WEBVTT - The Rise and Fall of Onkyo 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.319 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.280 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio. And 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.000 how the tech are you? You know? In a tech 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.200 News episode a few weeks ago, I mentioned that the 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:27.720 company on Chio, which created an audio equipment brand that 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.960 was well known and respected in the A V world, 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:35.600 was going out of business. I also mentioned that the 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:39.120 brand would actually live on because other companies had sort 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.599 of swooped in to purchase those assets before the demise 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.400 of on Chio, and it appears that the plan is 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.800 to continue producing equipment using those assets that will presumably 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.600 carry the Onchio brand names forward. Then I asked if 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:57.720 y'all wanted me to follow up on that and do 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:00.800 an episode on it, and y'all said, yeah, us at 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.400 least five of you did, So here we go. That's 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.720 that's a bar that I am happy to hit. Now, 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.520 before I really jump into things, let me give a 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:14.639 few caveats up front in this episode. First, there actually 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.760 are not a ton of great resources that chronicled the 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.560 history and evolution of on Kio, So there are going 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.080 to be some gaps in this episode. And we should 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:30.400 probably consider any dates I talk about beyond like really 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:33.760 formative ones like the founding of the company, to be 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.800 more or less approximate. Also, many of the resources I 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:42.160 uncovered were obviously originally written in a language other than English, 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:47.440 and the translations vary from pretty good to this is 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:52.840 unintentionally disturbing. For example, one source I came across described 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.160 a moment in an on Kio commercial that totally gave 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:58.840 me the creeps, and I'm gonna go ahead and read 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.400 what it said, because should I be the only one 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:06.600 to suffer? This is literally how it read. Quote Yoko 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:11.600 Mina Mino and Idol speaks in a moist voice. I 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.480 want you to like it slowly. This is a scene 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.359 from the commercial of Radian, a popular mini component system 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:24.959 of a Kyo In end quote, yeah, have fun getting 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.560 that out of your head, because it's been haunting me 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.639 for days. Anyway. My point is that the combination of 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:38.320 scant sources and questionable translations, also some sources contradicting facts 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.600 that other quote unquote facts that other sources are are listening. 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.440 All of this means that we could be jumping around 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.560 a little bit and taking everything with a grain of salt. 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:53.200 Beyond certain things that are pretty certain, I usually would 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:59.280 default to the company's own history sources over everything else, 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.240 thinking well, that's going to be the most reliable. But 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.080 there's at least one instance where I feel like that 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.000 was also incorrect, and we'll get to that all right, 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.480 back to a Kio. As we'll see, the story of 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.919 on Kio includes more than one moment where the entire 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:19.480 brand could have disappeared, and that only thanks to some 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.400 other companies was on Kio able to keep going. Sadly, 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:25.840 it's luck was bound to run out at some point, 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.120 and that seems to be what has happened now. But 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.880 our story begins back in the early nineteen hundreds, and 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.880 in fact involves not just on Kio's founder, who is 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:41.680 Takeshi Godae, but another really important person in Japanese tech 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:46.720 and business, Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of the company that 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:52.280 would ultimately become known as Pana Sonic. Konosuke Matsushida became 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:56.200 childhood friends with Takeshi Godai after taking a job at 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:00.920 the Goodai Bicycle company. Mattsushida would later moved to Osaka 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.280 take a job at the Osaka Electric Light Company. Work 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.640 his way up quickly in that business, and in nineteen seventeen, 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.680 Matt Sushida would leave to found his own electronics company, 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.520 initially focusing on stuff like bicycle lamps and light sockets. 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.680 This is the company that would ultimately become Panasonic, and 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:21.479 it would take a few years for that company to 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.599 find stability, but after that it grew pretty quickly, and 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.440 Matt Sushida would eventually bring over his childhood buddy Takeshi 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:33.600 Good Eye to oversee a manufacturing facility dedicated to making 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:39.320 speakers loud speakers. After World War Two, Matt Sushida's company 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.480 was actually in danger of being split up by the 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:47.200 occupying forces, primarily the United States in Japan. That was 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.839 something that was happening to a lot of Japanese companies 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:54.800 because Japanese companies had sort of a dynastic structure. There 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:59.040 was very much a kind of inherited structure for companies 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.760 where they would belonged to a family or maybe a 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.440 small group of families and um. The concern by the 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.920 occupying forces was that this was concentrating power in a 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:16.200 way that was harmful at least to United States interests. 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:20.400 So around that same time, Matt Sushida's company spun off 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:25.080 its audio production operations, which gave Takeshi the opportunity to 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.000 make his own decision to found a company of his 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:32.640 very own. So he did, and he called it Osaka didn' 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:38.000 ki a kyo kk on Kio means sound acoustics, and 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.039 Takesh's dream was to create a company that could produce 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:47.039 higher quality dynamic speakers than what was typically available on 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.479 the market in Japan, and he founded that company in 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:54.960 April of nineteen forty six. The next month, on Kio 0:05:55.080 --> 0:06:00.440 introduced its very first product, but this was not a loudspeaker. Instead, 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.719 it was a cartridge pickup for record players. This is 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.120 the part of the record player that has the stylus 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.840 or needle inside of it. That needle will vibrate as 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:13.880 it moves through the grooves of a record, so the 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.680 needle kind of navigates this canal in the form of 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:22.320 this groove, and the variations in that canal cause vibrations 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.800 through the needle. Uh and a very small, very sensitive 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:31.440 electro magnet in the cartridge would convert the vibrations into 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:36.200 a weak electric signal, and then when amplified, that electric 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.320 signal would be able to drive speakers that could play 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.239 back the recorded sound represented by those grooves in the record. 