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MB quart's downfall - What Really Happened

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88K views 75 replies 49 participants last post by  VinnyStaples  
#1 · (Edited)
I think its common knowledge by now that RF bought MBQ and was then sold to Maxxsonics which led to the MBQ name being downgraded in terms of a leader in sound quality for various reasons. personally, I think speaker that was mfg'd in Germany regardless of who owned them is/was still good quality until they moved production to china where build quality went downhill imo.

MBQ is no longer a name that people associate with SQ (unless its pre-Maxxsonics era gear), I hope to show some history as to what happened to MBQ and to some extent, what happened to car audio in general. I know some will already know or have direct experience, I'm just trying to enlighten those who have an interest.

Here's a translated article that very briefly touches on what happened. Source material is in the picture. Also, it's a review for a set of tower speakers made by GermanMaestro if you care to look at the product specs.

http://www.german-maestro.de/downloads/test_reports/stereoplay_9_09_linea_s_en.pdf

Second piece of information is from head-fi.org. Peter Grooff, headphones product mgr at MBQ from 04-08, provides his recollection of events from that timeframe.

Hi Y'all,

to put some things as straight as possible as the former Product & Sales Manager Headphones and Headsets at MB Quart (Jan 2004 - Mai 2008), this is what happened (I'm still working on a proper history on Wikipedia): in 2000 Rockford Fosgate bought MB Quart...mid September 2004, they literally left MB Quart for bankruptcy overnight. Mid September 2005, after one year in receivership, Maxxsonics USA, Inc. acquired MB Quart and established Maxxsonics GmbH. After 2 years (again mid September, meanwhile 2007), Maxxsonics GmbH was apparently bankrupted (I'm still checking on this, but it's hard to get exact info) and Maxxsonics took engineering and production to China. This ment, for the original MB Quart crew that they lost the brand name "MB Quart". Since October 2007, the brand name MB Quart is used for products made in China only, no NEW German Made products were developed under name MB Quart anymore... The future of the original MB Quart crew (including myself) was unsure month after month. After I accepted the Product Manager Headphones/Headsets/Headzone ProAudio job at beyerdynamic, the rest of the crew (approx. 30 employes were left over) joined forces, together with a German investor and purchased the assets of the German trustee. In May 2008 the original crew of MB Quart continued to produce, develop and engineer high quality German made products under the new name "German-Maestro Badenia" (G-MB).

It's strange....for a long time nobody really opened up and told the real story, at least the real story including all of the rumours etc.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/german-maestro-really-mb-quart.409886/page-2

For those who don't know, MBHO (MBHO GmbH Mikrofonbau Haun - handmade microphones) is the company owned by the legendary Herbert Haun (one of the first engineers at the original "MB", founded in 1962). Herbert Haun came from beyerdynamic... MBHO still produces and engineers the MB microphones, including the original Jecklin Disc.[\quote]

excerpt from an Aug 2005 press release:
Due to continued losses at Rockford's MB Quart GmbH subsidiary in Germany, Rockford will discontinue the German operations of its subsidiary MB Quart GmbH. After considering several options, Rockford has decided to place MB Quart GmbH into receivership under German law. This action will eliminate approximately $750 thousand in operating loss per quarter and is expected to have a minimal cash impact. Rockford will continue to own and develop the MB Quart brand in North America. This will result in a reserve against its investment in the MB Quart German operations in the third quarter.
 
#2 ·
In a weird way, Maxxonics helped a lot of old fans- by ruining the brand rep, Maxxsonics made it so the old Reference gear is really inexpensive to buy these days. Pennies on the dollar.

I used to work as a quart dealer during the late 80's early 90's, then I left the industry. When I left, Quart was the ONLY option if you were a serious autosound player. 20 some odd years later, I have come back to the hobby and there's a lot of changes- outsourcing, no more retail shops (Internet distribution), brand consolidation, etc. Unfortunately Quart got robbed of it's name.

However, I still use old MBQ simply because

1)- with the lack of good audio shops to demo gear I'm finding it extremely hard to take a chance by word of mouth. All the Quart I have is either NOS (a few Q pieces and Reference) or well worn used- it's cheap enough sucking a bad piece now and then doesn't hurt.

2)- I like the way they sound, and I have trained my ears to expect it.

I haven't yet found a reliable source for German Maestro yet, fortunately I have enough tested good MBQ that I'll likely die before I run out.

Here's to hoping someday, they come back.
 
#3 ·
What I'd really like to know is why Mid-September RF left MBQ "for bankruptcy over night".

RF is smart, wealthy and thriving. They are a company that has changed with the times and understands market demands. I don't think they'd just drop a company for no reason.. There's more behind this then what's been said..
 
