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.
See the Top 10 Strata-gee Stories of 2025…
Last year, I had expressed the hope that 2025 would be a more sedate year, after a highly contentious presidential election in 2024, consumers struggling with high (although improving) inflation, and low consumer confidence. However, as the new administration sought to rebalance trade with all of our international partners, it’s safe to say that 2025 was nearly as contentious as 2024. The administration’s new trade policy put supply chains, tariffs, counter-tariffs, and more into play.
In pulling the data together for this report, I can honestly say that Strata-gee readers, for the most part, stayed focused on what factors were most impacting them on an ongoing basis. Also, in 2025, we saw the conclusion – or perhaps more accurately – the transformation to new beginnings for some of the stories Strata-gee followed closely in 2024. I’m referring to the sale of Sound United by Masimo, and the acquisition of Premium Sound Company by Gentex.
In any event, here now – in David Letterman reverse order – are the top ten Strata-gee stories of 2025…
#10 – T-Day+1: Tariffs…And So It Begins…
Published April 17, 2025… You might think the topic of international trade and tariffs would be too dry for most readers. But apparently, if you thought that about Strata-gee readers, you would be wrong. Originally published in April after the administration launched its global trade war, this story was updated for three months and helped readers stay on top of global tariff program developments, as well as presented the actual tariff pricing programs of a range of industry manufacturers. Check it out here….
#9 – Director Robert Chapek Resigns from the Masimo Board of Directors
Published January 31, 2025… At first, Robert Chapek seemed like a big “get” by the company. A former CEO of Disney, Chapek was a fairly high-profile guy compared to other directors at Masimo during the time period that the board was hand-picked by former CEO and founder Joe Kiani. But Chapek’s selection was also a bit strange. Chapek had zero experience in the Med Tech industry and Masimo is tiny compared to Disney. But we eventually learned he was a personal friend of Kiani…and the picture got a little clearer. This story was part of the winding down of Strata-gee’s coverage of Masimo. Missed it? Find the story here…
#8 – Another Top Executive Leaves Sonos
Published February 25, 2025… Sonos, as Strata-gee has accurately reported, has been struggling for a few years now. There were many reasons for this, but a disastrous app update really fueled the demise of former CEO Patrick Spence’s tenure at the company. In 2025, the Board of Directors began to make real changes to the company structure, both at the employee and management levels.
This story signalled that change. It is about the departure of Deirdre Findlay, Sonos’ Chief Commercial Officer, who was recently brought on by Spence. It was the first clear signal that more big changes were coming to Sonos. The Board had terminated Spence in January and appointed one of its own directors, Tom Conrad, as Interim CEO… and fired Findlay in February.
#7 – Latest Sonos Earnings Report Shows Just How Bad Things Are
Published February 20, 2025… This Sonos story appeared about five days before the one above, and they may have been connected. However, this story pointed out how the company’s first quarter of 2025, usually its best quarter, illuminated continuing struggles at the tech company. This likely led to a series of executive changes, such as the departure of Deirdre Findlay in the story above.
Note that Sonos’ Q1 of fiscal 2025 equates to the fourth calendar quarter (October-December), which is a period of high retail and online purchase activity. After enduring a rough 2024, the company was banking on sales its Ace headphones – a new category – to bail it out. Instead, Q1 revenues were off more than 10% and net income collapsed by 38%. The company seems to be starting off 2025 on the wrong foot – see more here…
#6 – Harman Hits Voxx Int’l & Klipsch Group with Major 13-Count Lawsuit
Published May 22, 2025… This is an interesting development, both tactically and strategically between two significant players in audio. Harman’s lawsuit accuses loudspeaker manufacturer Klipsch, a division of Voxx Int’l, of infringing on patents owned by Harman and embodied in its JBL “PartyBox” line.
But the bigger picture is that Voxx (now part of Gentex) also owns Onkyo and Integra – two bread-and-butter electronics lines. Since Harman ultimately acquired Sound United (Denon, Marantz and more), the stakes seem to be higher between these two legal combatants. Strata-gee readers found this story intriguing. See it here…
#5 – Teardown Analysis Shows Amazon is Cheapening Its Base Echo Model
Published August 24, 2022… This story, from three years ago, took off bigly this year. While I can’t say why for sure…I believe it may be because the company launched new products and that stimulated interest in its design philosophy. But again, that’s a guess.
This story, which first appeared in Asia in a report by the Nikkei, provided a detailed assessment of how Amazon dramatically reduced the cost of constructing its base Echo model by moving to significantly cheaper components. In case you missed it, you can check it out here…
#4 – Masimo.com Has Been Down for ‘A Few Days’
Published May 1, 2025… This story was a rapidly emerging one of a significant MedTech company hit with a ransomware attack, but it kept mum about it for many days. Based on a tip, I attempted to discover why Masimo.com fell offline. Pursuing this through the normal channels produced no results. PR people either did not take my call, or did not return messages I left, or – when cornered – claimed ignorance.
Trying to break through this brick wall, I ultimately reached out to Masimo customer service folks, where I was finally able to begin to get some information. This story is the narrative of that effort, which Strata-gee readers apparently found quite interesting. The story was dramatically enhanced by Strata-gee readers with inside-Masimo connections posting inside information anonymously in the comments section below the main article. Read it here…
#3 – Happy Thanksgiving? YES, Let’s All Happily Give THANKS
Published November 25, 2020… During the holidays, it is my practice to post short messages about that holiday, along with a holiday greeting for readers. If you had read my holiday greeting for this last Thanksgiving, you would have seen that I described a mystery.
This third most popular posting on Strata-gee – my holiday greeting for Thanksgiving 2020 – is that mystery. Why…I asked readers…was this particular holiday greeting so popular??? It remains a mystery to me, but as you can see here, it became one of the top stories on Strata-gee for 2025. See that greeting here…
#2 – Investigation Launched into Alleged Securities Fraud Claims Against Sonos
Published March 5, 2025… In this story, I learned of an investigation of Sonos being launched to determine if the company engaged in any securities fraud related to its communications with investors over its app disaster. I see announcements of this type all the time, as the U.S. has a very active plaintiffs’ bar. But this company, the Pomerantz LLP, has a pretty solid reputation.
While this is one piece of my overall coverage of Sonos, readers apparently found it worthwhile. Missed it? See it here…
#1 – Now Part of Bose, McIntosh Group Terminates Independent Sales Reps
Published January 15, 2025… This story was a follow-up to my story in November 2024 on Bose acquiring McIntosh. At the time of the acquisition, Bose officials said there would be no downsizing of the workforce as a result of this transaction. Then, in January, I learned that the company had quietly terminated all of the McIntosh independent specialty representatives.
I chronicled my attempt to get a comment from the extremely insular Bose, a brand of mainstream consumer ambitions, that had become the new owner of a significant specialty electronics brand. It was really amazing to see the huge number of pageviews this story drew, likely interesting both McIntosh and Bose fans. Did I get a comment from Bose? Read the story to see if I was successful…
And now, Strata-gee readers, on to 2026!!
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