Mondial Designs Limited
A manufacturer of hi-fi electronics based in Dobbs Ferry in New York, USA, that was founded in 1987 by Antony Federici and Paul Rosenberg. The company supplied amplifiers and preamplifiers under the Aragon brand, their first product, the Aragon 4004 is a power amplifier that got rave reviews in the USA hi-fi press, and while not cheap it did undercut its competitors in the market, Mondial later started supplying a lower priced amplifier products under the Acurus brand, branched into home theatre products in the mid 90’s initially under the Aragon brand but later also using the AMFI or AMFI by Mondial brands, but AMF was supposed to stand for American Fidelity.

It should be noted that the company never actually made any of the products they sold but rather relied on subcontractors. Parts of the company were aquired in late 2000 by Klipsch which uses the Aragon brand for high end electronics, but dropped the use of the Acurus name although they have hinted that they may use it in the future, the AMFI brand appears to have been dropped altogether, press releases from Klipsch stated that Mondial had halted production before the takeover which implies that it was in some kind of financial trouble. Cofounder Paul Rosenberg was still working for Klipsch last we heard.

Monitor See --> In-Akustik (Cables ca. 1980 ~ 2004)

Monitor Audio See --> Image (Loudspeakers - New Zealand - 1968 to 1990)

Monogram Professional Audio
Company based in Hayes,  Middlesex,  England that as the name suggests manufactured products primarily intended for the pro-audio market and usually marketed their products under their initials: MPA. We believe that the company was founded in the early 70’s and the products you are most likely to see on the second hand markets are amplifiers that were primarily sold to the club and pub market. But in 1977 introduced the A+ line of rack mountable power amplifiers with the1 1/2U 3100 model, but these were unusual at the time in that they are fully Class A when run at low volumes but start working in Class A/B when higher power requirements kick in. A little later the company introduced a series of hi-fi products including a version of the A+ power amp intended for home usage called model 3050, an FM tuner called model 3600 FM and a cheaper integrated amplifier called Model 3000 slimline. Later in 1977 Monogram introduced the MPA TD1 turntable. The company appears to have disappeared by 1980.

Moretek Inc
USA based company that manufactured FM multipath distortion processor for and active indoor antennas for consumer usage in the 70's, have not been able to find out what happened to the company and none of the USA based companies that currently operate under than name appear to be related in any way.

Motosacoche Acacias Genéve
Company founded in 1899 in Genéve in Switzerland by the Dufaux brothers and originally called H & A Dufaux. The company started making small 4 stroke engines to use with bicycles that had a distinctive casing that resembled a sack, people started to call the engines "Motosacoche" (engine in a sack) and the name stuck to the company's models although a different casing design was already in use as early as 1903. Incorporated in 1905 under the Motosacoche AG name, but the Dufux brothers had left a year earlier to pursue a carrier in the aircraft industry, and the Motosacoche name had by then become much better known that the company name anyhow. The company branched out into the manufacture of motorcycles that were sold under the Motosacoche name and it is for those cycles that the company is best known for today, but that never became the mainstay of the business, it was always the engines that were the bulk of the company’s output, those were marketed under the company initials MAG and in addition to making them in Switzerland the company had factories or licensed manufacture of their engines in European countries ranging from UK in the west to Russia in the east. Motorcycle production however only happened in Switzerland except for a time in the 20’s when they were made under licence in France and in very low volumes in Italy. The company was hit unusually hard by the depression and even more by governmental reaction to the repression, exports to Britain stopped altogether when the gold standard was dropped, and even licensed manufacture halted since the Pound Sterling was effectively worthless and could not be traded, this also meant that their English competitors gained an advantage since they could sell their products for less than their European contemporaries could make them for as long as they could buy in raw materials for the manufacture in Pounds from parts of the British Empire or the Commonwealth. Exports to the USA also became impossible when import laws were changed, effectively hindering imports of anything that could not be classified as raw materials. MAG was in fact so reliant on exports that their production halted almost completely during WWII. Sales of motors for industrial and agricultural usage soon picked up after the end of the war, Switzerland being along with Sweden just about the only industrialised European nation that did not suffer any damage to its infrastructure during WWII, The company was thus one of the few that could quickly ramp up production and became quite successful one again but immediately after the war there was limited interest in the market for motorcycles with plenty of ex-army models to be had cheap on the second hand market and the economy of most of Europe in ruins. The company did show prototypes in the late 40’s they never went into production and the only motorcycles ever to bear the Motosacohe name again where some models from the mid 50’s that were actually rebadged UT models from Germany. In the mid to late 50’s the company tried hard to expand its operations by entering new markets, it would appear that they had some excess manufacturing capacity and were eager to exploit it, but there was quite a variety of products that they tried their hand at including household goods, sundry office products and the now legendary Motosacoche Tape Recorder, that was something of an engineering marvel. None of these incursions appear to have been a success and the last we hear of the company is in the latter half of the 1960’s, but by then best know as a supplier of compressors although they still had some market for engines especially in Germany.

