D&M Holdings which distributes the Marantz, Denon, Escient and Boston Acoustic brands seems to think so. In fact it sees itself right in the middle of a changing market and is now structured to take advantage of the upsurge of interest in audio and A/V networking with a variety of new feature sets to debut soon.
Kevin Zarow, marketing VP for Marantz, Escient and Snell, commented, "It's more important than ever to have a centralized box that can handle all of this information and get it distributed all over the home and do it seamlessly and easily. We see the receiver as the hub."
Not that D&H, whose brands include Denon, Marantz, McIntosh, Boston Acoustics (which it bought in 2005), Snell, Escient, and D&M Pro, hasn't been taking advantage of the changing market already. In its recently released financial for the first nine-months of its fiscal year, ended Dec. 31, 2006, the company reported a 103 percent gain in operating profit of $36.5 million, a record for that period, plus a 6.5 percent increase in consolidated revenue, to $589.3 million.