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.919 Super cool technology. It's been around for more than a 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.320 hundred years now, according to one source, which was a 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.960 thorough source, but also impossible for me to verify because 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.080 I could not find any corroborating evidence. So again, take 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.200 this with a grain of salt. This original product sold 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:04.200 for a three yen in ninet. If that is indeed true, 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:08.280 it would have been incredibly expensive. But again, the source 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.240 I found was one that doesn't even exist online anymore. 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.360 Actually had to use archive dot org to even get 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:16.960 a copy of it. Like I found a link to 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:21.200 the source in a forum about on chio. I followed 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.040 the link and got a four oh four error. So 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.720 I went to archive and actually found a snapshot of 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:31.880 the uh the link from two thousand and twelve in 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:33.960 order to actually read this. And again, like I said, 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:37.920 I couldn't find any corroborating evidence. So we're just kind 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.760 of going to assume that the product was expensive. It 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.240 would have made sense. You know, electronics typically when they 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:48.200 first debut in a market, tend to be very very expensive. 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.040 They're expensive to make, and so the manufacturer passes that 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.880 onto the customer, and thanks to you know, bleeding edge 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:00.400 early adopters who have a lot of disposable cash. Then 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.400 eventually the price comes down because manufacturing improves and you 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:08.400 start producing at scale well despite the cost. At least 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:10.760 according to this one source, the products sold well enough 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.840 for to Cache to mark those profits toward developing a 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.200 loudspeaker research and development division, as well as set money 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.560 aside to pay for the construction of a factory. That 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:24.600 part is absolutely true because by January, two years after 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:29.240 the company had been founded, the company had built its factory. Now, 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.480 one of the first things that that factory began to 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.240 produce were speaker cones, which means we should probably take 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:39.360 a quick moment to explain what speaker cones are and 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:44.040 what they are for. So briefly, a loud speaker or 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:48.720 just speaker for short, takes an incoming electric signal, feeds 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.920 that to an electro magnetic set up, and that in 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:57.280 turn drives a diaphragm or cone to move inward and outward, 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.520 which creates fluctuations and air pressure that we perceive as sound. 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.680 So inside a speaker you typically have a permanent magnet 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:10.200 that's attached to the chassis of the speaker itself and 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:15.360 suspended in the speaker is a coil of conductive wire, 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.280 and as electricity moves through the coil, it creates a 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.720 magnetic field, the magnetic field, and the coil interacts with 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.920 the magnetic field of the permanent magnet. And depending on 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.520 the direction of the current, because we are working with 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.800 alternating current here, the magnetic fields either repel one another, 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:37.440 which forces the coil outward from the speaker, or they 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.640 attract one another, which pulls the coil inward toward the 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.840 speaker or the back of the speaker. I guess well, 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.559 that coil in turn is attached to a cone or diaphragm. 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.680 Typically there's a connector sometimes it's a direct connection, but 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:57.000 usually there's a a component that serves to connect the 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:01.079 coil to the cone, and the cu own is secured 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.760 to the speaker at the wide end. So if you 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.640 think of a megaphone, the part where the sound comes 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.280 out is the bit where it would attach to the chassis, 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.960 and it's the narrow endo the cone that attaches to 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.200 the coil. So the movements of the coil push and 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:21.040 pull on this diaphragm. The stiffness of the material of 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.079 that diaphragm, as well as the size of the diaphragm, 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.560 will affect the quality of sound that comes out of it. 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.679 Larger diaphragms can be much louder than smaller ones and 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.880 generate lower frequencies of sound as well. Your basic subwhiffer 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:40.040 has a larger diaphragm than say, a tweeter speaker would, 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.120 and there's a real art and science to creating the 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.439 right cone shape and the right stiffness for speakers. Typically, 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.839 speakers have a range of frequencies and volumes that they're 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.840 very good at reproducing. But beyond that range, if you 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.640 try to go either higher frequency or lower frequency, or 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.040 turn up the volume more than the speaker can handle, 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.200 things start to get ugly. And a lot of those 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:08.920 factors depend upon the cones material and shape. On Kio, 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.560 like other companies in the loudspeaker business back in the 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.400 early days, was producing paper cones. Paper in this case 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.000 includes cones that have materials like wool or even synthetic 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.840 fibers interwoven into them, so it's not you know, it's 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.079 not like printer paper or notebook paper or anything like that. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.480 It is a type of paper just as currency tends 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.760 to be a special type of paper that has various 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:38.240 fibers interwoven into it, so are speaker cones. And soon 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.560 the company had its first real hit. One early speaker 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.840 released by on Kio was the e D one hundred. 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:51.440 It had a driver measuring times or about ten inches across, 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.920 and it was also expensive, more expensive than its nearest 0:11:55.960 --> 0:12:00.840 competitor according to a Kio itself. And yet despite that expense, 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:04.760 it sold well as reviewers praised it for the sound 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:08.360 replication capabilities that it had. And from what I can tell, 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:13.240 this was just the speaker itself, like just the actual 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.480 speaker part, not the cabinet that would house the speaker. 