Moving Air Ltd.
Company based in Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey, England that manufactured high end cables under the Abbey Road Cables brand. Originally founded in 2003 by Dan Gable and shortly thereafter licensed the “Abbey Road” name from EMI and started selling high end cables under that brand, it appears that the company was purely a sales operation and no actual cable manufacture took place although it is possible that the company did some termination work itself. Dissolved on the 23rd of March 2011 and appears to have been inactive for a couple of years beforehand.

MPM S.R.L.
Italian manufacturer of furniture based in Castelfidardo that had been active as an OEM and ODM manufacturer of hi-fi and AV furniture and related accessories such as brackets and musical instrument stands for quite a few years. The company supplied a number the bigger names in AV and MI manufacturing such as Casio and Panasonic with stands, retailers with their own branding and after-market hi-fi and AV furniture sellers as well with OEM products. But when faced with their customers increasingly sourcing their products from the far east in the early years of the century the company responded around 2004/5 by putting out a full range of AV, hi-fi and lifestyle furniture, related fasteners and accessories, branded as Opera or MPM-Opera depending trademark availability in each market.

Their products were fairly classy looking furniture made out of nothing but microalloyed steel and glass and initially appeared to be selling well with distributors lining up to stock the products, particularly in the Americas and Eastern Europe. Their marketing also heavily emphasised the products Italian origin and the fact that it was made in the first world there and not just another Asian low cost/high margin import.

MPM seems to disappear in the 2007/2008 timeframe, it is not known if the company went out of business or simply decided close store and sell up in a difficult market, but some of their assets such as the trademark and designs ended up with Italian musical instrument manufacturer and distributor Eko Music Group, who makes broadly similar products under the Opera name, although sarcastically enough they are currently made in the far east.

Musikit
French company based in Lyon in the Rhône-Alpe region, started out in the 80's we believe (could have be in the 70's though) as a specialist parts store pandering to the then thriving loudspeaker DIY market in France. In addition to supplying parts and designs the company also offered their own loudspeaker kits under the Smile brand, with a few of them being of quite a notable quality, their website has a picture of one of their models if you go down to the history page.

The company stopped making the Smile kit range available in the 90's as the DIY market contracted and slowly evolved into a normal audio/video retail outlet. With one minor twist, like most loudspeaker stores at the time, Musikit serviced the car audio and PA markets in addition to the hi-fi market that was their main thrust, and although the company left the car audio segment around 2003 they still sell PA and sound reinforcement products. While that sort of arrangement is not unheard of in smaller countries where convergence can be economical due to scale, it is a unusual sight in the bigger markets, if only because the punters of high end AV stores cannot stand the inane noises the wannabe death metal guitarists make when they are testing equipment, and conversely the geriatric easy listening pap favoured by the audiophile community when they are demoing equipment can empty any space of cool DJ types faster than Michael Schumacher gets from 0 to 100.
Homepage: http://www.musikit.fr -- Alternative homepage

MXR Innovations
Company founded in 1973 and incorporated in 1974 by Keith Barr and Terry Sherwood and based in Rochester, New York, USA, but the duo had run an audio repair business together locally since 71 under the name of “Audio Services” and used the MXR brand on some custom mixers AS had made for their customers. The company started out building guitar effect and utility pedals but by the mid 70’s added effect processors and other products suitable for use in recording studios.

The company continued expanding throughout the 70’s and the early 80’s but even though their studio equipment lines were generally profitable they found it increasingly difficult to compete with Japanese manufacturers in the pedal area that remained their main source of income. In particular Roland (Boss) was a difficult prospect, but they were shipping technically better products at prices the American company found difficult to match while still maintaining a profitable margin. This meant that despite increases in sales from year to year the company was run at a loss, some attempts were made to rectify this, the whole line of pedals was updated in 1981 with a better switches and a led indicator and other minor modernisations, that same year a line of budget pedals called "MXR Commande" that featured plastic housing and similar economy features was introduced, but it did not sell well.

The company went bankrupt in 1983, Keith Barr went on to found Alesis Corp., Terry Sherwood alongside Tony Gambacurta and Richard Neatrour and a number of others from the MXR engineering department went on to found ART but that company later registered the MXR trademark in 1999. There were some sales of MXR pedal products after the demise of the company even as late as 1985 but it is not known if that was simply the remaining stocks being disposed of courtesy of the bankruptcy court or if the same authority allowed a few last production runs to satisfy demand.

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