Who owns which audio brand?
Many well-known audio brands are now owned by a large corporation. Sometimes it’s tricky to find out who owns a particular brand – and what that means for you.
Over the last fifteen years, numerous popular brands in the audio sector have lost their independence. They’ve been bought up by large corporations or had to sell off their naming rights. In some cases, brands were also broken up into divisions and target groups.
There are still plenty of independent companies in the Hi-Fi sector, including small manufacturers specialising in loudspeakers, for example. So there are no monopolies as of yet. Regardless, the industry is in a state of upheaval – with no end in sight yet.
Harman: the mega-corporation owned by a giga-corporation
What do AKG, Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, Harman Kardon, JBL and Marantz have in common? They all belong to the same group, Harman International. And those are just the famous names – Harman unites a bunch of other brands under one roof.
Harman International, originally a US company, was acquired by Samsung Electronics in 2017. However, it claims to still be operating independently. These days, the group continues to expand and isn’t stopping at audio: a takeover of the driver assistance division of the German ZF Group is currently underway.
Example Pioneer: it’s complicated
The reverse can happen too: Gentex, a US automotive supplier, bought Voxx in 2025. Voxx owned various subsidiaries for car audio as well as classic Hi-Fi audio brands such as Klipsch, Magnat, Onkyo and Pioneer.
The Pioneer case shows how such changes can quickly become confusing.
In 2014, Pioneer divested its Home AV division – audio and video electronics for the home. The majority – 51 per cent – of its shares initially went to a Hong Kong financial investor called Baring Private Equity Asia, with a minority going to Onkyo. In the end, however, the AV division was completely transferred to Onkyo. In 2021, a joint venture between Voxx and Sharp took over Onkyo. Onkyo was already struggling massively financially at the time and became insolvent a year later. Nevertheless, AV receivers are still sold under the Onkyo name today.
Back to Pioneer: its DJ division was also spun off in 2014, but to another, brand-new company called Pioneer DJ. It has operated independently since then, and was renamed AlphaTheta in 2020. TCL secured the rights to Pioneer televisions (yes, they did exist).
Pioneer the company was acquired by an investor called EQT in 2019. In 2025, EQT sold it on to CarUX, which in turn is owned by InnoLux. Pioneer was most recently involved in automotive electronics, and CarUX is, as the name suggests, an automotive supplier.
Other examples
Sennheiser is another case where you have to look closely. The consumer electronics division has belonged to Swiss hearing aid manufacturer Sonova since 2022, manufacturing soundbars and headphones. But not every model – some headphones intended for the professional sector are still made by German company Sennheiser, as are its microphones.
At Bang & Olufsen, only the car audio division belongs to Harman Kardon. The rest is still owned by the original company. Philips the company no longer manufactures anything to do with consumer electronics. But yet, its name still appears on many audio and video products. Its televisions are made by TP Vision. The rest of the consumer electronics division went to a brand-new company called Woox Innovations, which was bought by guitar manufacturer Gibson shortly thereafter. Gibson went bankrupt in 2018. Since then, TP Vision has also been producing consumer electronics other than TVs under the Philips brand.
Teac was also majority-owned by Gibson for several years. However, the Japanese company has always acted independently, which still seems to be the case today. I haven’t been able to find out exactly who owns how many shares of Teac. Tascam is Teac’s brand for the professional audio sector.
Stax, a Japanese manufacturer of electrostatic headphones, has been owned by Chinese company Edifier since 2012. Audeze, another high-end headphone brand, has been owned by Sony since 2023. Logitech snapped up Ultimate Ears back in 2008, and Bose snapped up luxury brand McIntosh in 2024. The Lenco brand name has been owned by Dutch company Commaxx International since 2015, but the original Swiss company Lenco hasn’t existed since 1977.
In the list below, you’ll find even more brands that no longer belong to the original company. If you have any additions, please leave a comment.
And why should I know this?
OK, now what should you do with this information? Good question. First off, we can conclude that a simple brand name doesn’t guarantee anything. I already wrote about this many years ago. Well-known brands with a glorious past are often cannibalised.
Conversely, you can’t automatically draw conclusions regarding quality from a company’s ownership structure. If the new owner makes no changes, development, production and quality standards will continue as usual. It’s quite possible that new headphones from Sennheiser, Stax or Audeze will seamlessly follow on from the previous quality standard. Of course, quality can also deteriorate without ownership changing. Ultimately, there’s no way to avoid examining a specific product and testing it.
David Lee
Senior Editor
David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.chMy interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
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