on DEI's door. I have a huge grin thinking about this.

VR3

The Home Theater spot is full of thin skinned over-sensitive wussies...

Never seen people so up-tight in my life. Geat a life Paul, all I gotta say.

Very cool. I'm all over Google. I'm on Google over 14,000 times! Wow, I'm more famous than BRETT! HA!!!!

ND13

brettw22 wrote:

I'm famous, I'm famous, I'M FAMOUS!!!!!!!!!

Show some respect, bizatches......:p

Now if you could just do the "eyebrow" thing the Rock did in "Be Cool".:D

Skynut

ND13 wrote:

Now if you could just do the "eyebrow" thing the Rock did in "Be Cool".:D

Great I just pictured a big **** Rock.

speakergeek

AVS seems to be too big with some moderation issues. Nearly every thread in the AMPs section degrades into an argument. One thing very apparent to me about the Club-Polk forum is the comaraderie.