Samsung buys Harman for $8B


Wow! Seems they were after Harman's auto business which is 65% of what Harman does. Will Samsung leave Harman's high end brands alone or does that spell ruination of Mark Levinson, Revel, JBL, Lexicon, et al? 

Is this the largest high end acquisition? 
128x128zavato
I bet they divest and spin them off/out within the next 12-24 mos. I agree they are after the auto stack. This hit our daily news clips at Intel. We are focused on autonomous driving. Home audio, not so much.  I'm sure I have more invested in that than intel 
The hope is Samsung will provide customer service for the Home Audio gear.

Please allow me to reiterate a previous post of mine within this thread.  

Samsung "service" SUCKS!!!
gdhal,
What Samsung product have you had problems with that has left you unhappy with their service?

@valinar

UN65KS9800

Note that I’m not disparaging their products per se, and I haven’t necessarily established that a real - as opposed to perceived - product problem exists.

What sucks is their overall ineptitude where customer service is concerned, as evidenced by numerous factors including, but not limited to, egregious instances of "confirmation" emails with fictitious "reference" numbers. They use many "lets have the customer jump through hoopes" techniques and "pass-the-buck to another department". They cannot even follow simple instructions to call as opposed to email, despite their providing the ability for a customer to state their preference. Essentially they intentionally and unnecessarily delay servicing, which is certainly unbecoming of a billion dollar organization. Then, when/if someone finally comes on the phone, its not clear (to me anyway) what language the person is speaking, or country they are located in; if you know what I mean.

Frankly, I’m going to go as far as to say that in the case of certain emails I’ve received with unverifiable reference numbers and erroneous timelines stated within them, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some degree of illegality involved.

edit...

The unverifiable reference numbers can be reproduced. Create an account on samsung website. Register a product. Enter a service order. Obtain number. Log out. Log back in. Check open service orders. Nothing displays.

When I confronted a representative with this observation (via telephone) I was provided.... laugh out loud... ANOTHER reference number.

I just need to reiterate.

Samsung "service" SUCKS!!!
'Samsung S7 modestly priced monoblocks for 27,000.00 and a pre amp for 16,000.00!'?. With those kind of things going to no doubt fly of the shelf you better hurry to get all the ancillary items. 
Their phones may already sound better than some much more expensive equipment, they possibly think anyway.