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HTC sells half of its shares in Beats Audio

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Whubblesbuddy

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News broke today that HTC has sold half of its shares in Beats Audio. HTC had owned 50% of the stock of Beats Audio. The buyer of the stock was Beats Audio themselves. That leaves HTC with 25% of Beats' stock, and Beats Audio with 75% of its stock.

Story here:http://www.slashgear.com/htc-sells-controlling-beats-audio-stake-as-smartphones-stumble-22239677/

and here: Struggling HTC Starts To Bail Out Of Beats Audio - Smarthouse

While I don't speculate, or at least don't like to, the news from HTC lately (>50% drop in revenue, reassessing upgrade schedule, removing Desire HD from upgrade to ICS, now selling half of their Beats stock) has me a little worried.

Please don't kill me for this, but I really do love my Rezound as is. It is flawless and beautiful. I have had it since February and have found no bugs at all. So I might be disappointed if they cancel our upgrade, but not angry. And, actually, I have been concerned that an upgrade to ICS would bring some bugs until the first maintenance/bug fix update rolls out.
 
Despite the spin in the blogs linked to, it's worth noting that HTC sold their shares back to the Beats Audio company; they didn't put them up for sale in the marketplace. That's called a stock buy-back, and it typically means that the company that's buying back its own stock isn't doing so well. This may be because the Beats "technology" is nothing more than a logo and a lot of hype.
 
i would guess Beats wants the ability to put them on other phones ...and they will be able to do that outside the US now.
 
miniSQ said:
i would guess Beats wants the ability to put them on other phones ...and they will be able to do that outside the US now.
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From what all three of the articles linked above say, HTC still has exclusive rights to the Beats technology for smartphones. HTC will still be building in the technology to the phones and branding them with the Beats logo, but they won't be including the headsets with the phones anymore.

They seem to have figured that the headsets were not a factor in selling phones. They reason that the Beats software is something prospective phone buyers look at, but if they want a good headset, they would rather go and buy their own.

I guess that makes the headset all of us Rezound owners got kind of collector's pieces.
 
Or maybe it's because the "technology" is nothing but a logo and color scheme, and like all fashion trends, this one will go away in time.
 
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Speed Daemon said:
Or maybe it's because the "technology" is nothing but a logo and color scheme, and like all fashion trends, this one will go away in time.
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Exactly. This comes as no surprise. They're not cheap either. I won't go into their SQ but maybe android should have marketed a true 'music phone', not just one that's compatible with this or that headset. Android has done well as an OS, it's just that the phones thus far have been about the OS, not about the 'camera phone' or the 'music phone'. Out of these two I would say a really good camera phone is more useful & does not require accessories like Dre Beats. This might be where Nokia could redeem themselves (with android).

I think many people who turn their noses up at wearing cans thought "great! these are fasionable! I can wear these!" & then thought "nah, cans are nerdy" by the end of their contract. I still see a lot of white ear buds on people even though SQ on those is naff. Enough said.
 
!on said:
Exactly. This comes as no surprise. They're not cheap either. I won't go into their SQ but maybe android should have marketed a true 'music phone', not just one that's compatible with this or that headset. Android has done well as an OS, it's just that the phones thus far have been about the OS, not about the 'camera phone' or the 'music phone'. Out of these two I would say a really good camera phone is more useful & does not require accessories like Dre Beats. This might be where Nokia could redeem themselves (with android).
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I'd welcome a great music phone so I can keep my relatively fragile (with its 60GB HD) X5 PMP at home. But that's going to be up to the hardware OEM, not Google / "android". And that's where the problem lies. None of the big handset manufacturers are also makers of true high fidelity sound equipment. Kyocera and Sony come the closest, and others could partner up with a company like Harman International (owner of brands including Harmon / Kardon, JBL and Mark Levinson) to make a shared-brand phone with no-compromise audio hardware and software. I doubt that there's a big enough, educated enough consumer base to make a truly good phone audio system practical, however.

It looks like some respected names in audio are selling Bluetooth headphones, but I have doubts about the capability of Bluetooth L2CAP to be the best method of audio delivery. If it is, that bodes well for us, since (at least in theory) any L2CAP phone combined with a good audio player app and high quality L2CAP headphones could make up a "music phone".


I think many people who turn their noses up at wearing cans thought "great! these are fasionable! I can wear these!" & then thought "nah, cans are nerdy" by the end of their contract. I still see a lot of white ear buds on people even though SQ on those is naff. Enough said.
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I'm not a fashion maven, so I don't care about that part. I will state the obvious and say that big headphones don't go well with a featherweight phone. It's kind of like using a sports car to tow a horse trailer; it might work but it's clumsy. No doubt most of the market for the hip-hop headphones is kids with dreams of being a big time DJ. No doubt even they figure out that even a pretend DJ looks foolish without the turntables and other stuff. :rofl:

White accessories for Apple's white products after years of railing against white computers is for another topic. I was pretty annoyed to learn that the best top-end $300 earbuds were only available in white though. Thank God that fad's over. Now if we can only shut down the blue light fad for another 40 years. (I'm old, and had to live through it in the '70s as well.)
 
Blue Lights are good. Best way to confirm cat urine in a location. Oh wait, thats black lights.
 
Speed Daemon said:
Despite the spin in the blogs linked to, it's worth noting that HTC sold their shares back to the Beats Audio company; they didn't put them up for sale in the marketplace. That's called a stock buy-back, and it typically means that the company that's buying back its own stock isn't doing so well. This may be because the Beats "technology" is nothing more than a logo and a lot of hype.
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Didn't some rapper lend his name to BA? And that hopefully makes us all think it is a superior audio system? I have experienced Beatrs audio and my 30 plus year old Marantz system can eat BAs day in and out.

I agree, a logo and hype. But these days, what else do you need? Perhaps an endorsement from Kim Kardashian or Bieber? Neither know much about valves and power amps. Or music, either.
 
Bob Maxey said:
Didn't some rapper lend his name to BA? And that hopefully makes us all think it is a superior audio system?
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Yes, the artist known as "Dr. Dre". But he's not really a doctor, and has no credentials that I'm aware of that might make him an authority on the matter.


I have experienced Beatrs audio and my 30 plus year old Marantz system can eat BAs day in and out.
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If I want some big bass, I can switch in some EQ, and my Audio Technica HM50 closed back headphones will deliver as much exaggerated bass or mid-bass as I can throw at them. Not worth paying extra for.


I agree, a logo and hype. But these days, what else do you need? Perhaps an endorsement from Kim Kardashian or Bieber? Neither know much about valves and power amps. Or music, either.
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LOL...I'd love to see a smart phone with a valve amp section!
 
Yes I think closed cans are ideal for portable music. I use sennheisers HD25-1 though I think it boils down to what you listen to most. My favourite in ears were Denons 751's. Sound not to disimilar to the sens.

Re: bluetooth, can't understand why sennheiser haven't pushed their Keer audio (better than bluetooth) in the mainstream market like they have with their other stuff. Tried bluetooth audio dongles & headset (sony ericsson) but not a good match for high quality encoded music.
 
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