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What is still truely British today?

Albarry Music amplifiers, designed and hand built in Britain and IMHO one of the best amplifiers on the World market today.

cheers Al
 
ISTR the original Albarry went bust, as did many others (Onix, Ion, etc... spring to mind.)

Who are the current Albarry?

Mull
 
Albarry ceased trading in the mid 90's and relaunched in 2010, with the AP11 Pre-amp and M608 Monoblocs,
now an upgraded AP11, M608's, MCA11 head amp and the flagship M1108 Series 2 monoblocs,

Same people, same designer /engineer Neil Burnett, they were always great amps IMHO and the latest models are fantastic.


cheers Al
 
Pac1 said:
Tannoy: Danish Owned; Prestige drive units assembled in the UK I believe but from outsourced parts (as with many other driver manufacturers). Cabinets I understood were outsourced for Polish manufacture or part manufacture with final speaker assembly at Coatbridge HQ.
Click to expand...

TC-Group (Danish owner of TANNOY) was taken over by Behringer recently. Originally from Germany.....

ATB KH
 
There are only a few wafer fabs left in the UK, a lot of them making very specialist high value stuff so most audio chips are from Asia.

Chips e.g. ADC/DAC etc. designed here but made at TSMC in Taiwan (Wolfson is of course US having been taken over by Cirrus) or China and packaged & tested in Malaysia, Thailand etc.
 
Living Voice: design and assembly near Nottingham. Components are a mixture of British and Danish AFAICT.
 
What is still British?

Complaining AND discussing what is truly still British.

Sorry, it's been one of those days.....
 
Why does it matter what is and is not British? Is anyone on this forum seriously going to make their purchasing decisions based upon components' country of origin.

My current system:

Amplification - United States
DAC - Canada
Speakers - Germany
Cables - United States

More and more folks are buying gear from all over the world. The face of the industry is ever changing.
 
I remember when I was given an old TV that came from Australia as a kid, virtually every component that had a marking where it came from said "made in Australia", I think the valve holders were from the UK, every country was the probably the same in the 50s and 60s. Globalisation has made a nonsence of " made in xyz". However one of Texas instruments main analog fabs is in Greenock and one of the few suppliers of lateral MOSFETs is semelab, also in Scotland, so there are a few places still producing hi-fi components in the UK.
 
I think the "I prefer made in Britain" thing is mainly down to companies now holding lot's of brands all made in one factory, I own an original pair of Castle Richmond 3i speakers when Castle acoustics made the speaker in Britain from their factory, the company has since been taken over to work alongside, mission, wharfedale etc.. the last pair of speakers made by Castle, the knight I believe ( I did try them before this 3i) is no Castle speaker, it may have the name but not the quality, the difference in build for starters is startling, honky cabinets & poor sound when compared to the original Castle cabinets which feel as though they should be sitting with a £1000 price tag instead of a £330 one.

This is the problem that faces manufacturers & buyers, buyers think they are buying a certain brand but are they, with this example, the answer is an easy no.

The last decent Mission speaker was the 780, built in Britain before the takeover to the far east.

As usual it is quantity over quality with the original speaker having the same low price tag but a much superior build & sound when built at their UK factory, they were cabinet makers before making speakers & obviously this talent has not been passed on to the new Castle speaker makers.

After my experiences I would certainly choose "made in Britain" over the far east option. It doesn't even keep the prices down as this proved, the Knight came in at £300 originally before the company realised it wasn't even worth the new £150 price tag.
 
russel said:
However one of Texas instruments main analog fabs is in Greenock and one of the few suppliers of lateral MOSFETs is semelab, also in Scotland, so there are a few places still producing hi-fi components in the UK.
Click to expand...
TI then ship the wafers to Malaysia for cutting, packaging and test.
The reason is that they employ women from rural Malaysia, who earn UKP200 per month, staying in a huge hostel

The fab is capital, not labour, intensive

Why is PFMs spell checker so determined to use American spelling?
 
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