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Brands that disappeared very quickly

I’ll offer Principal loudspeakers. IIRC they used the same drive units in a standard ie non isobarik configuration (like the mythical Linn Tin).

Principal had at least one dealer (Sound Org London) but folded very quickly.
 
No one’s mentioned the Logic DM101 yet, don’t know who owned the company but they did link up with Syrinx and produce the Datum tone arm ( a variation of their LEONE).
Hafler popped up in the UK for a few years in the 80’s
 
tones said:
There was a Northern Irish brand of turntable called Strathearn - odd-looking thing with three orange discs equally spaced around the platter. Vanished with the speed of that other celebrated Northern Irish start-up DeLorean
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And left almost as much debt
 
Rota.
Pink Triangle.
Micromega.
Audio Innovations.
Alchemist.
John Shearne.
Keswick Audio.
Audio Synthesis.
Hadcock.
Moth.
Voyd.
Graaf.
Whilst these brands may not have disappeared very quickly they would have been well known and well reviewed in a variety of magazines in the 90's.
I'm sure there's loads more and for a variety of reasons, in the past few years, Len Gregory and Glen Croft passed , I guess with these smaller cottage industry companies there sometimes can be nobody to pass on the torch.
 
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Kralk Audio. My BC-30s were in situ for about 6 years, a personal record. I've still got them: I'm saving them for when I get shipped off to an old folks home. You know, one of those places where all the adjoining walls are made out of plasterboard and you can hear a pin drop in the next room.
 
Darren L said:
DNM.
Rota.
Pink Triangle.
Micromega.
Audio Innovations.
Alchemist.
John Shearne.
Keswick Audio.
Audio Synthesis.
Hadcock.
Moth.
Voyd.
Graaf.
Whilst these brands may not have disappeared very quickly they would have been well known and well reviewed in a variety of magazines in the 90's.
I'm sure there's loads more and for a variety of reasons, in the past few years, Len Gregory and Glen Croft passed , I guess with these smaller cottage industry companies there sometimes can be nobody to pass on the torch.
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Yes indeed. Supplying hifi customers must be a nightmare. We buy second hand a lot of the time and the younger generations think the industry is just plain outdated.
 
Crystal loudspeakers. I bought a pair of sealed box 2-ways (Voyager or Explorer??) up the north end of Tottenham Court Road about '81.
Drove them with an RSC kit amp that I'd made 10 years earlier.
I also once had a Valek turntable.

Still have a couple of Morgan Audio amps, and pairs of Dean Audio Alto II, Fullers Audio Sphinx, JC One, and SD Acoustics SD1 and SD5 speakers.
Hmmm, a worrying trend?
 
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wd40addict said:
And back in the day the Hi-fi mags blessing or you'd sink without trace.
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It all part of the same thing. Supply gear for review, provide press releases & have something to say. Let’s remember that domestic hifi scene was being destroyed by the big corporations so you needed a niche.

I’d never buy from a ‘man in a shed’ type organisation.
 
Some of the names listed above live on in a different guise. Kralk, for example, is now Alchris. That one is a sad and cautionary tale and I’m pleased they seem to have come through; others changed hands or got bought out, often when the principal retired or died.
 
Woodface said:
I’d never buy from a ‘man in a shed’ type organisation.
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I'm all for men in sheds.

I love my little Croft amp. When I emailed Glenn about valve choices he took the time to write a detailed reply. When the transformer went fud he replaced it free of charge and even paid return shipping. And this for an amplifier several years old that I'd explained I'd bought secondhand.
 
O’hEocha loudspeakers. Very unique looking beasts designed by an extremely tall Irishman called Aonghus O'hEocha, who looked like a 1950's Hollywood film star. I used to work with the man himself at Rover Group in Longbridge during the BMW days. We codeveloped the K-Series engine "power intake port" for a never-to-be-built motorsport derivative, but major elements of the CAD design were subsequently integrated into the VVC and V6 mark 2 cylinder heads. Then we both ended up in the marketing strategy team at the (then) Warwick HQ in a building owned by oil company Conoco and took voluntary redundancy on the same day in April 1999. He went off and used the VR money to set up a hi-fi company!
 
paulfromcamden said:
I'm all for men in sheds.

I love my little Croft amp. When I emailed Glenn about valve choices he took the time to write a detailed reply. When the transformer went fud he replaced it free of charge and even paid return shipping. And this for an amplifier several years old that I'd explained I'd bought secondhand.
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Yeah, he was one of the good guys.
 
I also got involved with a short lived valve amp manufacturer Concordant Audio which was effectively an ex-Leak engineer called Doug Dunlop (RIP). I met him via Five-Ways HiFi in Brum who recommended him to service my used Quad II amps that I had bought off them. Doug convinced me to upgrade them to his own version and also sold me various iterations of pre-amps and power supplies which were his speciality. He also got me to book and pay for a magazine ad "campaign" where he insisted I use a photograph of his cat(!) and try and then told me to recover my costs from his very few sellers. I never did get me money back, but it was an amusing experience nonetheless.
 
Rana said:
O’hEocha loudspeakers. Very unique looking beasts designed by an extremely tall Irishman called Aonghus O'hEocha, who looked like a 1950's Hollywood film star. I used to work with the man himself at Rover Group in Longbridge during the BMW days. We codeveloped the K-Series engine "power intake port" for a never-to-be-built motorsport derivative, but major elements of the CAD design were subsequently integrated into the VVC and V6 mark 2 cylinder heads. Then we both ended up in the marketing strategy team at the (then) Warwick HQ in a building owned by oil company Conoco and took voluntary redundancy on the same day in April 1999. He went off and used the VR money to set up a hi-fi company!
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I have my own suspicions as to why this brand is no longer with us:

Man walks into a hifi dealer
"I'd like to listen to a pair of those O'heechy... O'hekokey...'Oheeughcha...

...oh, sod it, you got any Monitor Audios?"
 
Mick P said:
Yes indeed. Supplying hifi customers must be a nightmare. We buy second hand a lot of the time and the younger generations think the industry is just plain outdated.
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Woodface said:
Just shows that a great product is not enough. You need a dealer network, good design & brand identity.
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Whilst there was always 'Classifieds' ads in newspapers and some magazines (Hifi News & RR) I think the secondhand market really took off when home PCs became affordable and popular and folks had access to Ebay, Hifi Forsale and perhaps forums.
Also due to home computers, tablets and smart phones people found something else to spend money on and had access to otherwise unavailable hobbies, I sold my 'high end" hifi off in 2003 in order to have the funds to purchase parts and tools to build a motorcycle .
It seems every industry has it's heyday or golden age and there's lots of reasons both from inside and outside the industries why some pass into history and some succeed, at least for a while.
 
Keswick Audio was Dean Hartley. Worked for Fane first then joined us at Wharfedale. First model I remember him working on was a sub/sat product for commercial installations (2180?), under collaboration with Walter Mirauer (ex MD of Bose UK).

Dean went onto work for Monitor Audio and sold his shares as part of a management buyout. He's a consultant now and still dabbles with some audio projects. I think he's working with a foreign streamer manufacturer right now.
 
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