B & K closing/replacment?

vining

I got the word from my rep the other day that B & K is closing / filing for bankrupcy (or something) and my rep promptly recommended their Sherbourn line as a replacment (to keep my business, obviously). Anybody got anything good/bad to say about Sherbourn products? They do have a 16 channel x 45w amp which is sort of nice.

With B&K I mostly use the 12/60 amps and just recently started using 12/30's to keep down costs in order to maintain work. I've used Niles, Xantech & Sonance in the past but really liked the B&K amps and want something similar in qaulity and pricing. I gave up on B&K's other products a long time ago so I really just want good amps.

Isn't AMX going to release quality 12 channels amps soon. Just kidding, that would make too much sense and would be something we all could use in order to keep sales numbers above the Bronze BS zone. Especially as TP sales fall in lieu of iPads.

Spire_Jeff

I always held a little hope in my heart that AMX would buy B&K a couple years ago when they were on a spending spree. Until a year or two ago, the B&K HD6 video switcher was a staple of ours and I feel that it was by far the best video switcher offering for a resi job out there. (Expandable in 6 zone increments, up converts composite to component, up to 45 composite inputs or 15 component inputs, 9 buffered component outputs for easy expansion, ....) Even their distribution amps were good, then they seemed to hit the wall. I think they switched to much cheaper components, or had a bad run with a supplier. They had a very detailed control protocol, and they even had IP control. All they really needed was a good UI.

Their amps are an excellent value and sound amazing. The theater receivers needed a little work on the HDMI, but other than that they were good. All in all, I thought it would have been a good fit for AMX. (As stated above, just the amps alone would have been a nice addition to AMX.

Ohh well, I lower my head and observe a moment of silence for the B&K company I used to know and love....

As for a replacement, I can't think of anything on the same level, but if you are looking for that good sounding, but reasonably priced option, check out SnapAV. They are a made in China type thing, but at least they don't try to hide this... or charge like they are not

Jeff

vining

The notice I got said there was a buy out offer on the table but the owner didn't bite so now the thought is the company that was interested is going to wait for them to file for bankrupcy and then buy it even cheaper from the bank. Maybe it's AMX. Ok very unlikely since they can't have much cash left and it seems most of the cash they were spending were on bad investments and now the economy slowing the sales of good products has probably made the spending mood in the boardroom pretty sour.

I really don't know the Matrix line except for one bad experience when they first bought them but I can't figure out why they haven't spent some money there to make products we need. Make some sexy looking amps with high qaulity (not just high cost) and 12 channel amps that everyone could use on almost any size job. Not just 4 or 8 channel amps that pair with the Tango and Delta stuff. Are those products even any good?

Spire_Jeff

The Tango needs to GO! Not sure about the Delta stuff.

As for the B&K buyout, I was hearing rumors of ATI (ati-amp.com) being interested.

Jeff

DHawthorne

Well, it hasn't actually been AMX buying up all those companies so much as it has been the company that bought AMX buying them up to merge them with AMX. They have been mostly quietly doing business in the background, and not interfering with AMX in ways you can see easily from where I sit, but AMX has not been independent themselves for several years.

But, back to topic, I have pretty near always used either the Niles amps or AudioControl Architect. Sherbourn is OK, but my experience is limited to the smaller 2-channel amps. I pretty much use them for single zones where I need a local amp rather than a multizone amp in a central location.

rfletcher

Heh, it's amazing how different the different areas of av can be. There are only two manufacturers (besides amx) in this thread I've even heard before and neither of them are ones my mind would immediately associate with amplifiers