Niles Speakers Phased Out in Nice/Nortek Brand Consolidation

Nice/Nortek Control is consolidating speaker brands as part of the integration of the two companies after Nice’s purchase of Nortek in the fall (see 21100500666), Regional Sales Manager Peter Arnold told Consumer Electronics Daily at the Home Technology Specialists of America conference in Fort Lauderdale last week. Nortek’s five speaker brands -- Elan, SpeakerCraft, Sunfire, Proficient and Niles -- created confusion for dealers, Arnold said, so the company took the brand count down to three. It rolled Sunfire technology into the Speakercraft line, renaming it Powered by Sunfire, and “retagged” Niles outdoor speakers as SpeakerCraft, he said. The Niles line is now “just bits and bolts,” Arnold said of the support role Niles volume controls and amplifiers play in multiroom audio systems. The move "was tough” for longtime Niles dealers loyal to the speaker brand, Arnold said: “We’re trying to come up with products within the SpeakerCraft brand that will make them happy." The company is also addressing redundancies in the Gefen and Xantech lines, “but we’re still figuring out how that’s going to go,” he said. Nice/Nortek plans to launch new products at CEDIA Expo in September, “but that hinges on the supply chain,” he said. Some new products are in development, but “we don’t know if we can get extra working models in that time frame." Arnold called 2022 a "transition year," combining a European company with an American company with associated “growing pains.” The first part of the transition is structural, getting the different divisions working together on the same platform, he said. Italy-based Nice has a shade business in Europe that’s “successful to a point,” said Arnold, saying he's looking forward to selling products designed for the European market in the U.S. “The potential is kind of limitless outside of COVID,” he said. The two markets are different because Europe has a lot of stone and brick buildings where installers can’t hide wires in walls. Since the electronics are visible in a European installation, “you have to have product that looks good,” he said: “It’s like comparing an F-150 to a Ferrari.”