#5 ·
RF is smart, wealthy and thriving. They are a company that has changed with the times and understands market demands. I don't think they'd just drop a company for no reason.. There's more behind this then what's been said..
Speaking from experience as an M&A consultant, it is very difficult for an American company that is, relatively, small and inexperienced to own and run a German company. Germans have no interest in taking orders from Americans. They are "better, smarter, faster, more efficient, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc." and the parent company is "a burden to their German engineering perfection."

RF may have just wanted their IP.

Other than the 360.3, I have no interest in anything from RF today.
 
#6 ·
Anyone need a single QWD130 unused, new with grille hit me up. I'll sell it cheap if anyone needs a spare.

I'm getting out of Q. If you're interested I'll send pics with my name all that, yada yada. PM me.
 
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#14 ·
Sounds like almost the same story as...........

Eclipse
Alpine
Clarion
Infinity
Phoenix Gold
Cadence
Memphis
Xtant
Image Dynamics

I miss the stereo shop I used to manage. We had almost all those brands in their heyday plus DD, Crystal, Rainbow, Interfire (literally, they all caught on fire), etc... They all had a purpose and a price range/demographic that made them all viable products in the same ecosystem.

Then much like EVERYTHING ELSE I USE IN LIFE the NWO decided the WHOLE WORLD could have mediocre car audio with a massive profit margin instead if we just make it with slaves in China............ And if we whore it all out on the internet for $1 over dealer we won't even need car audio stores anymore....

"Why did RF buy it and bankrupt it overnight?"

Easy also. Same thing that happened with alot of home audio brands in '08 when things hit the skids. Buy your competition and eliminate them....



Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
#41 ·
Sounds like almost the same story as...........

Eclipse
Alpine
Clarion
Infinity
Phoenix Gold
Cadence
Memphis
Xtant
Image Dynamics

I miss the stereo shop I used to manage. We had almost all those brands in their heyday plus DD, Crystal, Rainbow, Interfire (literally, they all caught on fire), etc... They all had a purpose and a price range/demographic that made them all viable products in the same ecosystem.

Then much like EVERYTHING ELSE I USE IN LIFE the NWO decided the WHOLE WORLD could have mediocre car audio with a massive profit margin instead if we just make it with slaves in China............ And if we whore it all out on the internet for $1 over dealer we won't even need car audio stores anymore....

"Why did RF buy it and bankrupt it overnight?"

Easy also. Same thing that happened with alot of home audio brands in '08 when things hit the skids. Buy your competition and eliminate them....



Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
I agree with you about infinity going downhill, but on the bright side JBL seems to be on an upswing. Pretty much the same stuff but with higher end options.
 
#18 ·
Very Interesting Info. I worked installing car audio and selling mostly mid to higher end gear (Orion, Fosgate ,Canton, Pioneer) at retail from 1982 until 1990. Then became Product Manager and ran the National Installation Center for Pioneer Electronics of Canada for 6 years. Built their demo car fleet, ran the tech support and was part of the new product development team, incl IMPP subs, GMH amps and the ODR reference system. Funny how a ******* installer knew things about installing the engineers at head office didn't think of or comprende until you showed them, lol........ We surpassed Alpine as the largest car audio company in Canada in '92 when we hit over $30M in sales. Pioneer was the worldwide leader in (aftermarket)car audio sales and still a private company then. Despite the history of developing the world;s first dynamic loudspeaker in 1938, they were usually real good value for the money until you got into the top end stuff which had its own sound but wasn;t any better than the MB, Boston or some of the other specialty brands. Competing products like the ceramic/carbon dome tweeters T31 and the ODR stuff was eye wateringly expensive. I judged a ton of IASCA cars containing MB Quart and always really liked the warmth and detail. Can't comment on the amps, but the speakers were some of my favourites and certainly a target for our higher end product planning at Pioneer.

Like the OP, I have recently gotten back into car audio in a relatively serious way. Purchased three dozen different amps (mostly Orion HCCA and Fosgate) as well as piles of subs and components - mostly MB and Focal as well as some Alpine stuff. Just like newer digital amps offer a different experience (and I'm being gentle in my Germanic way), so too, new speakers seem to lack some of the nuances that were present in the early 90s reference level stuff. I'm guessing dollar value today is much higher for entry level products (maybe cause the OEM is no longer rancid dogshit, only crap now) but in my mind nothing comes close to the golden era of the early 90s when everyone was competing on performance, not cost. Low impedance bridging, and real sound Q with hardwired, phased and tuned passive crossovers, except for of course the subs. Still the way I design and install most of my systems.
Old skool, analog (except for a CD source) and half German, half Austrian.....don't ask for my opinion if you don' like the truth, lol. I lived in Germany Switzerland and Austria, have family there and certainly carry the DNA of Germanic self assured superiority......altho I am wrong on the rare occasion......

Thx for the history on what occurred between two of the prime brands of the most important era of our hobby. Installed and owned my first The Punch amp/booster in 1982........
 
