To All,
A sad note - M&K has closed its doors. Talk about a company w/ pioneering roots: Movies, recording studios, home theater, music mastering, leading speaker maker incorporating THX, the growth of the 'sub woofer' concept and much more.....

I say, To M&K, thank you for the contribution to multiple industries. It is sad to see you leave....

If you would like to send an e-mail to Ken Kreisel ... follow the link below.
M&K Sound

tmdlp,
Indeed, it is sad after 34 years they have closed their doors. As you can tell by my signature I'm a fan of their speakers. I see you have one of their subs; the V-75II, like all of the subs is excellent. From what I've read the general concensus is that they will not return and I'm not holding my breath for a return email from Ken Kreisel (sent mine a few days ago). FYI, their closure does not seem to have any negative impact on the value of their speakers on eBay. If anything there has been a bump up.

I've read a bit about this recently. It's a shame that the company has ended up in this position considering all that it has achieved in the past.

Used prices have gone up? That certainly speaks well of the quality of M&K's product - in most cases, the closure of a company and subsequent loss of warranty support would hurt resale value.

I may have a limited sample, but a sub like mine is on eBay now with the current bid at $455 with over a day to go. I haven't seen the 70B sell for more than about $400. If it is a bump then it will be interesting to see if it lasts and if it impacts both their subs and satellite speakers. Maybe a good resale market will convince a potential suitor for the company and their creditor to take a shot at starting the company back up. Ahh, we can only hope.

M&K always was situated in what I would consider to be one of the toughest speaker markets. They were simple speakers that were based on professional monitors. So, in the consumer world, they didn't appeal to people looking for a fancy cabinet design and they also didn't appeal to people looking for a speaker that could "sugar-coat" bad sound with a not exactly even response pattern. In the professional world, they had a great following but the pro monitor market has really expanded greatly with more manufacturers introducing powered monitors that competed directly with M&K.

A couple of years ago, I worked for a few months in a audio boutique shop here in NYC. (Actually, it was the place I bought my M&K speakers from.) The shop carried M&K but the main salesman told me he wasn't recommending them to anyone anymore. He said that they just couldn't deliver the product on time anymore. He predicted they would be out of business within the year. They made it two...

I am still impressed by the sound I get out of my M&K speakers. Though a touch on the forward side, the sound is clear and the image is great. I'm glad I got a full set when I was able to. Sorry to see a good American speaker company close its doors.

Dave F. use to be high up at M&K and now he is the owner of Ascend Acoustics who makews great sounding and very reasonable price speaker.

I have a 340C (classic) and will probably get the HTM-200s to complete the 5.1.

Liz

I copied this email apparently sent to an AVS Forum member. It partly explains some of M&K problems but I doubt all of them given they filed under Chapter 7.

"Jason,

Thank you for your new email.

I am sorry to say that I think your 3 LCR-750's are counterfeit and/or unauthorized M&K product. It is a little complicated so let me please explain:

From the beginning we made the LCR-750THX MKII speakers at our factory in the USA with all of M&K's famous quality control systems and special tests which are exactly the same procedure and people that test our top professional speakers used by the world's best studios like George Lucas' Skywalk Sound.

In April 2006 we started to make the LCR-750THX MKII speakers in China at the Everbright/ACI factory. In April, under my instructions, I sent our head engineer to supervise production in China and to make sure these LCR-750 MKII speakers had top quality control and passed my M&K and THX tests and specifications.

After our engineer left China, Everbright/ACI continued to build LCR-750 speakers for shipping all over the world, including to China to Miro Sound, our China distributor. Many LCR-750 speakers were shipped from China to the USA to sell in the USA. For the USA market we would open and test, at the M&K USA factory, 100% of the China build speakers, including the LCR-750 speakers. During the summer of 2006 we found that the LCR-750 quality was not up to M&K standards and about 30% of the LCR-750 speakers and other China made speakers failed M&K and THX tests and did not meet M&K specifications. In September 2006 we decided all China made speakers and subwoofers must come to the USA first for testing and then M&K would ship them all over the world, including back to China. This is the only way we could guaranty M&K quality.

I must tell you that M&K quality standards are very high for even our least expensive speaker. Our least expensive speaker is tested and must pass the same tests as our professional speakers.

Here is the problem: After we decided to stop shipping M&K speakers directly from the Everbright/ACI factory due to bad quality, we now know that from September 2006 until today, there is LCR-750 speakers being shipped directly to Miro Sound from the Everbright/ACI factory which is not authorized or tested or sold by M&K. We know that Miro Sound is buying these speakers directly from the Everbright/ACI factory probably at a reduced price. I have no idea about the quality or performance of these speaker except that by our testing in the USA M&K factory, about 30% of the LCR-750's do not meet M&K and THX specs. M&K does not receive any money from these counterfeit speakers. We have been trying to stop the sale of these counterfeit speakers into China and the U.K. for many months. M&K has lost a lot of money because of this, and it hurts M&K reputation around the world because of the poor quality. We have seen these speakers with shorted crossover networks and out of phase drivers which means the speakers were never tested at all in China before sent to the dealer or customer.

Our Taiwan distributor Keep Running buys the LCR-750's directly from the M&K factory because they want only top quality M&K speakers properly tested and inspected by M&K USA.

It is possible that your LCR-750 speakers are OK, but there is about a 30% chance that they are not OK, based upon our past experience with LCR-750's built in China, but I cannot say what parts are in your speakers.

As you know, we just closed the M&K company completely. Some of the reason we closed is due to lost money on unauthorized and counterfeit speakers.

Please look at this news article from Stereophile Magazine about M&K closing at stereophile

I am sorry for this very long explanation. I hope your LCR-750's are OK and that they are giving you good sound.

GOOD SOUND TO YOU..... ALWAYS,

KEN KREISEL"

The plot thickens.

They're baack:

http://mixonline.com/news/mandk-sound-returns-092407/

(The link in the article is non-working at this time.)

Interesting announcement. Be curious to see what they can do with M&K this time around...

Yes .... very intersting.

Lets hope the new management can bring the M&K name back to promanance.