Yamaha Aquires Stake in Nexo
This one was from out in left field. This week Yamaha and Nexo announced in a somewhat low key fashion that they were partnering in distribution and development with Yamaha aquiring a 10% stake in the French speaker manufacturer.
I may have some thoughts on this later…
Update… With the performance of Yamaha in the high end speaker enclousure market (or should I say lack thereof) this makes more sense. For the life of the company, Yamaha couldn’t or didn’t build any decent speaker enclousures or raw drivers. They’ve been all about consoles and electronics. To compete in the biz today, particularly against mega players like Harman/JBL Pro you need all the juice and synergy you can get. No doubt this gives Nexo some cash to put into the warchest and with the high development going more towards complex DSP (see Geo T) as well as advanced acoustic/mechanical designs this gives both companies a leg up as they operate in areas where they don’t compete against each other. I suppose one question near term might be what happens to the Nexo US staff? Does David Solari finally ride off into the sunset?
July 1st, 2005 at 5:19 am
I have not mixed on a Nexo rig, but I am certainly aware of the respect and attention their systems are getting from the top pros in our field. it seems like a logical move for Yamaha to get involved with Nexo since their high end mixing consoles, are likely to be paired with Nexo speakers. The financial side of pro audio is changing with the times. The fact is that it takes more money than ever to research, design, and market products now than it ever has, and it takes the financial resources that big companies like Yamaha have to do it. This trend of large companies pairing up with smaller successful ones will continue because it makes economic sense. Is it good for our industry? The jury is still out on that one…
July 2nd, 2005 at 12:02 pm
Yamaha’s DSP speaker management devices haven’t seen any new blood for a while, though they were early to the game. I wonder how Nexo and Yamaha will combine DSP efforts in terms of a next-generation NX241, DME32 or D2040?
Oh, and how do CAMCO fit into the new mix? Yamaha wants to be a more popular amplifier player but the CAMCO folks have been playing ball with Nexo for some time.
-Bink