#24 ·
and half German, half Austrian.....don't ask for my opinion if you don' like the truth, lol. I lived in Germany Switzerland and Austria, have family there and certainly carry the DNA of Germanic self assured superiority...
ummmmm. are you saying what i think you're saying?
 
#22 ·
you are talking about current or recent products presumably. I'm comparing older stuff vs new. Raw drivers have come a long way in the past decade vs before that;s for sure.
I'm talking mid fi retail level stuff is where MB and those other brands really offered performance value and durability.

Of course there are lots of gems at various sizes and price points. My favourite installs were $2500 systems that sounded and rocked like something worth double the money. Thats what a good installer does between knowing the best product and how to make it all work, $$ efficiently.
Big smiles and thank yous were the order of the day.
 
#23 ·
Ah you mean regular series mbq offering a taste of high end for a good price. Maybe you're right but I'd put the Stevens component set, and the si component set. Also heard some ground zero and b2 components i was impressed with. It's out there man it's just now at every dealer across town like it used to be
 
#27 ·
Have you ever heard an old MB Quart high end install ? The brand absolutely DOMINATED Sound Q across North America and elsewhere; budget was the last thing on people's mind to win an IASCA competition, a regional or national event. Would be curious to read your reaction. New isn't necessarily better, altho it can be.

Probably similar to the analog vs DSP disagreements, digital amps vs old school unlimited current A/B, etc.
New Car Audio Product Development is always about profit, saving production costs, hitting market price targets first....'quality and performance" is usually way down the list, certainly below specifications/marketing ******** and being able to stay in business. That is a fact; I worked in that world for almost 10 years and the survivors have managed to leverage China as the bread basket; anything still built elsewhere and to those levels is outrageously expensive and esoteric by all standards. I guess change is always happening.

Plenty of signs the car audio world has fallen down when reading most product specifications and the new trend of 'big' power and inefficient speakers along with meaningless amp power specifications, low damping factors and all kinds of digital voodoo that doesn't work.
 
#32 ·
I have never heard MB Quart speakers, but I did just buy a set of QWS-100 4” mids. I did only based on their reputation. I needed a low profile driver and these fit the bill.

The German made Q line seem to have a good reputation, so I took the leap.

I will be using them in a MK5 Golf/Rabbit/GTI/Jetta 3 way front stage in factory locations. With the midbass located in rear of the front door near your hip, the midrange is needed to really pick up the slack.

I hope they live up to their reputation. [emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#34 ·
MEH.
The bottom fell out of high end car audio and home audio in the mid 2000's.
Most hifi shops folded leaving the hi end gear with no where to market and sell their gear.
Walmart and best buy ,etc are not going to move high end stuff if they even entertain carrying it.
The I-pod also had a big part of this. Many took function over pure sonic sound,as the tiny player could hold a LOT of music.
Auto makers started making their radios in odd sizes and sometime the tuner was oe piece the cassette deck another, the c/d changer yet another. and not standard din shaped.
Many of the better names in audio expanded too much thinking the good times would never end.
And when the bottom fell out they were on the razrs edge, Then ebay happened and anyone could sell the cheap gear and you could window shop for it at home, Where you used to haveto goto the once or twice audio convention. (at least here). now it was on your computer shipped to your home, and wally world was forcing brands to meet THEIR price point if they wanted to have their product in the store.
As this is going on, the auto makers are now, making the car audio unit part of the central command center with nav, heater and ac controls, at first then almost all user controls/setting. Making it even harder for high end audio to sell a unit that fit a bunch of vehicles and not JUST that one, and only a few years of that nameplate.
As this is going on, the US economy took a dump. The last thing people were thinking about was buying high end car audio or home hifi .
The buyer pool was not big enough to stay afloat at the high end or even the mid range alone.
Some added cheaper lines to move product and get their gear into box stores as the stand alone hifi stores were now too small of a pool to be able to move enough product.
Some to lower cost, BECAUSE people were buying the ebay cheap stuff, moved production to China and others.
The economy and timing of auto makers intergrting more and more with the radio. But many AUDIO brands in the icu. on life support.
Home gear was in the same boat. buying a 2900.00 B&K receiver was out of the question for most by 2008. IF you could find a audio shop that carried them. or other mid to high end.
People changed, Those that enjoyed playing music/movies on hifi gear, hearing is on the way out. So less need to bother with replacing stuff with the mid to high end, and they buy the Sony.
The younger folks are used to compressed music and could not afford the mid to high end hifi gear anyways.
I mean, most homes if they have a stereo it is a sound bar and maybe a small sub. And maybe a small set of bookshelf speakers.
Today even getting the music in a good format to play on mid to high end gear is a pain. But your whole life music catalog is only a click to youtube away, or any of the other streaming music apps. Hard to support the idea of top shelf gear when the source material is going to be compressed garbage.
This all made the pool of buyers of mid to high end gear too small for the number of companies/brands to fight over.
I don't own high high end gear. Mine is mid to high end range. And it sounds sweet. But I have a room full of analog music to play on it. People today have their music collection on a 3"x6"x1/4" wireless computer.
To top it all off, forvehicle audio, the o.e.m.s offer systems from the factory that are light years better than what was the top option radios decades ago. So even less of a pool that feel the need to upgrade.
MBQ is just one of many that found their standing in an F4 storm.
Sadly the younger generations will never get a chance to hear an analog format recording that offered large DB punch.
And gear with enough headroom to product that sonic punch. Today only sonic punch they get is the boosted bass. not the full range sonic db rise punch that is missing in most of today's music. No matter what type of music.
 
