Karl-Heinz Fink acquires Epos, new speakers incoming

[What Hi-Fi?]

"Be prepared to see more unconventional ideas in our new Epos loudspeakers," says Fink.

Karl-Heinz Fink acquires Epos, new speakers incoming : Read more

 

[bristollinnet]

As a former owner of the legendary ES14, and a current but still satisfied owner of the ES22, its really sad too yet more of our great British heritage in HiFi loudspeakers just relegated to a ‘brand’ flogged off to an overseas name most of us have never heard of.

Creek did a half-way good job in keeping the name and (until recently) most of the spirit alive but you only needed to look at their accounts to know how it was going to end.

 

[Skonnect]

As a former owner of the legendary ES14, and a current but still satisfied owner of the ES22, its really sad too yet more of our great British heritage in HiFi loudspeakers just relegated to a ‘brand’ flogged off to an overseas name most of us have never heard of.

Creek did a half-way good job in keeping the name and (until recently) most of the spirit alive but you only needed to look at their accounts to know how it was going to end.

This doesn't make sense. Epos haven't been introducing a new product the last five or six years if we're discounting the puny, tin-can sounding K5 and and the K1C, that was just a single K1 for center-channel uses. I don't know if the 'i' has done anything, but it was likely just a marketing stunt to change the internal wiring for something even cheaper. You want them gone and dead in the gutter?

The K2 floorstander was a seriously decent speaker, it had its flaws, but in the price-range it managed some impressive feats of musicality, but that was in 2014. I think it's been four or five years where Epos has continually teased active versions of their speakers, which now are completely without merit on the current market. It's the same with Creek, they've managed to do nothing to keep up with the quick moving market of digital-connections and streaming, and haven't been close to class leading in sound either. Decent, sure. But decent doesn't cut it any longer, the market has narrowed a lot the last ten years, and the old english brands better get their acts together or they'll be left "another brand" which is sold.

Some british brands does modern Hi-Fi really, really well, and I could laud praises on the likes of Chord and Rega (and for many purposes KEF) for being true to state-of-the-art sound quality and giving the user exactly what he expects and needs from a modern product. However, there are so many old, 'great' british brands that are dragging their behinds along way too slowly and expect people to be loyal to their brand. Well, if that's all they can offer, a 'brand' is all they'll be.

Now I hope that some british manufacturers, reads this and acknowledges that there are markets running a lot faster out there, than the conservative british market. The truth is, that if they continue to waste time and money on CD-players and ignore more clever speaker-solutions, they'll become 'a brand' or - even worse - an 'install brand'. Shivers!