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.720 Now I could be wrong about that. Maybe they produced 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.840 an entire cabinet for this, but to me, it sounds 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:25.640 like it was more of an O e M product. 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.120 So O e M stands for original equipment manufacturer. It's 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.200 a common term in business. These are the companies that 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:37.200 make components that other companies used to put into their 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:41.240 own products. So a lot of those types of companies 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.720 have names that you probably aren't that familiar with because 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.800 we are not the customers for O e M s, right, 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.559 we don't go out and buy O E M products 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.240 for the most part. I mean, there are places that 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.920 will sell them, to sell the O e M components 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:57.960 where you can do things like do a repair or 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.679 something to a product, but typically we're more familiar with 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:05.760 the consumer companies that the consumer brand companies UM not 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.880 the O E M s, but other companies are the 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.640 customers for those O e M s. Uh. If you 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.880 think of it, Fox Con which is the company that 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:18.640 Apple relies on for a lot of the assembly, can 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:23.160 kind of fall into this business to business category. So anyway, 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.000 all of that would have been an irrelevant tangent if 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.240 in fact the E D one was a full cabinet 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.400 speaker product. But all the photos I saw of it 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.760 have been just for the speaker part itself, as if 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.480 you had taken a cabinet apart and pulled the speaker 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.400 part out and just had that. That's what all the 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.720 pictures show. So my guess is that's exactly what it 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:45.920 was when a Kia was selling them, and some other 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.479 company would do things like create the cabinets or chassiss 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.480 that would hold this loud speaker. Now, in nineteen fifty 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.839 on Kio filed for a patent on nonpressed cone drive 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:01.680 unit technology. All right, this brings us up to pressed 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:05.920 versus nonpressed That refers to the process of making speaker cones. 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.880 Press cones typically have a more uniform density and stiffness, 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.760 but they also tend to have a smaller surface area 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.280 than non pressed cones. So nonpressed cones, while not being 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:20.600 quite as consistent and sometimes having some quality issues, are 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.240 able to move more air, and they could be louder 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.360 than a similarly sized pressed cone. At least that's what 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:28.400 I've come to understand on the matter. I started going 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.000 down the rabbit hole of this and quickly discovered that 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.840 speaker cone technology can be treated with a complexity and 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:38.960 reverence I would normally associate with quantum physics. Well, we've 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.120 got a lot more to say about on chio before 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:51.480 we get any further. Let's take a quick break, all right, 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.240 My understanding about pressed versus non press cones really, non 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.520 press cones, mostly we can just say, tend to be 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.800 more power efficient and can produce louder sounds than similar 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:06.720 sized pressed cones, But they also vary in quality, and 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.600 therefore you cannot be absolutely certain that you're going to 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:14.160 get the absolute best from a non pressed cone nt 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.640 This was also when on Kio introduced the on Kyo 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.360 o P six seventy, which was a high fidelity audio 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:25.720 system complete with four speed turntable. And if you're like 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.080 a lot of folks, you might be saying, wait, a 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:33.240 turntable with four speeds. I think most people who have 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.560 played with turntables they know that there are two standard 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.960 speeds that you pretty much find on every single turntable 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.840 slash record player that's out there. There's forty five rpm 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.560 r VM O course, stands for revolutions per minute, meaning 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:51.160 the turntable will turn forty five times every minute. This 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.960 is usually reserved for seven inch records. Typically they are singles, 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:56.920 which means you know, you have like a single song 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:01.320 per side of the disk of the wreck, and then 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.440 you have thirty three RPM, or really thirty three and 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.200 a third, and this is what we typically use for 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:12.040 long play albums or LPs, the larger records. Right, most 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:15.320 people are familiar with that. Now beyond that, there are 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.800 some folks who are probably aware that older turntables in 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:23.000 particular often had a seventy eight rpm setting, so it 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:26.200 would turn seventy eight times in a minute. Uh, that 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:30.240 has dated back to some of the earliest records. You 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.480 don't typically find seventy eight rpm records these days. I'm 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:35.880 not saying no one's making them, because I'm sure someone 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:41.160 out there is, but but these were the early early records. However, 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:43.560 did you know And some of you probably do, but 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.720 I doubt everyone does that. A few systems also included 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.640 a fourth speed, which was all the way down to 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:56.440 sixteen rpm. Technically it was actually sixteen and two thirds rpm, 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.120 half the speed of thirty three and one third. If 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.600 you're wondering why these odd speeds are hitting these these 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.800 seemingly arbitrary numbers, it actually has to do with the 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:12.160 gear ratios that were used in turntables, um, because it's 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.439 the it's the ratio of these gears that determine what 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:19.800 speeds you can have something turned to based upon the 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:24.400 speed that the motor works at. And it's really fascinating. 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:29.119 But the reason for of these these numbers, UH really 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:31.960 has to do with the capability of an electric motors 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.440 that turn at a very specific speed and thus, by 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:40.480 using gears, you can gear up or gear down that speed. Right. 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.560 So that's that's why they are all these weird ratios 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:45.480 of thirty three and a third or sixteen and two 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.440 thirds or seventy eight. Now, when I was a kid, 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.680 I was convinced that the purpose of these different speeds 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.520 on turntables was really so that you could turn up 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:03.359 any LP or thirty three rpm album into a Chipmunks album, 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.400 because if you play a thirty three rpm record at 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:10.959 forty five rpm speeds everything you know, speeds up and 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:15.280 all the sounds get pitched up, so it is hilarious 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:20.080 if you're you know, nine, or in my case, forty six. Conversely, 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.879 if you play a forty five rpm record at thirty 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:28.280 three rpm while then everything slows down and pitches down, 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.840 and I can tell you that the effect is often disturbing. Um. 