#39 ·
I was already blowing fuses when the first car CD players were released. They had a CARTRIDGE to hold the single CD, and many of them were practically worse than the cassette decks they replaced.

There was no "double DIN," unless it was OEM.

We sold Proton, Coustic, MTX, Atomic and Linear Power. Eventually, we offered Phoenix Gold and HiFonics.

I remember when a JENSEN head unit was considered an upgrade.

Hell, I even remember when the Metra rep showed us the "state of the art" wiring adapters they were offering for 1984 Fords. You could install a head unit without clipping a single factory wire. Yippeee.

I ran the 1st gen aperiodic membranes from Autosound 2000 in the mid 1990s, and my car system rivalled the best home stereos you've ever heard (and that's not hyperbole).


I remember the sweet sounds of REAL Boston 6.4 pro components and A.D.S. sq amps.

There's a Phoenix M25 in my shed, and somehwere buried in my attic is a Soundstream 50.2 "50 Watt" amp that I used to MOLEST a pair of MTX Blue Thunder 10s with.

MB Quart always struck me as sweet sounding, but I was never overwhelmed with their longevity or imaging compared to other high-end players like Boston and even some of PG's highest line of components.

There are a handful of decent players left in the car audio scene, but today I'm content with Kappas and a decent 4-ch amp. As stated by others above, with most source music compressed crap these days, you're really wasting money on anything higher-end than Harman's mid+ level gear.

The Class AB, Made in USA days are long gone. These are the days of China, Korea, eBay and Amazon.

Sadly, it's not just audio; even Swiss watches and German medical devices are outsourced to Asia, with just enough labor in their supposed countries of origin to carry "Made in Germany," or "SWISS MADE" logos.

We went from audiophile-grade gear to Flea Market surplus in the past 20 yrs, for sure.
 
#40 ·
I currently run a set of Quart 218.61q comps on the original crossovers in my system. They are powered by a Zed Mikro IV, fed off of a Kenwood x704(non-cd). I have had them for 12ish years through 4 vehicles, at least a dozen different installs, 7 stage amps, and uncountable substage. Here shortly I'll be "upgrading" to a set of Hertz Mille legend comps or a similar "high end" 2 way passive set.

I absolutely love my quarts, "harsh tweeter" and all. I believe they were the top of the line before the "QSD" series came out with the silver cones. Mine use the same tweeter as the QSD but the mid is different. I WILL NOT be selling my QMs. They will be installed in my second vehicle. And honestly, I don't expect whatever speaker I replace them with to sound any better, so I may end up keeping them in my daily and putting the "new" and or "better" comps in my new vehicle.

I don't know many people who have old quart sets anymore, nobody local to me for sure. If anyone happens to be in the Central Florida area and wants a listen hit me up. My recent install isn't completely finished and I'm sure my ears aren't true "audiophile" quality, but I love giving demos and looking at people's reactions when I tell them they are hearing a 20+ year old speaker.

Matt
 
#44 ·
This is very true. To go back to Infinity again...Compare a set of older Infinitys...say, a $289 pair of Kappa 5.25 coaxes from 1999 to the $99 pair today. $289 in 1999 money is like $418 or more. So, you're getting Chinese made stuff these days, which sounds 80% as good, for less than 30% of the 1999 price. It's a trade-off spawned by the need to meet consumer demand.

People used to wait WEEKS for mail order. These days, if they don't have a tracking # by the next night, they moan and whine and leave a bad review.
 
#46 ·
I still have my old reference 3 way MB-Quarts in my 89 Comp truck running off 1st gen Mcintosh amps. All the equipment in there is 27-31 years old except for the Audio Control DQXS which replaced a dead RF Symmetry. What a change in SQ just from switching out the Symmetry to Audio control!! Lol. The midrange and midbass drivers are incredible even to today standards. Only issue I have are the tweeters take some tuning smooth out the harshness. I have AF in another car and thought of changing out just the tweeters but then again I want to keep it as old school as I can. I still have some RKC-110's I've had sitting in a box forever as a just in case replacement when things went south for German manufacturing.
 
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