I still have my EIV's, CC, and K's for my HT and I have no plans to upgrade them. I have been a great fan of Snell's and was very disappointed (ditto to the sentiments on this thread) after the Boston Acoustic's acquisition a few years back.
Being a marketing person in a company that acquires other smaller companies, it is not unusual to have this "step child" relationship especially on a budgetary perspective. Unless the new product/brand is that much more promising (i.e. slam dunk/a huge pot of gold at the end of the rainbow) than other products within the company's portfolio, chances of the company investing (i.e. take a profit loss in the first couple years to gain market share) in marketing/possibly R&D given current volume is very slim. Adding the complexity is the niche-y high end audio market, where it's the first segment to die when the economy is bad and the last segment to recover when the economy picks up. It will take a huge corporate committment to make that happen. And in Snell's case, it more than just R&D (good that they have a new chief engineer), but also distribution, product positioning (awareness/trial driving), etc., the marketing fundamentals.
Believe me, I'm a big Snell fan. But imagine if you are the Boston Acoustic owner (for a second), with only limited amount of funds to play with in a certain fiscal year, would you plow money into Snell, where it'll take a long time/miracle to just make a blimp, or would you spend the same money to bet on other HT in a box/best-buy & circuit city friendly chain, which would really move the needle for your bottom line, which directly ties to how you and everyone around you earn your bonus?
...then again, if it is for me, I would move into the cable business!
Being a marketing person in a company that acquires other smaller companies, it is not unusual to have this "step child" relationship especially on a budgetary perspective. Unless the new product/brand is that much more promising (i.e. slam dunk/a huge pot of gold at the end of the rainbow) than other products within the company's portfolio, chances of the company investing (i.e. take a profit loss in the first couple years to gain market share) in marketing/possibly R&D given current volume is very slim. Adding the complexity is the niche-y high end audio market, where it's the first segment to die when the economy is bad and the last segment to recover when the economy picks up. It will take a huge corporate committment to make that happen. And in Snell's case, it more than just R&D (good that they have a new chief engineer), but also distribution, product positioning (awareness/trial driving), etc., the marketing fundamentals.
Believe me, I'm a big Snell fan. But imagine if you are the Boston Acoustic owner (for a second), with only limited amount of funds to play with in a certain fiscal year, would you plow money into Snell, where it'll take a long time/miracle to just make a blimp, or would you spend the same money to bet on other HT in a box/best-buy & circuit city friendly chain, which would really move the needle for your bottom line, which directly ties to how you and everyone around you earn your bonus?
...then again, if it is for me, I would move into the cable business!