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.680 I remember in college where my roommate made an entire 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:41.280 cassette tape where he he recorded songs played on albums 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.040 but at the wrong speed, because we had a turntable 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:48.480 in our dorm room and a cassette deck with it too, 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.159 and so one day he just spent he spent the 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.880 whole day converting thirty three rpm songs to forty five 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.800 and vice versa, and listening to that forty five rpm 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.919 recording of the BGS, Stay in Alive played at thirty 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:05.400 three rpm was really the stuff of nightmares. I'm amazed 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:08.440 that a horror movie hasn't done that, because it did 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.679 sound like it was coming from you know, like a 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.080 psychological thriller or something. Yeah, give it a try if 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.000 you want, um it's it's it's a juvenile way to 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:23.399 amuse yourself. Highly recommend it. Anyway. The whole thirty three 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:26.000 and a third versus RPM story is rooted in different 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:28.879 music labels attempting to set the standard and then eventually 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.960 meshing together so that one format, the forty five would 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:36.119 essentially be associated with singles, and the other, the thirty 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.639 three RPM, would be associated with long play albums. But 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:44.399 that speed really does impact other stuff. So naturally, the 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:49.200 faster the RPM, then the faster the turntables stylus makes 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.960 its way through the groove of a record, right, I mean, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:56.240 it's turning faster, so the journey takes less time. That 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:59.160 also means that if you have two albums that are 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:01.760 the exact same ameter, but one is a thirty three 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.600 RPM and the other is a seventy eight RPM, well 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.960 the seventy rpm record is gonna play through much much faster, 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:11.320 assuming you've you're using the proper playback speed for each record. 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.320 Of course, the record spends faster, the stylist gets to 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.720 the end faster, which makes sense. Well. Another thing that 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:22.160 the faster speed tends to do is affect fidelity. Slowing 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.680 the speed down can impact the quality of the playback sound. 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:30.800 If you go slower than normal, then it's going to 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:36.360 start to sound worse. Slower speeds produce lower quality audio, 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:38.960 is one way to think about it. So that meant 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.879 that albums designed to be played at sixteen rpm had 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:48.280 limitations on sound quality. For that reason, most but not all, 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:52.639 of sixteen rpm records were spoken word pieces where the 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.119 audio quality wasn't as big of a deal. And I 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.160 know that was a tangent, but this is tech stuff, 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.280 and that's what I do. If I didn't described technology, 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.919 then I wouldn't really be doing the show, right. So anyway, 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.760 if you weren't familiar with four speed stereos, now you 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:13.760 know they could play albums at sixteen thirty three r 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:15.600 p M. I'm sure some of you out there have 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.040 had experience with these. I don't think I've ever seen 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:21.000 a four speed I have seen three speeds, but I 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:23.920 don't think I ever at least I definitely never owned 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:29.119 a four speed turntable. Now, on Kio was already off 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:33.800 to a fast start. By just four years after opening 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.040 its first factory, it was time to move into bigger digs. 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:41.479 The company expanded both its factory space and it's office space. 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:44.560 The next year, on Kio re released the e D 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:48.960 one hundred loudspeaker, but this time they changed out the 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.679 cone material. The loudspeaker had the non pressed cone design 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:55.320 in the new version. You know, the original e D 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:59.359 one hundred was a pressed cone one. But now on 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:02.240 Kio had filed for its patent for non pressed cone 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.760 technology and was able to incorporate that into the e 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:09.520 D one and the improvement and sound quality garnered more 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:13.399 positive reviews from critics, so on Kio's reputation in the 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:17.000 audio world in Japan was on the rise. Now this 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.959 next bit I have to take issue with. According to 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:24.879 on Kio's own website, the company introduced a transistor radio 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:29.840 in nineteen fifty three called the OS, complete with a 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.600 speaker cone measuring twenty centimeters across, which was a much 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.639 larger speaker cone than what you would typically find in 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:42.160 transistor radio's at the time. However, the issue I take 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.560 isn't with the speaker size. That's fine, that's with the 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:49.560 year nineteen fifty three. See the general agreement is that 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:54.959 the first commercially manufactured transistor radio was the Regency tr 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:58.560 one that didn't hit store shelves until the end of 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:03.320 nineteen fifty four, and I cannot find any corroborating evidence 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:07.520 that suggests the OS fifty five debuted in nineteen fifty three. 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.320 In fact, all other sources say that it came out 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:14.040 in nineteen fifty five. To keep in mind on Kio's 0:23:14.119 --> 0:23:16.399 own sources, the one that says nineteen fifty three but 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:20.520 everyone else says no, it was nineteen five. Honestly, five 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:23.600 makes more sense. It would fall in line with the 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:26.240 fact that the Regency tr one is widely considered to 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:29.720 be the first transistor radio that was commercially produced. And 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:32.880 also it would make the OS fifty five name makes 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:36.159 sense right if the fifty five was in fact a 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:38.840 reference to the year in which it came out, nineteen 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:42.640 fifty five, and then you wouldn't contradict the earlier fact 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:46.240 about the Regency tr one. So my guess is that 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:50.800 the on Chio official website has an error on it 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:54.520 in this case, um, either that or everyone has been 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:59.119 wrong about what the first transistor radio actually was. Anyway, 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:03.640 transistors are super neat because they allowed for a miniaturization, 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:06.680 and I've talked a ton about that in past episodes. 