Audio Any clue what happened to F&D and Creative in India?

nemo_online

nemo_online

Disciple
I have fond memories of Creative 5.1 speakers and have an F& D soundbar now which was purchased few years back. Was just searching online today and I see that both brands have a very token presence on Flipkart & Amazon. Did Boat wipe them out? Surely, Creative had better quality audio equipment than Boat. F&D also seemed to the doing quite well. Any idea what happened? I would still prefer Creative over Boat any day.
 
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Creative wiped themselves out, they didn't innovate much and gradually abandoned the desktop speaker market, the old gigaworks are still listed on their website and those came out like what over a decade ago. They focused too much on portables in the last few years and have become irrelevant now due to other better options.
F&D products are still available so not sure what you're talking about but it looks like they have reduced the number of models in the same price bracket. They all use the same drivers anyways so it doesn't really matter.
Not sure about Edifier but I was looking for a 1280 just last week and couldn't find it in stock anywhere.

I think a lot of people have moved to portables/TWS/pro-audio/gaming headsets so the desktop speaker market has dwindled over the last 5 years.
 
nemo_online said:
I have fond memories of Creative 5.1 speakers and have an F& D soundbar now which was purchased few years back. Was just searching online today and I see that both brands have a very token presence on Flipkart & Amazon. Did Boat wipe them out? Surely, Creative had better quality audio equipment than Boat. F&D also seemed to the doing quite well. Any idea what happened? I would still prefer Creative over Boat any day.
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Even though service is terrible and very limited, there are so many f&d speakers in amazon... https://www.amazon.in/s?k=f&d+speakers
So I don't understand which token presence of f&d you are talking about.
 
The last Creative I owned was the EP630 and it was eons ago. But they were the real deal then and bang for the buck. I loved and abused mine till it lasted. I see they still sell for 400 bucks on AMZ but I will not be surprised if those were fakes.
 
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My current speaker is a creative unit I bought 6years back. Used an Edifier and Altec Lansing prior to that. I'm getting bored with the current speakers and was looking to get something new. I was surprised to see very few creative models. Current thought is to get a sound bar or maybe a beginner audiophile speaker between 5~15k. I miss my altec lansing speakers. Nowadays all the brands are into portable audio than desktop speakers
 
vishalrao said:
I'd like to ask about Edifier too.
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they are much alive and kicking. But their Indian counterpart are lazy and rude assholes


creatives - guess they were purchased by some one, Logitech or zebronic not able to recall.
F&D was a small chinese company, changing rules in India were pushed them away of market.
dexterz said:
Nowadays all the brands are into portable audio than desktop speakers
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because current generation all busy in mobile & hardly into desktops.
 
Thank you everyone for all your responses.
Regarding Creative saw this but this is for the UK. So, for all practical purposes have a skeletal presence in India.
My bad but when I said token presence, I had companies like TCL or Sansui in mind which are there for sale but not there in terms of customer service, etc. Seems F& D have gone down that road.
I also agree with the view that people have moved on to portables and mobiles rule the roost. PC sales keep dwindling year on year and gamers also prefer PS or Xbox.
I am no audiophile but having used some Boat products can definitely say they are ok for timepass use but not good if you want to enjoy the audio of let's say movies.

P.S. And yes, Indians are all about " baby ko bass pasand hai".
 
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ibose said:
The last Creative I owned was the EP630 and it was eons ago. But they were the real deal then and bang for the buck. I loved and abused mine till it lasted. I see they still sell for 400 bucks on AMZ but I will not be surprised if those were fakes.
Click to expand...
I still have my ep630, purchased in 2005-6, one bud dunked in tea, cleaned and kept using it, and it still works like new. These were the earphones which caused me to stop and listen, coz each and every song felt different. Here I realized the difference between standard earphones and the ep630. Not even the insulation has gone bad, as it does with most standard earphones.
 
atg666 said:
I still have my ep630, purchased in 2005-6, one bud dunked in tea, cleaned and kept using it, and it still works like new. These were the earphones which caused me to stop and listen, coz each and every song felt different. Here I realized the difference between standard earphones and the ep630. Not even the insulation has gone bad, as it does with most standard earphones.
Click to expand...
Damn. Those must be worth a fortune now. :cool:
 
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