Pioneer (non-Japanese AV products) was bought out by the parent company (Gibson guitars money?) of Onkyo four years ago and the whole lot (including Philips) was recently considered for acquisition by TCL. As far as I know, the products are still good as they seem to hold up at rtings.com.
Acquisitions and mergers are how things are these days. Marantz and Denon were brought under the same umbrella (Sound United) with Polk Audio, Definitive and Boston Accoustics. Another series of acquisitions brought AKG, Bang & Olufsen, Crown (amplifiers), Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon, Mark Levinson and Revel into Harman International, a subsidiary of Samsung.
Sony and Yamaha are perhaps the only companies large enough to avoid acquisition while some other former name brands (Hitachi, Toshiba, JVC) are built in China and being marketed under license. LG bought Zenith many years ago.
In the big picture, most everything is built in either some part of Southeast Asia (not including Japan) or Mexico.
Look for the features you want and don't get hung up in the name-dropping.