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:11.159 So the too long didn't listen version is that older 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:15.719 radios relied on vacuum tubes to act as diodes and 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:19.640 to serve as amplifiers. A diode is an electric component 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:23.520 or electronic component I should say that allows a current 0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:26.439 to flow in one direction but not to flow in 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:30.000 the reverse direction, and vacuum tubes were used for that, 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:32.840 and they were used for amplifying a signal, that is, 0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:35.600 taking a week signal and then boosting that up to 0:24:35.720 --> 0:24:40.400 a stronger signal. Vacuum tubes are large, and they're also delicate, 0:24:40.440 --> 0:24:42.120 and they also generate a lot of heat. They're kind 0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:46.120 of like light bulbs. Solid state transistors are much smaller 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:49.159 than vacuum tubes, and they allowed manufacturers to make stuff 0:24:49.200 --> 0:24:52.680 like radio sets that were much smaller and lighter than 0:24:52.680 --> 0:24:55.920 older versions. If you've ever seen like a really old 0:24:56.000 --> 0:24:58.160 radio set, you know it's a piece of furniture, it's 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:01.560 a big, big thing. Typically it would have its own 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:03.560 set of legs, kind of like a table, and it 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:07.640 would be a standalone piece. Transistors allowed people to make 0:25:07.840 --> 0:25:12.760 much smaller radios, eventually pocket size radios, and uh so 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:18.600 it was a a truly important development in electronics. It 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:23.000 is what allowed us to create manaturized components and have 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:26.840 things that didn't take up an entire section of the 0:25:26.880 --> 0:25:32.200 floor like televisions and radios and later on computers. Now 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:35.479 I'm not gonna go through every product released with a company, 0:25:35.560 --> 0:25:38.480 at least not in any detail, but the following years 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:42.920 saw on Chio expand into speaker chassis manufacturing, and they 0:25:42.960 --> 0:25:46.439 also created a record player called the Kyo HP ten. 0:25:46.560 --> 0:25:48.760 From what I understand, this is a record player that 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:52.119 has its own dedicated speaker, so you just you know, 0:25:52.880 --> 0:25:54.480 to put a record on it, you plug it in 0:25:54.600 --> 0:25:56.679 you that you can play the music straight from that. 0:25:56.800 --> 0:25:59.360 It wasn't a component, in other words, it was its 0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:03.159 own standal own product. The company also got involved in 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:07.880 TV set manufacturing around this time. Also, in nineteen fifty five, 0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:11.439 the company settled on a logo just shy of a 0:26:11.480 --> 0:26:14.040 decade of the company's founding I couldn't find any other 0:26:14.119 --> 0:26:19.200 information suggesting that they had created a logo before nineteen 0:26:19.280 --> 0:26:23.840 fifty five, which is funny. So from ninety five apparently 0:26:23.880 --> 0:26:27.520 they didn't have an official logo type. Only a couple 0:26:27.520 --> 0:26:31.000 of years later the company would actually refine that logo 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:34.439 type to quote suit the rapidly changing style of the 0:26:34.480 --> 0:26:37.280 times end quote. And yeah, this does make sense. Like 0:26:37.320 --> 0:26:41.199 the fifties and sixties, things were changing very quickly, especially 0:26:41.240 --> 0:26:45.280 in the world of audio equipment, and you didn't want 0:26:45.320 --> 0:26:49.639 to get associated with being left behind, right you didn't. 0:26:49.680 --> 0:26:53.399 Your company did not want to have this stigma of 0:26:53.440 --> 0:26:57.200 being stuck in the past because technology was evolving so 0:26:57.320 --> 0:27:00.560 quickly that in order to remain relevant you needed to 0:27:00.640 --> 0:27:03.080 change things up. And so it makes sense that even 0:27:03.240 --> 0:27:05.240 just a couple of years after they first settled on 0:27:05.240 --> 0:27:08.879 a logo type, they would change it. In ninety seven, 0:27:09.160 --> 0:27:14.719 the Toshiba Corporation entered into an accepted capital participation with 0:27:14.800 --> 0:27:17.400 on Kio. So you might say, well, what the heck 0:27:17.400 --> 0:27:22.280 does an accepted capital participation mean? While further documentation reveals 0:27:22.280 --> 0:27:25.760 that Toshiba brought up a lot of shares of on Kyo, 0:27:26.160 --> 0:27:29.439 a ton of them, like sixty nine percent of the 0:27:29.480 --> 0:27:33.480 ownership of on Kio went to the Toshiba Group, with 0:27:33.600 --> 0:27:37.040 the bulk of the remainder left over going to on 0:27:37.200 --> 0:27:40.399 Kio's founder, Takesh a Go die Um, and some of 0:27:40.440 --> 0:27:43.399 it going to some other executives and some members of 0:27:43.440 --> 0:27:47.920 good Eyes family. See. While on Kio was introducing new 0:27:47.960 --> 0:27:52.159 products and generally receiving a positive reception for them, the 0:27:52.280 --> 0:27:56.360 cost of doing business was so high that the revenue 0:27:56.560 --> 0:28:01.360 coming in wasn't keeping up. So in other words, like, yeah, 0:28:01.480 --> 0:28:04.359 they had a great reputation in the market, but the 0:28:04.359 --> 0:28:07.760 market wasn't big enough to support the expansion that on 0:28:07.880 --> 0:28:10.360 Kio was doing, and so it was costing them more 0:28:10.440 --> 0:28:14.400 to to do business than they were making in revenue. 0:28:14.840 --> 0:28:17.600 So despite having huge success in the market, a Kia 0:28:17.680 --> 0:28:20.240 was on the verge of bankruptcy and there was a 0:28:20.320 --> 0:28:23.439 very real possibility that Takeshi would have to liquidate the 0:28:23.480 --> 0:28:26.840 company and go out of business. So the Toshiba Group 0:28:27.040 --> 0:28:30.480 represented a lifeline for on Kio, and Toshiba saw the 0:28:30.560 --> 0:28:33.879 value of incorporating on Kio's reputation for high quality audio 0:28:33.920 --> 0:28:39.080 components into Toshiba products. Plus, a Kio was already serving 0:28:39.200 --> 0:28:42.719 as an O E m for Tashiba for television sets, 0:28:43.840 --> 0:28:47.000 on Kio was manufacturing TV sets that would later be 0:28:47.080 --> 0:28:50.800 sold under the Toshiba brand, so there was a chance 0:28:50.840 --> 0:28:53.520 that if you went out and bought a Toshiba branded television, 0:28:53.920 --> 0:28:57.720 the actual manufacturer of that TV was on Kio. Also, 0:28:57.760 --> 0:29:01.080 a Kia was making its own TV sets the Onkio brand, 0:29:01.200 --> 0:29:04.040 so there were both brands on the market in Japan 0:29:04.080 --> 0:29:07.640 at the same time. Now, Toshiba is yet another company 0:29:07.720 --> 0:29:10.000 that I need to do a full episode on in 0:29:10.040 --> 0:29:12.160 the future, but I'm going to resist the urge to 0:29:12.200 --> 0:29:15.000 do it right now because you're already gonna have to 0:29:15.040 --> 0:29:18.680 put up a lot from me today. Anyway, on Kio's 0:29:18.720 --> 0:29:22.280 relationship with Toshiba would end up becoming a bit of 0:29:22.320 --> 0:29:29.720 an albatross thirty years later that, my friends, is foreshadowing. 0:29:30.120 --> 0:29:33.400 And with that, we're going to take another quick break. 0:29:41.360 --> 0:29:45.320 We're back now, getting back to on Kio's history. The 0:29:45.400 --> 0:29:49.959 company kept introducing new products, mostly in the audio space. 0:29:50.600 --> 0:29:54.160 Much of the work was in loud speakers, including bookshelf 0:29:54.240 --> 0:29:57.520 type speakers, which were a fairly new thing at that point. 0:29:57.960 --> 0:30:00.720 Now they are sort of a go to speaker style. 0:30:00.800 --> 0:30:04.560 You can spend thousands and thousands of dollars getting high 0:30:04.680 --> 0:30:08.560 end books shelf style speakers. I know because I've looked 0:30:08.600 --> 0:30:11.200 at them. Didn't buy any, but I looked at them 0:30:11.240 --> 0:30:14.560 and then ultimately said, you know what, I don't think 0:30:14.680 --> 0:30:18.680 I even have a space that would accommodate the way 0:30:18.960 --> 0:30:21.120 these speakers would need to be set up so that 0:30:21.200 --> 0:30:23.760 I could get the benefit from that. And so I'd 0:30:23.760 --> 0:30:25.520 be spending a lot of money on high end stuff 0:30:25.560 --> 0:30:27.520 that I wouldn't be able to use properly, and I 0:30:27.560 --> 0:30:29.760 talked to myself out of it. I'm proud of myself 0:30:29.760 --> 0:30:33.400 for that. However, on Kio also began to produce full 0:30:33.440 --> 0:30:36.560 audio systems. They've done a couple of those in the past, 0:30:36.600 --> 0:30:39.760 but they really got into it uh in the late 0:30:39.800 --> 0:30:43.440 fifties and early sixties. That included things like the on 0:30:43.640 --> 0:30:47.680 Kyo ST four hundred d L stereophonic system in nineteen 0:30:47.760 --> 0:30:52.240 sixty three and a standalone turntable component in nineteen sixty 0:30:52.280 --> 0:30:56.080 six called the ST fifty five. The company even branched 0:30:56.080 --> 0:31:01.600 into making radio transceivers, essentially Walkee to Hokey style radios, 0:31:01.640 --> 0:31:06.000 and in sixty three, Onkyo manufactured a phonio cardiograph, which 0:31:06.040 --> 0:31:09.840 is an actual medical instrument. So they were really diversifying here. 0:31:09.880 --> 0:31:13.600 They weren't just making high end audio equipment. They were 0:31:13.640 --> 0:31:17.800 making stuff that was related to audio still but had 0:31:18.080 --> 0:31:21.960 uses apart from rocking out with the latest record. Now, 0:31:22.000 --> 0:31:26.480 this was in the beginning of the real high fidelity craze, 0:31:26.960 --> 0:31:30.000 where they started seeing audio files who would seek out 0:31:30.080 --> 0:31:34.160 specific components in an effort to put together their ultimate 0:31:34.200 --> 0:31:36.760 audio system. So instead of buying an all in one 0:31:36.800 --> 0:31:41.800 stereo system, they were interested in buying the individual pieces 0:31:41.840 --> 0:31:45.200 and connecting them together to create what they felt was 0:31:45.640 --> 0:31:48.480 the perfect sound system. Now I should add that on 0:31:48.680 --> 0:31:52.160 Chio had been making components since the late nineteen fifties, 0:31:52.520 --> 0:31:54.200 but it was really in the sixties where we saw 0:31:54.240 --> 0:31:58.000 the craze really take off. The goal was always to 0:31:58.040 --> 0:32:01.680 create the best listening experience, but that's a subjective thing. 