Originally founded in 1981 as Raidek Sound Industries Pty Ltd in the Castle Hill suburb of Sidney, New South Wales, Australia. Introduced one of the first logic steered surround sound sound processors in 1985 as the Raidek SD 100, targeting the then emerging home theatre market. The idea behind the unit was simple, the designer was an Australian gent that worked at a local TV station, he realised in the early 80’s that many of the movies supplied to them by American distributors for broadcasting had Dolby Surround encoded on them and with a suitable setup they could be decoded at home into a 4 or 5 channel surround sound setup.
The SD 100 generated a lot of interest but not a lot of sales simply because it was a bit ahead of its time, people just did not have 4 or 5 channel setups at home and creating one could be bit of a nuisance with having to match amplifiers and so on, there simply was no supply of multichannel amplifiers etc. available in that perioid. However the company found a market for the decoder in the film theatre market proper, since it could decode surround encoded films for just a fraction of the price that a proper Dolby Laboratories decoder cost at the time it represented a way for smaller theatre owners to offer surround sound where it was restricted to medium and larger cinemas before that for cost reasons before this. In response to this fact the company introduced a professional version of their decoder in 1988 called the CPS2200 but alongside balanced I/O it offered remote control capabilities, the company also changed its name to Panalogic to reflect the new cinema targeted focus of the operation.
Later in 1988 the company introduced an upgrade to the CSP2200 that had an extra matrix that decoded info from the surround information that could be used for back speakers, they called this “Surround SX” and this technique was later copied by both Dolby and DTS and the company also offered another widely copied invention in 1989 by offering a version with built in crossovers. Panalogic continued updating and introducing new processors and monitoring systems during the early and mid-1990’s with the most notable feature they had was that they were all controllable via serial interface or a more conventional remote control, this allowed operators to use a computer to synchronise the workings of the decoder with other events in the theatre and this was taken to its logical conclusion in 1998 when the company introduced the CA1400.
The CA1400 is an integrated controller for cinemas that could from one place control and synchronise all devices that were used in the theatre from projectors and curtain drawers to amplifiers, the CA1400 also can not only control systems that are designed to be controlled in such a way via serial and Ethernet but also made provisions for systems such as amplifiers and dimmers that that did not have any control capabilities by offering digitally encoded rotary switches and resistors that if retrofitted would in effect make the systems controllable. The company was taken over by Smart Devices in 2005 and their Australian operations shut down and all manufacturing moved to the USA.
Panaudio Industries Malaysian loudspeaker manufacturer that started out in the late 80's, had by the mid 90's become a fairly large manufacturer particularly as an OEM but all contact with the company was lost in late 2001, unusually for a budget Asian manufacturer of home and car audio they actually had a small line of mid end speakers that were actually quite good, here below is their last known address and contact details. Sometimes also seen listed as "Panaudio Electronics". Panaudio Industries Sdn. Bhd., No.12 Jalan USJ 19/4A, 47600 Subang Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. Phone : +603 7240510 or 7240458 or 7240459 Fax : +603 7240530
Parsec Delaware Ltd. USA based manufacturer of radio antennas and related accessories, taken over by Recoton in 1991 after it stopped trading. What makes this company unusual is that it appears to have concentrated on radio aerials rather than TV ones and had a number of small discrete amplified indoor antennas that were popular with audiophiles in the 80's.
Passion Audio Kit Chinese manufacturer of a large range of valve based amplifiers that were mostly sold as kits although they could be had built, these generated a lot of interest in their time due to being splendid value, in particular the fit and finish was superior to what the other Chinese companies were offering at the time and price. Timeline is ca 1996 to 2001 and there seems to be no information available on what happened to the company or who was behind it.
UK based concern, originally a sole trader that started to operate under the Path name in 1983 distributing audio accessories and found some spectacular success specially with American import Allsop which became the biggest audio accessories brand in the UK, and a little later with Case Logic. Incorporated in 1986 as Path Limited and was by then based in Thame in Oxfordshire. The company expanded their product lines in the latter half of the 80’s but kept focused on the accessories market until 1989.
Around 1990 the company decided to expand into other markets and to start selling products under their own brands as well, it formed 2 companies that were nominally independent in the form of Hunt E.D.A. Ltd. that “manufactured” or rather sold accessories bought in from Asian OEM's under the Hunt E.D.A. brand and Car Audio Labs Ltd. which was a distribution company that specialised in handling car audio products, in addition the company opened up a division called Path Premier that distributed mid and high end hi-fi and AV products in the UK, for some strange reason the division was presented as a separate company and referred to as “Path Premier Ltd.” but actually there never was a company with that name.
