Classics One Audio
A hi-fi store based in Hong Kong run by Alan Yun (ex-NEC salesman) founded in 1991 that started to manufacture mid and high end loudspeakers soon after it opened its doors, selling them simply as "Classics One" or "the Classic One". While the company was best known in its day for their large floor standing models that were very much in vogue with Asian audiophiles at the time they are by now primarily remembered for small but well behaved bookshelf speakers that probably sold in larger quantities anyway.

Added silver interconnects and speaker cables to the product mix fairly early on and the products appear to have sold fairly well even though they were not distributed outside of Asia, the founder claims to have made over 4200 pairs of loudspeakers during the 4 years he operated the company, but we almost never see Classic One speakers on the second hand market, we do find interconnects and cables from the company for sale from time to time in Hong Kong though. The operation closed down in late 1995 and Mr Yun moved to the USA where he started Silverline Audio which to begin with offered a very similar product line to Classics One except with a greater emphasis on bookshelf systems.

Classified Audio Video Inc
Company founded in 2001 by Larry K. Black and based in Jacksonville, Illinois, USA. The company was initially set up to run a webpage called classifiedaudio.com that was one of a large number of USA based websites founded in the late 90’s and early 00’s that sought to emulate the business model of Audiogon, but this one like all the others failed. In 2003 the company announced a large line-up of high end amplifier, headphone amps and DAC's designed by Ernö Borbély and mid and high end loudspeakers designed in-house, all to be sold under the CAV trademark, however since the CAV mark was already in use in the audio business the company was forced in 2004 to change the brandname to Aural Audio and with the name change came a new even larger line-up was announced that included new high end speakers.

The first products were shipped later that year and as far as we can gather these were the only products the company actually shipped, but that was an headphone amplifier based on Hr. Borbély’s design called the Audition and mid/high end interconnects called Spectrum. Sadly Mr. Black passed away long before his time at only 47 years of age in 2007 but the company had already ceased operating in the latter half of 2006.

Resources : Review of the Aural Audition headphone amplifier by 6moons
Similar review from Enjoythemusic
Eulogy for Mr. Black at Find a grave dot com.

CLM Dynamics (Signal processors - Scotland - 1995 to 2006) See --> Texol Technical Solutions PLC

C. Lorenz
Founded in or around 1870 in Berlin, Germany by Carl Lorenz, operated for the first few years as a mechanical workshop but expanded into the manufacture of electrical machinery around 1880. Following Hr. Lorenz's death the company was bought by his co-worker Robert Held in 1890 and he expanded the company in the following years both by buying competitor Telegraphen Bauanstanlt C.F. in 1893 and by establishing branches in Germany and even in Petrograd in Russia. Incorporated in 1906 as C. Lorenz A.G. and during the first 2 decades of the 20'th century the company contributes to the development and manufacture of equipment relating to radio and indeed the first commercial radio broadcasts in Germany were done using a transmitter from the company in addition to the companies introduction of the radio beacon in 1907. C. Lorenz AG branched into the manufacturer of radio receivers in the mid 20's and expanded further later in that decade by buying selected assets from Firma Huth and by starting OEM manufacturing of consumer radios. Bought by Standard Elektrizitätsgesellschaft in May 1930 but that company was the German branch of the USA based ITT company but operated independently.

The 1930's was a very important point in the history of the company as they started to do some research into manufacturing techniques and one result of that research was the introduction of modular manufacture, prior to that electronic equipment had been either assembled by hand or mass manufactured in a similar fashion to a car, whereby a chassis goes down an assembly line and workers insert and fasten parts into the chassis or sub-chassis one person at a time. This became uneconomical the more complex the products grew since quality testing was really only possible with a finished product and when production errors were found they could often not be corrected except by partial breakdown and rebuild of the product, not a huge problem with consumer products but even in the 20's professional electronic products had become quite complex. C. Lorenz solution to this problem was to manufacture all products in a modular fashion whereby circuits with specific functions were built into die cast boxes made out of a magnesium based alloy called Elektron and then tested to a specification, the sub modules were then connected together and assembled into a finished product and received final QT, despite the added costs of the Elektron enclosures the end product was less costly to manufacture than by using normal methods due to the lower quality control costs and the introduction of standardised modules, but that were modules that had generic functions and were used in a multitude of products and could thus be mass manufactured. Non production related benefits of the modularised construction included faster and cheaper servicing since instead of repairing the unit by switching components you simply replaced the affected module and sent the old one back to the factory to be repaired by specialised technicians, but also the greater electromagnetic isolation.