0:32:01.960 --> 0:32:04.200 So I'm just here to tell you there is no 0:32:04.320 --> 0:32:09.200 real right answer for which system or which uh collection 0:32:09.280 --> 0:32:13.360 of pieces is the best. It depends on so many 0:32:13.360 --> 0:32:16.480 different factors, like the kind of music you listen to. 0:32:16.600 --> 0:32:20.800 Because some components are really good at representing or replicating 0:32:20.840 --> 0:32:25.480 certain frequencies and volumes that are best for one genre music, 0:32:25.680 --> 0:32:30.480 while others are better for a different genre. Plus, listening 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:35.680 is a a psychoacoustic phenomenon, and in that our brains 0:32:35.720 --> 0:32:38.600 are interpreting the sound, so that means there is a 0:32:38.600 --> 0:32:44.400 filter in our gray matter that affects how we experience sound. 0:32:44.760 --> 0:32:47.480 And no two people are exactly the same, So the 0:32:47.520 --> 0:32:50.280 perfect system for person A is not necessarily going to 0:32:50.320 --> 0:32:53.400 be the perfect system for person B. You can always 0:32:53.720 --> 0:32:57.960 hook up components to very sensitive equipment and say, hey, 0:32:58.000 --> 0:33:00.720 the number on this piece of equipment is better than 0:33:00.760 --> 0:33:03.400 the number on that piece of equipment, and that might 0:33:03.440 --> 0:33:07.040 be correct, but doesn't necessarily mean that the experience of 0:33:07.160 --> 0:33:10.400 listening to the different components is going to make a 0:33:10.480 --> 0:33:14.160 huge difference. So I say that because audio files get 0:33:14.240 --> 0:33:21.000 obsessive about the mathematical association of all the different components 0:33:21.720 --> 0:33:25.880 from everything from the electrical side to the actual acoustic side, 0:33:26.560 --> 0:33:30.400 and I get a little squirrel e when I go 0:33:30.440 --> 0:33:34.760 into those discussions, because I feel like people obsess over 0:33:34.880 --> 0:33:39.960 things that are largely ephemeral that that we don't necessarily 0:33:40.760 --> 0:33:46.040 they don't necessarily translate into how we experience the actual output. 0:33:46.200 --> 0:33:51.520 So that's a long way of me saying it's okay 0:33:52.040 --> 0:33:54.640 if you go out there to build an audio system, 0:33:54.720 --> 0:33:58.040 and you're not going with what someone else says is 0:33:58.080 --> 0:34:02.040 the absolute best of the best, because it really depends 0:34:02.040 --> 0:34:04.880 on how you perceive it that it's the system that 0:34:04.960 --> 0:34:07.040 makes you happy that's the one that ends up being 0:34:07.080 --> 0:34:11.920 the best, not the system that arbitrarily hits certain you know, 0:34:12.120 --> 0:34:16.920 electronic metrics necessarily that can have an effect, but you 0:34:16.920 --> 0:34:20.799 get what I'm saying, alright, So on chios standalone turntable 0:34:21.200 --> 0:34:24.200 means that you would actually need to connect this turntable 0:34:24.280 --> 0:34:27.320 to other components like an amplifier for example, to boost 0:34:27.360 --> 0:34:30.920 the signal, and then speakers to play back the sound, 0:34:31.400 --> 0:34:36.760 and on Kio standalone record player, this s T fifty 0:34:36.960 --> 0:34:42.160 five would be part of the initial audio file craze 0:34:42.280 --> 0:34:45.600 in Japan. UM At this point, on Kio is still 0:34:45.800 --> 0:34:51.400 very much a Japanese focused company. They had not really 0:34:52.080 --> 0:34:55.319 started massive exports to other parts of the world yet, 0:34:55.719 --> 0:34:59.719 so the st fifty five was valued for its performance 0:35:00.120 --> 0:35:06.200 as well as it's simplified, no frills aesthetic. The company 0:35:06.239 --> 0:35:10.239 continued producing stereo systems as well, adding in new features 0:35:10.280 --> 0:35:14.000 and refining designs with every passing year. No big shock there, 0:35:14.680 --> 0:35:19.000 and it got into making headphones in nineteen seventy Most 0:35:19.040 --> 0:35:22.440 of Onkyo's fame came from its full stereo systems and 0:35:22.520 --> 0:35:29.160 the individual audio components such as loudspeakers and receivers, turntables, amplifiers, 0:35:29.280 --> 0:35:32.759 and such. In nineteen seventy one, the company changed its 0:35:32.840 --> 0:35:36.000 name from Osaka on Kyo k K to simply on 0:35:36.200 --> 0:35:40.200 Kio Corporation. Then we get up to nineteen seventy two. 0:35:41.040 --> 0:35:44.680 A few things happened that year that were really important. 0:35:44.920 --> 0:35:48.879 For one thing, Akio established the Onkio Germany Facility, which 0:35:48.920 --> 0:35:52.680 primarily focused on research and development and acoustics, and also 0:35:52.719 --> 0:35:56.319 served as a base of operations for marketing and distributing 0:35:56.400 --> 0:36:01.520 on Kio products to Europe. So the Japanese facilities would 0:36:01.560 --> 0:36:05.799 export products to Germany, which would then be able to 0:36:05.880 --> 0:36:10.080 distribute those two retailers in the Europe region. The company 0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:14.520 also introduced loudspeakers that used titanium instead of paper for 0:36:14.600 --> 0:36:18.719 the speaker diaphragm, and on Kio got out of the 0:36:18.760 --> 0:36:22.560 television set business in around nineteen seventy two. This will 0:36:22.600 --> 0:36:27.080 also be important when we come back to Toshiba more foreshadowing. 0:36:27.800 --> 0:36:30.400 At that stage, an Kio was ready to focus completely 0:36:30.440 --> 0:36:34.160 on producing just audio equipment, its dependence on Toshiba had declined, 0:36:34.680 --> 0:36:38.600 although Toshiba still owned nearly seventy of on Kio, so 0:36:38.640 --> 0:36:41.400 between nineteen fifty seven and seventy two, a Kia was 0:36:41.480 --> 0:36:45.160 kind of acting like a subsidiary to Toshiba, but really 0:36:45.280 --> 0:36:49.120 starting in nineteen seventy two, an Kio was operating as 0:36:49.160 --> 0:36:53.719 an independent company. Yes to Toshiba had ownership interest in 0:36:53.760 --> 0:36:57.759 on Kio, but was not directing the company. So this 0:36:57.760 --> 0:36:59.920 would be a key argument that on Kio would make 0:37:00.040 --> 0:37:05.680 in nineteen seven. Yet more foreshadowing, nineteen seventy two was 0:37:05.719 --> 0:37:10.319 also when on Kio introduced the INTEGRAE power amplifier, so 0:37:10.400 --> 0:37:13.880 Integra is another brand name under on Kio. People probably 0:37:13.880 --> 0:37:17.640 heard of Integral products that came from on Kio. Uh 0:37:17.719 --> 0:37:22.120 I also recommend that you Google image the Integra ninety 0:37:22.200 --> 0:37:26.799 one power amplifier because it looks unlike anything else that 0:37:26.880 --> 0:37:29.240 was on the market at that time. On Kio described 0:37:29.239 --> 0:37:32.920 it as having a steam locomotive like design, and I 0:37:32.960 --> 0:37:36.439 can see that. On Kio continued to expand and opened 0:37:36.520 --> 0:37:40.760 up manufacturing facilities in Korea, so it started to build 0:37:41.320 --> 0:37:45.200 out its manufacturing capabilities and in nineteen seventy three, the 0:37:45.239 --> 0:37:49.200 company debuted the Intech four oh five stereo system, which 0:37:49.239 --> 0:37:55.319 supported quadraphonic sound. I've talked a bit about quadraphonics before. Uh. 0:37:55.440 --> 0:37:59.160 Quadraphonics are essentially a surround sound system that used for 0:37:59.480 --> 0:38:03.120 or used is four channels, and typically the way you 0:38:03.160 --> 0:38:06.600 would set up a quadraphonic listening area is you would 0:38:06.640 --> 0:38:09.920 have speakers at your front left, your front right, your 0:38:09.960 --> 0:38:12.000 back left, and your back right, and you would be 0:38:12.040 --> 0:38:14.640 in the middle and each of those speakers would play 0:38:14.640 --> 0:38:18.760 back a distinct channel of audio. There were several different 0:38:18.840 --> 0:38:25.080 quadraphonic formats, which probably impeded widespread adoption of quadrophonic sound 0:38:25.120 --> 0:38:30.040 because people were using different ways of producing quadrophonic sounds 0:38:30.120 --> 0:38:33.360 and they weren't all cross compatible. So I'll have to 0:38:33.400 --> 0:38:36.319 do a full episode on quadrophonics in the future, and 0:38:36.400 --> 0:38:38.840 maybe I'll even try to record it in a style 0:38:39.000 --> 0:38:43.120 that mimics quadrophonic sound, if I'm being cheeky. We'll see. 0:38:43.480 --> 0:38:48.160 In nine, on Chio established the Onkyo USA Corporation. That 0:38:48.280 --> 0:38:51.480 subsidiary would serve as a foothold for on Chio sales 0:38:51.520 --> 0:38:55.880 in North and South America. So, again like the German version, 0:38:56.200 --> 0:39:00.680 the USA version would import products from Japan and then 0:39:00.719 --> 0:39:05.960 distribute those to US stores and US retailers at least 0:39:06.239 --> 0:39:09.439 for several decades now. In nineteen seventy seven, on Kio 0:39:09.560 --> 0:39:12.640 once again refreshed its logo. The company also introduced the 0:39:12.719 --> 0:39:16.360 Scepter Speaker system, which I thought was super cool. Uh, 0:39:16.400 --> 0:39:20.640 this was really for the serious audio file. So the 0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:25.200 company offered customers the chance to customize their speakers, and 0:39:25.239 --> 0:39:29.239 I'm talking like crazy levels of customization. According to a Kio, 0:39:29.680 --> 0:39:34.960 there were one hundred seventy three different combinations possible. If 0:39:35.000 --> 0:39:38.120 you had your own idea of what combination you wanted 0:39:38.239 --> 0:39:43.520 of speaker drivers, enclosure setups, and more, then you could 0:39:43.560 --> 0:39:47.319 do that through the Scepter Speaker system. On Kio even 0:39:47.360 --> 0:39:50.120 provided a helpful handbook to guide those who weren't already 0:39:50.200 --> 0:39:56.240 obsessively detailed in their approach speeding onward. In nineteen eight one, 0:39:56.640 --> 0:40:00.360 on Kio introduced the first consumer high speed dual dubbing 0:40:00.440 --> 0:40:04.160 cassette deck, meaning it had to cassette decks and you 0:40:04.160 --> 0:40:08.160 could put a you know, a tape that had stuff 0:40:08.160 --> 0:40:10.279 on it in one, a blank tape in the other, 0:40:10.680 --> 0:40:14.880 and very quickly dub and and copy tape one to 0:40:14.960 --> 0:40:18.920 tape two. I'm guessing that that probably set the music 0:40:18.960 --> 0:40:21.360 industry into a bit of a tizzy, because the introduction 0:40:21.400 --> 0:40:24.440 of any technology that makes it remotely easier to copy 0:40:24.520 --> 0:40:30.960 media tends to put music studios on tilt. In a 0:40:31.160 --> 0:40:34.200 Kio offered a CD player called the C seven hundred 0:40:34.320 --> 0:40:38.360 in some markets, so five still pretty early for CD players. 