Sony made an interesting move in the market by acquiring a well-known company within the audiophile community. Audeze is a reputable brand with many products that rate quite highly. We should know as we have tested most of them through the years and many of us own various models at home ourselves (myself included).
Specifically, Sony Interactive Entertainment, a subsidiary under Sony’s overall umbrella that focuses on gaming is the one buying the headphone company. With the goal of bringing Audeze into the PlayStation “ecosystem”.
Sony clearly wants to get into the high-end gaming headphone/headset market in a way that it can really disrupt things and put its name near or at the top. With this acquisition, it has a pretty good chance at doing just that. Audeze specializes in a long line of sound covering everything from gaming headsets like the Audeze Mobius with Waves NX 3D tracking to high-end listening models like the Audeze LCD-5 Reference Headphones.
A somewhat of a surprising move given that Audeze just recently (last month) partnered with Microsoft for a model certified for Xbox gaming systems. A model filled with features, like Bluetooth 5.3 with LE Audio, LC3plus, LDAC, Dolby Atmos, and FILTER A.I. noise-reducing microphone technology. Now Sony will be the company, behind the company, behind that model (assuming it remains in the market for much longer). Or maybe it isn’t so surprising as even Microsoft clearly recognized the quality of the name.
We look forward to where and how Sony takes Audeze into the future. I just hope they don’t crush it and simply cannibalize some of the technology over to its headsets. It would be nice to see the brand live on, or at least its products within all categories of listening (regardless of the brand stamped on the box). One thing for sure, the players behind Audeze are likely mighty proud to gain the attention of such an heavy-hitting company.
