LS430Lexus

Just curious, who manufactures the Mark Levinson system and the standard system on the 2002 LS430 with Nav? Thank you.

jimbosr1

mark levinson makes its own,mark levinson.

Jabberwock

Hate to burst anyone's bubble but the ML brand currently used in Lexus is made by a consumer electronics conglomerate called Harman International. Harmon has bought up the rights to use many old line high quality brand names. It then manufactures consumer grade electronics under these multiple "brands" from well known companies (Infinity, JBL, AKG, Harman Kardon, Lexicon, Mark Levinson among others) that long ago dissolved, sold out, or are out of business. Harman go through a lot of effort to make it seem these old brands are still functioning and that guys like ML are still involved but its all marketing BS designed to fool the masses - which is pretty easy unfortunately. Just lots of dog and pony marketing hype as the actual electronics is mostly the same consumer grade stuff manufactured in low cost jobber style factories in Asia and then branded with old line brand name on the outside. Mark Levenson has not been associated with the brand used in Lexus cars in decades.

jimbosr1

what came first, the chicken or the egg?

Jabberwock

I think Archaeopteryx came first : ) Great reading in an article on ancient birds this month's National Geographic.

Twix

Jabberwock you surely know a lot about these things, but how come that Lexus as a company that still exist and grows has allowed something like this?
Why didn't they just go with Sony or someone that is still top of the audio market as a premier audio choice?

CarGuy89

Buying from high end places means a higher cost of the car. Many companies offer premium systems for $$ if the customer cares enough. However, it's possible that most consumers just weren't as concerned with the stereo system. I for one would not want to pay $2k more on a car just because it has a nicer sound system. As long as the sound that comes out is clear and accompanied by decent bass I'm ok with it. My volume never really exceeds 12 or so.

svlexus

Does anyone have a diagram of all the speakers? I looked on sewell and it showed all the same speakers that are in mine, front , front doors , rear doors, and i dunno if mine has it but a little sub center rear. And- the pioneer speakers were more expensive than levinson. They are all probably crap.

Jabberwock

Unfortunately the corporate world has evolved over time into more aggressively marketing and "branding" their products at the cost of overall quality.

Large corporations have learned that they can cut costs and increase profits by using high powered marketing hype to increase the perception of quality in their products rather than actually paying the costs to produce and supply high quality products. This is not an evil scheme is just modern day business practices to maximize profits which is exactly what a corporation should be doing.

The marketing or branding of products many times absolutely skirts the truth in that careful selection of language in brochures and advertisements create an impression that is false and/or misleading at best. So Harman International works hard to sustain the illusion that JBL, Infinity, ML, etc are still alive and functioning as really business entities instead of as shell or facade brands. And Lexus looks the other way - the stuff sounds good and customers fall in love with the brochure.

People are basically trusting and 99% don't have the time to do research on what they are buying, so corporations have learned that fooling the uneducated and gullible consumer using high powered marketing has become easier and more profitable than actually manufacturing and supplying high quality products.

This is happening to virtually every product supplied to consumers. Marketing trumps quality in food, manufactured items, cars, you name it.
Welcome to the modern world : )

CG lover

check this page out and at the bottom you will see the various product lines Harman owns and offers,,

http://www.harman.com/EN-US/OurProdu...ages/Home.aspx


I have owned Marantz products for many years and they use to be mostly hand built,, they are now owned by another company and can't say how much if any are now hand built,,

D&M Holding is the name of the company that now owns Marantz, McIntosh, Boston Acoustics, and several other audio/video brands,,


seems the way busines has gone over the past years,,

Derry

*Batman*

Amazing. So Harman has most the big luxury car makers - Lexus, BMW, Mercedes.

It seems you have to go to the second tier to get something better - Audi (Bang and olufsen), Jaguar (bowers & wilkins). I do love the B&W system in the jag.

Jabberwock

Yep - as far as I can tell both B+W and B+O are still real functioning companies that are actively and independently creating and selling consumer audio.

Marklouis

Brutal Honesty....I like it! this is the kind of corporate greed that caught up with and almost destroyed the American Car companies.

caddyowner

It's just like the lawn tractor market. Tractors under the following brands are all manufactured by MTD:

Bolens
Cub Cadet
Ranch King
Troy-Bilt
White
Yard Machines
Yard-Man
Many store brands