What happened to Infinity...?

Well, perhaps you haven't seen the new flagship Prelude Forty.
That's definitely a "higher end" speaker I would love to hear.
Still, Infinity has changed its marketing position/strategy, it seems, now that Revel is the top line at Harman. They now fill a narrow, competitive segment. But, by any measure, the Primus line has been a big success.

As for retail distribution, you are absolutely right. There are not many B&M dealers anymore (I have one local big box), and most people that buy Primus, or TSS speakers are doing so online. That's not really a bad thing, considering the retailers that would be carrying these models (if more did) would not have them set up with any care, and the in store "demo" would not be very helpful. Seriously, listening to speakers at Best Buy (including Magnolia) is close to worthless. Sure you can touch and feel, etc., but you can't rely on what you hear. In home is the best demo anyway.

Whatever it is, the same thing happened to JBL, heh. They share the same parent company (Harman Intl) so I'm wondering if this is part of some larger strategy. It's sad to see brands like this disappear...

JBL still has some amazing flagship speakers, the K2's are some of my flat out favorite speakers ever and walked all over the Revel's at last years RMAF. IMHO of course.

Yeah they're still making great speakers but I was talking about being able to find them in retail stores. I'm in Florida and the nearest dealer to me is Fry's in Texas, haha.

Isn't Atlanta closer than Texas? They have two Fry's in the Atlanta area.

Still your point is well taken.

It's funny how JBL ranks among the top PA brands, but in HT, they're not too highly sought after. And Infinity, they pretty much fell off the map once Primus was released, even though it's been a strong seller for them.

Not much available at Fry's in Burbank, CA, with their only offering being the P362's, lately on sale for $129 each. Then there is e-bay in which Harman Audio must have exhausted its higher end Infinity Cascade series (only Cascade 12s available) and those prices were pretty unbelievable or could be. There are always exceptions to what appear to be rock bottom e-bay prices, just go to Fry's for some unbelievable liquidation prices that are way below what Fry's had to pay for them. Granted you may have to take a demo but that comes with a full Infinity warranty. I would think that Infinity and Harman is gearing up for a new line of speakers after the Prelude 40's. Or maybe not.

Some of the past Revel, JBL, and Infinity speakers appear to have shared the same 'insides' and (on occasion) even the same 'outsides' (with basically just a different logo applied). So, yes, I suspect we should just look at the overall/integrated HK 'speaker lines' strategy...

Ehh...That doesn't sound encouraging.

Hello,

I just stumbled across this board while searching for JBL and Infinity home speakers (couldn't find much, so I searched "What happened to Infinity Speakers?" and ended up here).

I live in Northridge, CA, not far from Harmon's old JBL/Infinity/Revel design and manufacturing location on Balboa Blvd., in Northridge, CA.

The entire Harmon operation has been shut down there for over a year. I would suspect that any manufacturing of either of these brands would likely be happening overseas, if anywhere.

As an old JBL owner (D130, LE8), it's sad to see these brands go the way of the dodo bird.

I recently toured the Harman campus in Northridge, about two months ago. In fact, I just drove up there today to stop in at JBL Pro to pick something up. (The traffic was horrendous.)

It's true that all manufacturing has left the building as of June 30th. Mot of it went to the big Harman plant in Mexico; most of the rest was already in China.

There's still R&D going on in Northridge, but it's mostly an empty shell and very sad to see.

There were some Infinty models on display, and one model was used in the multi-listening lab in the double blind tests, revealed to us afterward, of course. I do not remember the model.

Most of the emphasis in the Infinity brand is going to automotive, which when combined with JBL, JBL Synthesis®, Mark Levinson, Lexicon, Becker, and Harman automotive brands accounts for an overwhelming proportion of Harman's total income.

As for Infinity loudspeakers for the home, I believe it's been moved to Elkhart, Indiana, to the old Crown campus along with Harman's higher end stuff, like JBL Synthesis® for the home, Revel, Mark Levinson, and Lexicon.

In that competitive environment, I think there's a probability that Infinity's home loudspeaker days are coming to a close.

This thread (5.0 upgrade - SVS vs Infinity Primus vs Energy http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1263338) mentions an upcoming Primus series, so maybe it's not all doom and gloom.

I've been looking at getting a pair of P152s or P142s for my rear L/R and just stumbled across a website that has them for $53 a pair.

...

Yea, I'm shocked. $53 each would be understandable, on a sale... but $53 for a PAIR? I seriously don't believe it, so I called them. Missed them by a few minutes. Sent an email. Waiting for the reply tomorrow. My bet is they're used or refurbished.

And yea, both the pair of 142s and 152s were $53. I dunno why one wouldn't be cheaper.

I find this very surprising, as I thought the days of car audio were coming to a close as well. The audio in new cars seems to be integrated into other systems, with increasingly complex and/or unusually shaped controls. How can the aftermarket compete with that, as each vehicle will demand a unique headunit. And that is assuming that you can get an aftermarket unit to work with the rest of the car's systems (look at Ford's Sync, for example).

Up here in Canada, JBL is for all intents and purposes, gone completely. I found one local retailer that stocked virtually nothing, and would not bring anything in for me, unless I bought it first. In the end, I bought the entire JBL L-series line via eBay.

How does Harman expect to sell anything in North America, if they make buying their product almost impossible?

Hey I actually have a pair of prelude 40 tower still in packaging with factory warranty. I can no longer install them as the building projec i wason fell through. asking price is 5000$ save 1000$!!!

I transposed the numbers in my head thinking you were ASKING $1k.