0:40:38.960 --> 0:40:41.000 It was also called the d X seven hundred and 0:40:41.040 --> 0:40:44.920 other markets. It featured optical fiber connections between the digital 0:40:44.960 --> 0:40:49.880 components and the digital to analog converter. UH. The sales 0:40:49.880 --> 0:40:52.960 pitch for that was that it would cut down on 0:40:53.440 --> 0:40:56.759 signal degradation between going from digital to analog. You have 0:40:56.800 --> 0:41:00.800 to go to analog in order to power analog speakers. 0:41:00.880 --> 0:41:03.839 So the idea here was that, oh, we're gonna make 0:41:03.840 --> 0:41:07.239 this pathway as clean as possible so that you get 0:41:07.280 --> 0:41:13.719 the full benefit of the digital recording UH process. Now 0:41:13.719 --> 0:41:16.719 we're up to nine, so we could finally find out 0:41:16.760 --> 0:41:20.040 what all that foreshadowing was about. In the summer of 0:41:21.360 --> 0:41:24.200 the U S government was proposing a ban on the 0:41:24.239 --> 0:41:29.120 sale of all Tashiba products in the United States. Why, well, 0:41:29.840 --> 0:41:32.160 have you seen a little movie called The Hunt for 0:41:32.200 --> 0:41:35.160 at October or you know, read the book that the 0:41:35.160 --> 0:41:38.480 movie was based off of. See in the film, a 0:41:38.560 --> 0:41:42.919 Russian submarine commander wishes to defect to the United States. 0:41:42.960 --> 0:41:46.680 This was back in the Soviet Union days, mind you, 0:41:47.200 --> 0:41:51.239 and the commander is aboard a prototype Russian submarine with 0:41:51.360 --> 0:41:55.040 a propulsion system that can operate in near silence, which 0:41:55.080 --> 0:42:00.200 makes the submarine very difficult to detect. Well. The US government, meant, 0:42:00.400 --> 0:42:05.000 was miffed at Toshiba's subsidiary, the Toshiba Machine Company, for 0:42:05.200 --> 0:42:09.720 essentially supplying technology to the Soviet Union that would allow 0:42:09.760 --> 0:42:14.040 for the near silent operation of submarines. So kind of 0:42:14.080 --> 0:42:18.360 the same as the Hunt for October, right, They were saying, Hey, 0:42:18.600 --> 0:42:20.840 you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to 0:42:20.880 --> 0:42:24.319 supply high tech tools to the Soviet Union. We have 0:42:24.800 --> 0:42:28.280 very strong feelings about that. So the US government proposed 0:42:28.280 --> 0:42:32.200 a multi year ban on the sale of all Tashiba 0:42:32.239 --> 0:42:35.239 products in the United States as a result, which is 0:42:35.239 --> 0:42:40.360 pretty wild, right mighty was the missage thereof the actual 0:42:40.440 --> 0:42:44.760 sales happened in the early nineteen eighties. Uh So, Toshiba 0:42:44.800 --> 0:42:47.800 Machine Company was responsible for that around the early to 0:42:47.920 --> 0:42:51.360 mid eighties, and then it was uncovered in the late eighties, 0:42:51.880 --> 0:42:54.759 and that was in violation of this policy the United 0:42:54.760 --> 0:42:57.560 States had, and that represented a pretty tough choice for 0:42:57.600 --> 0:43:00.840 the US government. So, on the one hand, the Soviet 0:43:00.920 --> 0:43:03.960 Union was the hated rival of the United States. The 0:43:03.960 --> 0:43:06.840 two countries have been in a Cold war for decades. 0:43:07.400 --> 0:43:11.560 On the other hand, this was Ronald Reagan's America, and 0:43:11.600 --> 0:43:15.200 the general philosophy of Ronald Reagan was that government should 0:43:15.200 --> 0:43:17.759 stay the heck out of the way of business. So 0:43:17.800 --> 0:43:20.319 you're in a real quandary, right, like, what do you do? 0:43:22.000 --> 0:43:25.080 You you hate the Soviet Union, but you've also been saying, hey, 0:43:25.120 --> 0:43:27.560 government should not get in the way of business. And 0:43:27.640 --> 0:43:31.879 there's a lot more to this story, and maybe one 0:43:31.960 --> 0:43:34.279 day if I do a Toshiba episode, I'll certainly go 0:43:34.320 --> 0:43:37.080 into more detail about all of that. But the part 0:43:37.120 --> 0:43:41.000 that concerns us is that because Toshiba still maintained a 0:43:41.040 --> 0:43:44.160 majority stake in on Kio, like it still had that 0:43:44.360 --> 0:43:47.960 massive amount of ownership of on Kio stock, that put 0:43:48.040 --> 0:43:51.600 on Kio's business in jeopardy as well, because to the 0:43:51.680 --> 0:43:54.920 US government, on Kio looked like a Toshiba subsidiary, so 0:43:55.200 --> 0:43:58.319 it would also get covered by this ban. On Kio 0:43:58.480 --> 0:44:00.960 hired lawyers who filed a mess with the US government, 0:44:01.160 --> 0:44:04.240 and those lawyers argued that a Kia was, and always 0:44:04.239 --> 0:44:09.120 that mattered, an independent company. Yeah, Tashiba maintained a stake 0:44:09.120 --> 0:44:12.440 in on Kio. The Akio no longer made televisions for Toshiba. 0:44:12.480 --> 0:44:15.040 It had stopped doing that in the seventies, and on 0:44:15.200 --> 0:44:19.200 Kio's products were actually competing against Toshiba products that were 0:44:19.239 --> 0:44:21.680 on the market. So a Kia was arguing for the 0:44:21.719 --> 0:44:24.880 survival of its business and pleading with the US government 0:44:24.960 --> 0:44:28.040 not to lump it in with Toshiba's own operations. An 0:44:28.080 --> 0:44:30.360 Kia was able to mitigate the impact of the political 0:44:30.440 --> 0:44:33.120 scandal on its own business, so it was able to 0:44:33.640 --> 0:44:38.440 remain afloat. In nineteen nine, an Kio got a new president, 0:44:38.920 --> 0:44:41.880 takeshe Go Die had led the company from nineteen forty 0:44:41.960 --> 0:44:45.920 six to nineteen nine. Now I'm not certain if he 0:44:46.000 --> 0:44:49.520 stepped down, if you retired, if he passed away. I 0:44:49.520 --> 0:44:53.480 couldn't find any definitive information on that. But the new 0:44:53.520 --> 0:44:57.840 president was Sunio Otso, who would hold that position until 0:44:57.920 --> 0:45:02.360 nineteen so only from nineteen ninety ton. At that point, 0:45:02.840 --> 0:45:06.879 Naoto Atsuki would take over and he would actually stay 0:45:06.920 --> 0:45:10.000 on until two thousand nine, so to two tho nine, 0:45:10.360 --> 0:45:13.960 and then Munnan Nori Otsuki took on the reins, and 0:45:14.000 --> 0:45:15.239 I wanted to get all of that out of the 0:45:15.239 --> 0:45:18.680 way to illustrate how one man to Keshi go Die 0:45:18.920 --> 0:45:22.560 led on Kio for almost forty five years, and then 0:45:22.719 --> 0:45:26.360 the next three leaders in charge were leading it for 0:45:26.400 --> 0:45:31.040 the next thirty years, and some for very few, like 0:45:31.080 --> 0:45:34.120 four years for the first one. Now we have a 0:45:34.160 --> 0:45:36.239 few more things we got to cover with on Kio 0:45:36.320 --> 0:45:39.200 before we wrap things up. In two thousand and twelve, 0:45:39.280 --> 0:45:42.000 on Kio got another capital partner. This time it was 0:45:42.200 --> 0:45:45.840 Gibson Guitar Corporation. Now back in eighteen, I did some 0:45:45.920 --> 0:45:49.719 episodes about Gibson Guitars. In the nineteen eighties, Gibson was 0:45:49.719 --> 0:45:52.359 in danger of going out of business itself, but then 0:45:52.480 --> 0:45:56.920 some entrepreneurs bought the company, reportedly for like five million dollars, 0:45:57.680 --> 0:45:59.800 and Gibson began to climb out of the hole in 0:45:59.840 --> 0:46:02.200 a found itself in and in the process began to 0:46:02.239 --> 0:46:06.360 acquire other companies. So the thought was that diversification was 0:46:06.400 --> 0:46:09.560 a great idea. It would help Gibson remain relevant even 0:46:09.640 --> 0:46:12.960 as tastes were changing in the music industry and people 0:46:13.200 --> 0:46:17.640 were kind of migrating away from guitar driven music at 0:46:17.680 --> 0:46:20.839 that point. An Kio was one of the investments that 0:46:20.880 --> 0:46:24.239 Gibson made around this time. Well, that would end up 0:46:24.280 --> 0:46:28.439 being a bad move, and I'll explain why in just 0:46:28.560 --> 0:46:38.640 a moment, but first let's take one last break al 0:46:38.719 --> 0:46:41.479 right before the break, I said that Gibson would make 0:46:41.640 --> 0:46:44.560 an investment into a Kio and that would end up 0:46:44.640 --> 0:46:49.120 being a bad move. What did I mean by that? Well, Gibson, 0:46:49.480 --> 0:46:54.000 for many reasons, was again finding itself in financial trouble 0:46:54.200 --> 0:46:56.520 a few years further in the line, So in two 0:46:56.520 --> 0:46:59.920 thousand eighteen, the historic guitar company, which had been in 0:47:00.080 --> 0:47:04.719 operation for more than a century, had to declare bankruptcy. 0:47:05.040 --> 0:47:08.920 Gibson would refocus on making musical instruments once it emerged 0:47:08.920 --> 0:47:12.560 from bankruptcy, and it had to liquidate other assets that 0:47:12.719 --> 0:47:16.640 had not been profitable and had been outside of that 0:47:16.640 --> 0:47:19.880 that laser focus, and that meant that, uh, you know, 0:47:19.960 --> 0:47:22.799 Gibson would actually emerge from Chapter eleven bankruptcy in two 0:47:22.800 --> 0:47:27.440 thousand eighteen, but in the process, the relationship between Gibson 0:47:27.560 --> 0:47:32.839 and on Kio was severed, so it only lasted from 0:47:32.840 --> 0:47:36.080 two thousand twelve to two thousand eighteen, But that also 0:47:36.160 --> 0:47:39.880 meant once Gibson went away that on Kio was finding 0:47:39.920 --> 0:47:44.400 itself in uncertain financial territory. It was really dependent upon 0:47:45.200 --> 0:47:48.760 UH these relationships it had with Tashiba and with Gibson. 0:47:49.360 --> 0:47:51.879 So the company made the tough decision to sell off 0:47:51.920 --> 0:47:55.440 its European operations, the ones that were centered in Germany. 