Qualia: RIP
As you may or may not know, Sony’s looming reorganization was finally announced. 10,000 jobs will be cut over the next couple years, departments will be rearranged, and product lines will be cut.
According to engadget, one such product line is the Sony Qualia lineup. The Qualia brand brought us two of the absolute best projectors money could buy (one SXRD front projector, one rear projector).
Before the Sony reorg, I didn’t really think much of it. I thought that Mr. String & co would finagle the numbers a bit, rearrange stuff, kill product lines nobody cares about, and otherwise do other harmless things.
But for Sony to kill the Qualia line is a sad thing for HDTV lovers. The Qualia 006 and Qualia 004 projectors were statements pieces that firmly marked Sony as a leader in the television field, other problems notwithstanding. They were pricey television, sure, but they were great televisions. The industry needs these statement pieces to spur other companies on and to give a certain cachet to the HDTV industry.
Alack and alas, the Qualia line is behind us now. Who will pick up the banner now?
Check out our new sister blog on Home Theater, HTBlog.net
October 7th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
It appears that the Qualia line is still alive. In an article from Audio Video Revolution, http://www.avrev.com/news/1005/06.qualia.html, the statement is made …
“Qualia is Sony’s flagship line that highlights their best technologies executed to the highest level”,
and…
“Qualia and its current high end products are not going away. What is rumored to happen will be a change in the support to the line which now comes with ‘white glove’ service that includes installation, calibration and comprehensive customer support.”
So it seems that the move is more taking the brand to a more “mainstream” offering (think “home theater” instead of “mansion theater”). Given the incredibly good performance of these Sony products, this is great news.
October 7th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
That’s great news, John. Thanks for catching that!