Meridian Audio Acquires Sooloos

Meridian Audio, the venerable British firm at the forefront of digital-audio technology, announced today that it has acquired music-server manufacturer Sooloos for an undisclosed sum.

Sooloos’ music servers will continue to be sold under the Sooloos name (at least for now), but will be sold through Meridian’s worldwide distributor and dealer network. There are no immediate plans for a Meridian-branded server based on Sooloos technology, although it’s likely that a Sooloos server will frequently be packaged with Meridian’s Digital Theater playback systems.

In my review of the Sooloos server (http://www.avguide.com/product/sooloos/sooloos-music-server), I found that it had a brilliant user interface that allowed a listener to explore his music collection in entirely new ways.

According to Meridian CEO Tim Ireland, “Meridian supplies the very finest audio and video installations. As the market evolves toward download and streaming content and more sophisticated forms of control, we have been seeking the right partner to widen our scope and enable us to further excite our customers. Combining Meridian and Sooloos takes both over many hurdles; the two companies share striking similarities in culture, product philosophy, pursuit of excellence and market approach.”

Bob Stuart, Meridian’s Chairman and CTO is very enthusiastic about the Sooloos acquisition. “Our two companies have been following one another’s success for some time,” says Stuart. “We share very similar philosophies and passions for music and total design excellence. There’s also a powerful synergy between the skills and experience of our respective teams, which will enable us to build together outstanding and definitive high-end digital entertainment systems.”

Peter Wellikoff, Sooloos COO and a three-decade veteran of high-end consumer electronics says, “We’ve successfully established Sooloos as the most technically advanced and sophisticated innovator in this still very young media-server and systems sphere. Now, under the Meridian corporate umbrella, we gain advantages in global market access, as well as a network of engineering and technology resources that are unequalled anywhere.”