Strategy in TECH...
Holy Cow! The Harman Luxury Audio Group lion has reared back its head and roared AUDIO!!! I mean, the company is launching a total of 24 brand-new audio products at the 2026 Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) show. Even for a company the size of Harman, that’s a lot! For now, I’m going to focus on the moves the company made with its JBL Synthesis Custom Loudspeaker line, which includes nine new speakers and three new “next-generation” AV processors.
Sonance, a long-time leading manufacturer of custom integration gear valued by integrators all around the world, has announced its plans for the Integrated Systems Europe Show 2026 (ISE) taking place now in Barcelona, Spain. Key to the announcement is that the company will display in two different “stands” (the European name for a “booth”), one optimized for the professional/commercial channel and another optimized for the residential/marine channel.
The company also announced the launch an all-new, high-performance Ultra Thin-Line VX Speaker.
Sonos, Inc. (Nasdaq: SONO) introduced on Tuesday the launch of a new model called the Amp Multi, its first such launch in more than a year. Targeted for the professional integrator channel, Amp Multi is, as the name suggests, a multi-channel streaming amplifier that appears to be designed to encourage integrators to incorporate more Sonos products in larger, more sophisticated residential installations.
But will integrators go along with this scheme?
The industry is all abuzz ever since this past Tuesday, when Sony Corporation announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with TCL “for strategic partnership in home entertainment field.” The announcement goes on to describe, in really sketchy terms with virtually no details, an idyllic or almost utopian vision of how this “partnership” would operate.
But it’s all code. The media has scrambled to spread the news of what they know…which is virtually nothing. Let me help you decode the important meaning of this announcement.
Crestron Electronics announced this week the launch of an all-new 80 Series Touch Screen line, its most advanced touch screen design ever. What specifically has changed in this series as compared to previous versions? According to a company source, only one thing has changed: everything!
Marantz, part of Sound United, which itself is now part of Harman International Industries, which itself is part of Samsung, announced two new models in what it calls its “reference quality” home theater component series. The all-new AV 30 and AMP 30 are serious, pro-grade audio components that elegantly blend dramatic industrial design with flexible feature sets – with a high-performance-first product design philosophy.
Products like these really warm the heart of this old audio guy!
Big news this morning out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota as AVPro Global Holdings, LLC, one of the fastest growing companies in the custom integration industry, announces it has named current Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Matt Murray as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Company founder and current CEO Jeff Murray will become the Chairman of the Board in a move that the company says was a long-planned generational leadership transition.
I have to say that the team at Premium Audio Company (PAC), part of the VOXX division of Gentex Corp., does a nice job of paying homage to the long, 80-year history of technical innovation and market success of its Onkyo brand, while at the same time, launching innovative new models to propel the brand into a space-age future. While conventional wisdom might suggest otherwise, you could say that they prove that they can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Happy New Year from Strata-gee.com. Thanks to you, we had another great year! Big things happened in 2025, some challenging, some rewarding. But all is well that ends well, and while 2025 was a little dicey early on, it appears to be ending pretty well for most of us.
As 2025 comes to a close, it’s interesting to look back on the Top 10 stories on Strata-gee in the year past. By top stories, I’m talking about those posts that drew the largest readership, as measured by pageviews. Clearly, you can discern some of the 2025 “mega-trends” from this list.