During the first 4 decades of the 20th century the company saw itself as the main competitor to Telefunken in the field of radio and related techniques, the great rivalry between the companies meant that the German government sometimes felt forced to specify when giving out contracts that work could or should be shared at the least partially, but it also meant that the 2 companies had a tendency to "answer" each other’s product introductions, this lead for instance to the introduction of the Lorenz wire recorder, but prior to Telefunkens introduction of the Reel to Reel the company had no interest or research into that field, but it is important to realise that Lorenz was never known as a particularly adventurous company as far as products were concerned, they had advanced construction techniques but never had the range of innovative products that made arc rivals Telefunken famous and conversely Telefunken never rivalled the generic construction quality of Lorenz.

After WWII the company lost its manufacturing bases in Eastern Germany and Prussia and was forced due to practical and political considerations to turn away from the manufacture of professional radio equipment even though it started manufacture of parts and components almost immediately after the year both in Berlin and in their Schaub factories in Western Germany, but due to its USA ownership it got a permission to do so much sooner than most other big German companies at the time. The blockade of Berlin by the Soviet occupation forces forced the company to move its headquarters to Stuttgart and the continued loss of export markets forced them to look into entering new local markets, in 1949 it entered the manufacturing of railway control and safety equipment for instance, it also resulted in some interesting consumer products such as world’s first consumer off-line recorder which utilised technology from their pre-war Wire Recorders.

In 1958 ITT rationalised their operations in Germany by formally merging Lorenz, Schaub and Standard Elektrizitätsgesellschaft into a new company called Standard Elektric Lorenz (or SEL), with the CE related businesses belonging to a business unit called "Rundfunk, Fernsehen & Phono", that division also added ITT to their brandname soon thereafter with most products being branded ITT Schaub-Lorenz from then on. In 1961 the company took a majority controlling interest in Graetz even though that company was operated mostly independently and in 1966 the company took over the Austrian Ingelen factory and both marketed Ingelen products under the ITT Schaub-Lorenz brand and SEL products under the Ingelen brand in Austria. The RFP consumer division suffered losses in the 70's and a reorganisation in 1979 wich amongst other things resulted in the consumer division being renamed "Audio-Video-Elektronik" and the company starting to use the ITT as the sole trademark and dropping the Schaub-Lorenz part. In 1986/7 SEL who was by then an extremely diversified company as far as markets and product lines were concerned, merged with French companies Compagnie Générale d'Electricité and Alcatel with the new company being known as simply Alcatel and the German part now known as Alcatel SEL AG, the new company wanted to get out of the consumer market and for that reason it sold the AVE division to Nokia. You can find more information on the company and their products at Antik-Radio.de and at Radiomuseum (Both Sites in German).
Homepage: http://www.alcatel.de

CL 9 Corporation
A company founded in 1984 by Steve Wozniak (ex-Apple Computer Corp.) in Los Gatos, California, USA, with the aim of manufacturing universal remote controls. Although not the first "universal" on the market the C9 remote was something of a technological marvel that had features that you will not even find on modern units including full programmability, a built in timer, learn mode and wide angle diffused high power IR transducers.

The C9 remote was originally intended by Woz to be an Apple Corp. product but this was blocked by Steve Jobs, and when Mr Wozniak founded the company Mr. Jobs contacted all Apple suppliers and informed them that it would negatively affect their business with Apple Corp. if they supplied parts to CL9. Wozniak hired Sam Bernstein, the ex-marketing manager of Commodore to be the head of the company in late 1985 after Woz decided to spend his time concentrating on his young family.

The C9 remote was based on two processors, a 4 bit one for basic tasks like scanning the keyboard etc. and a 6510 microprocessor that handled more complex logic, the unit is fully programmable, as in computer rather than as in control as is the case with modern variants and came with its own programming language and manual, this meant that the device had the potential to be truly universal but even the most expensive of the modern equivalents have problems with non-standard protocols especially with older equipment. The CL 9 controller also had serial ports that could be programmed to replace wired controls that where still popular at the time especially on video recorders and the like, it also featured a built in timer so it could activate recordings on devices that had no such timers or whose built in timer functions were limited. Unlike modern universals there were no pre-programmed codes, not due to technical issues but simply because no-one had thought of it at the time, the unit also featured rudimentary multi-room capability.

The CL9 remote absolutely bombed in the market, not all users had the technical knowhow or the inclination to program the unit from scratch and this relegated the C9 to a niche product, and while sales were reasonable and the company could have survived as a smaller operation the original business plan anticipated much higher sales and when it became apparent that those would never be reached the company closed its doors in 1988 and was wound down in 1989.

CL 9 is shorthand for Cloud 9 and in daily usage people referred to both the company and the product as cloud nine rather than CL 9 and C9 since it is quicker to say the full name than the shorthand, the company had noticeably what may have been the coolest telephone numbers ever or 800 999 9999, but please do not use that number unless you are having issues with pimples and parents, it's currently a teenage runaway helpline.

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