Premium
Audio Company (PAC), the parent company of audio brands Onkyo and Klipsch, has
announced that its multiyear partnership with Pioneer
Corporation’s home audio and
home theater division will not be renewed. This “mutual decision” was revealed
in an email to distributers and dealers. This concludes what has appeared to be
a successful collaboration in licensing and marketing between the two
companies. PAC was quick to clarify that the agreement never included Pioneer’s
automotive, television, headphone, wireless audio, or professional sound
products — only the company’s home AV gear (such as AV receivers), which had
been licensed to Premium Audio Company
and developed alongside models from Onkyo and Integra. Those other product
categories will continue to be produced and sold by Pioneer Corporation or
other Pioneer licensing partners. The announcement of the PAC/Pioneer split
arrived soon after both entities were acquired by separate companies, both
focused on automotive tech, rather than home AV tech.
Toward
the end of June 2025, Pioneer Corporation
was acquired for approximately $1.1 billion by CarUX, a Taiwanese maker of
automotive smart cockpit solutions. Clearly, CarUX wanted Pioneer
Corporation’s car audio
division to reinforce its existing focus on automotive infotainment, and the
Taiwanese company probably had no plans in mind for home AV. But for now,
Pioneer’s existing PAC-developed products remain available at retail, and
crucially, PAC will continue to provide support for these products.
Meanwhile,
PAC and its parent company Voxx International
were acquired in April 2025 by Gentex Corporation, a Michigan-based electronics
and technology company that develops and manufactures equipment for the
automotive industry. In business since 1974, Gentex spent $196 million for Voxx, again
mostly likely for its portfolio of automotive electronics, and for the
opportunity to expand into the automotive and consumer audio spaces. Gentex
already owned a big chunk of Voxx before the deal, which was finalized after
Gentex purchased the remaining 68.1% stake. This purchase came just months
after Onkyo, one of PAC’s flagship companies, announced a big push for a
re-brand and a “reimagined” identity. (See our article Onkyo
Reimagined: The Japanese Brand Prepares For A New Chapter.)
The
complex relationship between PAC and Pioneer actually predates the existence of
PAC itself. It all started in 2014, when Pioneer split up its car and home audio businesses,
selling its home AV assets to Onkyo. At the time, Pioneer was in a transitional
stage, having pulled out of the TV market a few years prior. Though the company
enjoyed a good run as the picture quality king during the reign of plasma,
Pioneer pulled the plug on TV production as 1080p gave way to 4K, and offloaded
its home AV division to focus on the more lucrative automotive market. And so
it was that Onkyo began licensing the Pioneer brand for AVRs. That relationship was renewed — after
a few rocky periods — when Onkyo was purchased by Voxx International (and its subsidiary, Premium Audio
Company) for just $31 million in 2021. It was then that PAC and Sharp
Corporation entered a joint venture to take control of Onkyo Home Entertainment
Corporation, including product development and branding. In 2023, we saw the
resultant new wave of Onkyo and Pioneer/Elite
products, designed from the ground up under the auspices of PAC. These
products, such as the Pioneer Elite VSX-LX805 11.2-channel AVR, were generally
well-regarded and have received positive reviews for their performance and
engineering. (See our Onkyo
TX-RZ70 review.)
Now
that the partnership between Pioneer and PAC has come to an end, the
development of new Pioneer and Pioneer Elite home audio products will revert
back to Pioneer Corporation. It remains to be seen whether Pioneer’s new owners
will devote resources toward developing home AV gear, and/or whether CarUX will
simply license the Pioneer brand to another partner who will then develop and
manufacture new Pioneer and Pioneer Elite AV electronics. Meanwhile, PAC said
in the announcement that the company intends to focus its attention on its core
brands: Klipsch, Onkyo, and Integra. Indeed, PAC’s most recent home AV
corporate branding only mentions these three brands. These are the three brands
that PAC owns outright. PAC also has two secondary home AV brands, Heco and
Magnat. But just as Pioneer was, these brands are operated by PAC under
licensing agreements; PAC doesn’t actually own them. What we can’t help but wonder is whether there will be a divergence between future Onkyo and Pioneer AVRs, which shared a common platform prior to the PAC split. Time will tell.
We
are grateful for the opportunity to work with Pioneer and appreciate the
collaboration we’ve had.
After thoughtful discussions, we have mutually agreed to part ways and are now
focused on the exciting next chapter of growing our core brands. Our commitment
to delivering exceptional audio solutions and supporting our customers remains
unwavering.
—
Vincent
Bonacorsi, COO of Premium Audio
Company
The
good news for the owners of recent Pioneer and Pioneer Elite products is that, as part of this transition, PAC will
continue to provide service and support for all products produced and sold
during the PAC/Pioneer partnership. Premium Audio Company has assured Pioneer
users that PAC “remains dedicated to delivering the highest level of service
and satisfaction to its loyal customers,” and will continue to run the PAC-operated Pioneer Home website
to support all Pioneer purchases made through PAC-authorized dealers and
distributors. The website will reportedly offer model-specific service and
support information, making it easy to identify the appropriate support
resources.
What Happens Next for Pioneer?
Pioneer’s
split from Premium Audio Company
is just the latest in a series of ongoing moves on PAC’s part to trim down and
reduce its debt. In August of last year, PAC announced that it had sold off
both the Jamo and Energy loudspeaker brands, neither of which was raking in sales at the level that
Klipsch continues to achieve. Rayleigh Labs, an R&D and manufacturing
company based in Shenzhen, China,
partnered with Cinemaster to acquire Jamo and Energy. Cinemaster is a distributor that PAC has
described as “the
largest audio distribution company in China.” According to PAC, Rayleigh Labs
is “one of the most significant R&D and manufacturing partners of the PAC
group,” and is a longtime supplier to Voxx. For its part, Cinemaster “has
been the distribution partner for all PAC brands for more than two decades,” according
to PAC. It will be interesting to see whether these former PAC brands can rise
from the ashes, and whether Pioneer’s home AV division will rise to regained
prominence, or fizzle out under new, automotive-focused ownership. In today’s
ever-changing AV landscape, past achievements are no guarantee of future
success. Consider Jamo, for example. Founded in 1968, the Danish company
employed over 400 people and was, at one time, Europe’s largest speaker manufacturer,
according to Wikipedia. It was certainly a name I paid attention to when I got
into audio in the 1990s. But by the end of that decade, the business started to
decline. Klipsch acquired Jamo in 2005, but was never able to raise the company
back to its former heights.
Pioneer
is now at a crossroads, and what happens next for the storied brand is anything
but clear. We know that development of Pioneer and Pioneer Elite home audio and
home theater products “will continue under the direction of Pioneer
Corporation,” but today’s home audio space is so unstable, that could mean any
number of things. Every time we turn around, there is another…