0:47:55.840 --> 0:47:58.680 They sold it to an Austrian company called a Kipa 0:47:59.120 --> 0:48:03.040 a q I p A. Akipa is best known for 0:48:03.080 --> 0:48:08.480 selling accessories for various electronics. Now, between the time that 0:48:08.560 --> 0:48:12.080 Gibson purchased a steake in on Kio and the time 0:48:12.120 --> 0:48:16.320 where Gibson went bankrupt, so two thousand twelve to two eighteen, 0:48:17.040 --> 0:48:21.879 on Kio also made an investment. On Kio purchased Pioneer 0:48:22.120 --> 0:48:26.200 Home Entertainment. Pioneer is another famous name in the a 0:48:26.360 --> 0:48:30.440 VY equipment industry. Pioneer would actually take a nearly fifteen 0:48:30.440 --> 0:48:34.600 percent steak in on Kio in return. It is customary, 0:48:34.719 --> 0:48:36.880 or at least it used to be. I'm not certain 0:48:36.920 --> 0:48:39.320 if it still is, but it was customary with Japanese 0:48:39.360 --> 0:48:43.480 acquisitions for each company in a merger to purchase shares 0:48:43.600 --> 0:48:46.960 in the other company. That's kind of how Japanese mergers work. 0:48:47.000 --> 0:48:50.359 It's a little different than what we typically see in 0:48:50.560 --> 0:48:54.120 other markets. So on Kio and Pioneer plan to keep 0:48:54.200 --> 0:48:57.560 both brands alive. It weren't going to have Pioneer just 0:48:57.600 --> 0:49:00.279 get folded into on Kio and everything be cave on 0:49:00.400 --> 0:49:03.000 Kio products. You would have both on Kio and Pioneer 0:49:03.120 --> 0:49:07.600 on the market. Now, I'm not sure if this would 0:49:07.600 --> 0:49:09.920 be the right place to say that this was the 0:49:09.960 --> 0:49:12.319 beginning of the end for on Chio because on Kio 0:49:12.480 --> 0:49:16.640 was struggling with something that was affecting the entire audio 0:49:16.719 --> 0:49:21.080 equipment industry. It wasn't just unique to on Kio's situation. 0:49:21.760 --> 0:49:24.600 That thing was more and more people were starting to 0:49:24.640 --> 0:49:29.919 migrate away from stereo systems and stereo system components as 0:49:29.960 --> 0:49:33.280 they were listening to music because the way they listened 0:49:33.320 --> 0:49:38.760 to music was changing. Digital music and streaming were completely 0:49:38.840 --> 0:49:43.960 transforming the way music works. Uh. Over time, things like 0:49:44.040 --> 0:49:46.840 smart speakers were taking the place of high end audio 0:49:46.880 --> 0:49:51.200 systems for pretty much everyone except audio files. Audio files 0:49:51.200 --> 0:49:56.319 obviously they're obsessed with getting that perfect sound, so a 0:49:56.360 --> 0:49:58.200 smart speaker is not gonna cut it. Like even the 0:49:58.239 --> 0:50:01.359 best smart speaker on the market can't even can't even 0:50:01.400 --> 0:50:07.000 remotely compare to a well put together music system. But 0:50:07.960 --> 0:50:11.720 for the mainstream, for the majority of people, that wasn't 0:50:11.719 --> 0:50:16.400 the case. It was convenience and accessibility and connectivity. Those 0:50:16.480 --> 0:50:19.160 were the things that were really important, and a lot 0:50:19.280 --> 0:50:22.960 of companies in the A V industry were struggling to 0:50:23.719 --> 0:50:26.880 deal with that. You saw companies rushed to try and 0:50:26.960 --> 0:50:33.359 incorporate various new components in their systems, like Bluetooth connectivity capability, 0:50:33.400 --> 0:50:38.160 but they were they were trying to catch up. They 0:50:38.160 --> 0:50:43.360 weren't staying ahead of the changes in ways we access music, 0:50:44.000 --> 0:50:46.759 and the problem was that, you know, they couldn't really 0:50:46.800 --> 0:50:49.080 catch up at that point. There was there were already 0:50:49.120 --> 0:50:52.640 alternatives on the market that people were gravitating towards. So 0:50:52.719 --> 0:50:56.280 companies like a Kio, we're really struggling to stay relevant. 0:50:56.280 --> 0:50:58.680 It wasn't just on Kio that this was affecting. A 0:50:58.719 --> 0:51:02.640 lot of a V company were seeing massive drops in revenue. 0:51:03.160 --> 0:51:06.239 In twenty the rug was pulled out from under on 0:51:06.400 --> 0:51:09.280 Kio once again. So in the spring of twenty nineteen, 0:51:09.640 --> 0:51:13.320 there was a company called sound United. Uh. Sound United 0:51:13.719 --> 0:51:17.000 is kind of like a holding company for several notable 0:51:17.080 --> 0:51:21.000 audio brands, including Polk Audio. I would argue Polk Audio 0:51:21.080 --> 0:51:23.080 is probably the most famous of the brands that Sound 0:51:23.360 --> 0:51:27.920 United owns, and so sound United was wanting to expand 0:51:28.040 --> 0:51:34.400 its portfolio of high end, well known a V brands, 0:51:34.440 --> 0:51:37.960 and it announced its intention to acquire on Kio, and 0:51:38.160 --> 0:51:42.080 that would include brands like Pioneer and Integram, so all 0:51:42.120 --> 0:51:45.879 of these were kind of under the Onchio umbrella. Many 0:51:45.920 --> 0:51:48.000 news outlets actually just went ahead and reported that the 0:51:48.040 --> 0:51:50.799 deal was essentially done and that was just a matter 0:51:50.800 --> 0:51:53.840 of time for the deal to close officially. But this 0:51:53.920 --> 0:51:56.800 story is one that reminds us that just because something 0:51:56.880 --> 0:51:59.920 is announced, like an acquisition or a merger is announced, 0:52:00.000 --> 0:52:03.759 doesn't necessarily mean it's going to go through. Because come October, 0:52:04.200 --> 0:52:07.600 all of that changed. Sound United abruptly pulled out of 0:52:07.600 --> 0:52:10.920 the deal, and in a statement, the Sound United Company 0:52:11.120 --> 0:52:13.840 essentially said that the two parties were unable to satisfy 0:52:13.880 --> 0:52:16.759 all of the requirements that were necessary for a deal 0:52:16.840 --> 0:52:21.359 to go through and ultimately decided to terminate the proposed acquisition. 0:52:22.600 --> 0:52:25.960 The Pandemics certainly made things even more complicated. It shut 0:52:26.000 --> 0:52:30.439 down show rooms and stores so revenue took yet another hit, 0:52:30.840 --> 0:52:34.200 and in twenty Chio made the decision to shut down 0:52:34.360 --> 0:52:38.279 on Chio USA. If you remember, that's the division responsible 0:52:38.320 --> 0:52:41.960 for distributing on Kio products in North and South America. 0:52:42.320 --> 0:52:45.760 So instead, on Kio would outsource that job to Vox 0:52:45.880 --> 0:52:49.840 International Corporation, which is the parent company of Clips k 0:52:50.200 --> 0:52:52.960 l I p s H. It's a company famous for 0:52:53.040 --> 0:52:58.880 speakers in Vox International and Sharp Corporation created a joint 0:52:58.960 --> 0:53:04.120 venture named Premium Audio Company or p a C. Now, 0:53:04.160 --> 0:53:08.120 through that joint venture, Sharp and Vox acquired sev of 0:53:08.120 --> 0:53:12.480 on Kio's home audio video business, and that meant the brands, 0:53:12.560 --> 0:53:16.920 including a Kio and Integra would end up changing ownership 0:53:16.960 --> 0:53:20.040 to p a C. P a C also negotiated with 0:53:20.080 --> 0:53:22.480 the Pioneer Corporation for the right to produce a V 0:53:22.600 --> 0:53:25.680 equipment under the Pioneer brand as well, so at that 0:53:25.760 --> 0:53:32.560 point on Kio equipment was actually being under the ownership 0:53:32.680 --> 0:53:37.640 of p a C, not on Kio itself. Then this 0:53:37.760 --> 0:53:42.960 year two on Kio Home Entertainment Corporation, which was really 0:53:42.960 --> 0:53:46.400 the last surviving component of the company that takesh A. 0:53:46.480 --> 0:53:51.600 Godai founded back in declared bankruptcy. Now this does not 0:53:51.800 --> 0:53:55.560 impact the Onkio brand, because again P a C now 0:53:55.600 --> 0:53:58.920 has ownership of that. In fact, p a C released 0:53:58.920 --> 0:54:01.640 a statement saying that at the time on Kio went bankrupt, 0:54:01.960 --> 0:54:05.520 it was essentially performing only as a licensing company, that 0:54:05.600 --> 0:54:10.040 it was licensing the I P two p a C. 0:54:10.400 --> 0:54:13.000 And and other than that, it really wasn't doing anything. 0:54:13.320 --> 0:54:15.279 Well now it's not doing anything, or it won't be 0:54:15.320 --> 0:54:17.759 doing anything at all because it's declared bankruptcy and I 0:54:17.800 --> 0:54:20.800 do not expect it to emerge from bankruptcy. I expected 0:54:20.840 --> 0:54:24.160 to essentially have liquidated all assets to pay off as 0:54:24.239 --> 0:54:28.280 much debt as possible. And that's it. So the Onkio 0:54:28.400 --> 0:54:32.040 brand lives on, but the company that spawned the brand 0:54:32.320 --> 0:54:35.520 is no more. So here's to you on Chio and 0:54:35.560 --> 0:54:39.200 your contributions to making audio equipment that raises the performance 0:54:39.200 --> 0:54:43.279 bar we hardly knew ye, And that's it for this 0:54:43.440 --> 0:54:46.040 extra long episode of tech Stuff. Actually debated at one 0:54:46.080 --> 0:54:49.399 point of dividing this into two episodes, and I wait 0:54:49.440 --> 0:54:52.000 to hear from my producer Tari about whether or not 0:54:52.080 --> 0:54:53.919 she's going to make me do that. So if you've 0:54:53.960 --> 0:54:56.759 listened to all of this in one go, Tari did 0:54:56.760 --> 0:54:59.640 not make me do that if you have suggestions for 0:54:59.719 --> 0:55:02.640 future episodes of tech Stuff. There are two ways that 0:55:02.760 --> 0:55:06.080 you can get in touch with me. One is you 0:55:06.120 --> 0:55:09.360 go you download the i Heart Radio app. You navigate 0:55:09.400 --> 0:55:12.919 to the tech Stuff podcast page of the iHeart Radio app. 0:55:13.200 --> 0:55:16.520 There's a little microphone icon on there that if you 0:55:16.920 --> 0:55:19.080 if you tap on that, you can leave a thirty 0:55:19.160 --> 0:55:22.280 second voice message and you can give me a suggestion 0:55:22.280 --> 0:55:24.600 for a show, or comments or anything. If you want 0:55:24.640 --> 0:55:27.279 me to include the audio into an episode, just say so. 0:55:28.160 --> 0:55:31.319 I prefer opt in. So if you say that you're 0:55:31.320 --> 0:55:33.160 cool with us using it, then I will use it. 0:55:33.200 --> 0:55:35.160 And if you don't, then I'm gonna assume you would 0:55:35.239 --> 0:55:37.520 rather I not. The other way to get in touch, 0:55:37.520 --> 0:55:39.840 of course, is over on Twitter. The handle for the 0:55:39.880 --> 0:55:43.879 show is tech Stuff H s W and I'll talk 0:55:43.920 --> 0:55:52.160 to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an i 0:55:52.280 --> 0:55:55.800 heeart radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, 0:55:56.120 --> 0:55:59.280 visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:55:59.360 --> 0:56:00.880 you listen to your favorite jokes.