While Path Premier and Car Audio Labs were successful the Hunt E.D.A. product never really became entrenched so a new brand was thought up in 1994 called Ixos that sold cables and interconnects and the Hunt E.D.A. company was renamed Ixos Ltd. later that year. Ixos became quite successful however and that encouraged the company to add more of their own brands into the distribution, with "Fonline" and "Storex" telephone and computer accessories brands, adding a USA subsidiary call simply “Path Group” in 1995 that in addition to selling their own branded products also sold OEM accessories manufacturing services and in order to facilitate those and to service their own needs they opened up a purchase office in Hong Kong.
Created a couple of new brands in the latter half of the 90’s in the form of Diaglo for media storage products, and for hi-fi racks & loudspeaker stands the Deadrock name, both were short lived and so was the accessories brand XSRE that the company introduced in or around 2000, however at the same time the company entered into a licencing deal with Ministry of Sound to use the latter’s company’s brand on a series of headphones and that proved to be quite a successful partnership which lasted until Path became more or less in-operational around 2010. The company bought USA based car installation products company American Terminal Supply in 2000 and after test marketing under that name in the UK with limited success created a new sub-brand called Ixos 12v to distribute car installation products and cabling under.
There were already signs of trouble at the company by 2003, sales of telephone and computer accessories had plummeted and the company’s high end audio division Path Premier was no longer profitable, by 2004 Path had closed down the PP division and had stopped using most of their accessories brands with the exception of Ixos that was very successful in the cable business and Hunt E.D.A. that was still used on some legacy products. The company was re-organised in 2008 and changed its name to Path Group PLC but to no avail, the company was taken into insolvency administration in 2010, the most promising parts of the company were folded into new company called Path Products that was owned by the creditors of Path while the American part of the operation was sold to Exile Audio who folded the into a company called Luxicor LLC.
Path Products Ltd. UK company based in Thame in Oxfordshire, founded in October 2010 to take over the brands and distribution from the then bankrupt Path Ltd. that were considered to be salvageable, including cable and accessories brand Ixos. The owners of the company (creditors of Path Ltd) were not happy with its performance and closed the company down less than 10 months after it was founded. The accessories brands were sold to Vogels.
Italian loudspeaker manufacturer based in Mattarello. The company's website disappeared in 2004 and attempt to reach its owners have not been successful.
Permaton Interesting this, I was reminded of this company when I found a cachet of old cassettes from ca 1979/81, while I did have a top of the line cassette recorder at the time, I had spent all my summer wages on hi-fi so no money left for good quality cassettes, however this German company supplied chrome cassettes for the same price as others were charging for normal cassettes. Listening to these now after all this time I am stuck by the actual quality of those tapes, they outperform even the cheaper TDK chrome cassettes from that time (and those were quite a bit more expensive, at the least in the eyes of a chronically broke schoolboy), remarkable considering that the recorder was aligned up for the TDK tapes. Trying to find further info on this company on the net and elsewhere, the only thing I have come up with was a paragraph by a German bloke with the exact same recollections of the brand, further info would be appreciated.
Perpetuum-Ebner Originally founded in 1906 in St. Georgen in the Black Forest in Germany as the Gebrüder Steidinger and was an amalgam of the 2 engineering workshops run by the brothers Christian and Joseph Steidiger. In 1911 after the brothers found it increasingly difficult to work together, Christian bought his brothers part in the company but as he could not raise enough capital to pay Joseph for his share he paid him partially in manufacturing equipment and clockwork parts, Joseph used this material to set up a small workshop incorporated as Perpetuum, and while he started out making clockwork parts the company had evolved into a manufacturer of electric motors, turbines and automation devices as early as 1913. Supplied motors to gramophone manufacturers before and during the first world war but began to assemble their own gramophones in 1920. Perpetuum was one of the first manufacturers to begin to make turntables for home and semi-pro use that featured electric pickups and amplification utilising the Ebner electric tonearm and later when one of the main owner of the Perpetuum company, Hermine Steidinger, married Albert Ebner, the inventor of that very same arm, the 2 companies merged and became PE. After the second world war it became one of the main suppliers of record changers and turntables to integrators and radio manufacturers, but found success in the early 60's as a supplier of standalone turntables. Merged with main competitor DUAL in 1971 and the trademark was discontinued in 1975. Interestingly enough Dual is the name used by the original Gebrüder Steidinger company after the second world war so this was a reunification of the original company after 60 years. More info on this page (in German and an absolutely brilliant page).
PGH See --> Musikelectronic Geithain (Recording studio electronics & monitors 1966 to 1972 - East Germany)
Philsaudio Tiny USA based company run by Phil Abbate that sold CAD software for loudspeaker hobbyist over the Internet, started selling loudspeaker kits in 1998 when he bought the remaining parts stocks of Condor Acoustics but sales were apparently slow and Mr. Abbate stopped that part of the business in October 2000. Philsaudio still holds out a webpage but apparently no longer operates as a business. Homepage:
Phonosonics Small British manufacturer of kits, most of them audio related in one way or another, timeline ca late 60's to early 90's.