[Norman Tracy]

Harman Kardon has accepted an $8B offer  to be acquired by Samsung.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2016/11/14/samsung-acquires-a-big-slice-of-the-connected-vehicle-space-with-8-billion-acquisition-of-harman/#7d5371a05eff

http://www.wsj.com/articles/harman-once-shunned-repositioned-itself-in-the-automotive-tech-arms-race-1479146323

Samsung is apparently interested in the automotive systems expertise Harman has developed with the likes of the Mark Levinson branded stereos in Lexus.

http://www.harmankardon.com/content?ContentID=automotive

The business news articles make little or no mention of the audio business from which H-K grew. For AudioCricle as audiophiles we will watch with interest what happens to the Hi-Fi centirc companies in the Harmon group that include AKG, Crown, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon, Mark Levinson, and Revel. Given the high regard for high end audio as a luxury to be aspired to in Asia perhaps Samsung will nurture these brands. On the other hand if the Forbes and WSJ authors are correct and the main focus is the connected touchscreen equipped car the Hi-Fi side may find its self the red headed stepchild.

[Hugh]

Samsung has been working on the high-end audio business the last 2 years by hiring a few people from JBL & Revel.

High-end audio is a very small factor in the big picture.

[Folsom]

Can we expect anything interesting? or just Samsung labeled JBL stuff?

[randytsuch]

Or maybe Samsung sells off the high end audio stuff?  Depends on if they want the "prestige" of owning those labels.

They can obviously afford to keep them.