Defunct Audio Manufacturers - Su to S9

Sumo Electric Co. Ltd
USA based manufacturer of mid/high end audio electronics founded by James Bongiorno formerly of GAS around 1980 but sold the company in 1985, originally the company concentrated on pickups and amplifiers but later made more or less a full range of products, disappeared in the latter half of the 90's.

Sunrise House Ltd.
Japanese company based in the Shibuyaku district in Tokyo, was the original trademark owner of the Roadstar brand but it has not been possible to establish if the company was the original manufacturer or just a trading company. Brand later went to Fuji Electronics.

Super E-Caps (Non-polarised capacitors) See --> Jelmax

Svenska Elektronik-Apparater AB (SELA)
Swedish microphone manufacturer based in Stockholm, founded in 1948 by Sixten Lingheim, Lennart Ljungberg, Rudolf Martinson, Tore Ljungberg and Sven Josefsson. Started to supply the then burgeoning Swedish film industry with recording microphones, but the broadcast oriented Neumann was too heavy for boom operators so SELA designed a new microphone around a Neumann capsule that was smaller, much lighter and reportedly better sounding due to driving the transducer differently than the original. The company stopped production in 1972 for reasons not entirely clear to the author.

Swallow Acoustics Limited
British manufacturer of loudspeakers, incorporated in London in May 1981 by Michael Stevenson but he appears to have traded using the Swallow Acoustic name for a few years previously from Godmanchester in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and in fact does seem to continue operating in that location despite the choice of incorporating in the capital.

The company made at the least 4 models of speakers, a bookshelf and a tower model made in the latter half of the 70's that we have no information on and a couple of standmounters introduced around the time the operation was converted into a limited company, these are called Swallow Acoustics CM100 and the Swallow Acoustics ASL1. The former is more or less a standard if fairly tall for the time, 2way standmounter at around 0.6 meter long and is by far the most common Swallow Acoustics model you will find in the second hand market, it uses fairly unremarkable set of Dalesford drivers but still manages to sound better than many speakers from the same timeframe that use the same set of drivers such as the ones from RAM Loudspeakers, indicating a careful baffle and crossover design.

More interesting are the ASL1's, they are a 2 way sloped baffle design that allows the designer to time align the tweeters to the woofer making the speaker look strangely similar to the later USA made Spica designs who used a sloped cabinet for the same reason, but even more unusually the unit features active crossovers, requiring power to the speaker and a separate power amplifier for each driver (in other words four power amps for a stereo pair). The ASl1 never sold in any great quantities being expensive at the time and the requirement for a second set of power amps not helping in that department, but the people who bought pairs seem quite taken with them, a number of them still running them as their main speakers.

The company goes out of business in 1984/or early 1985 and has been de-listed by the end of that year, please note that there appears to have been another tiny one man operation in North America (probably the USA) that also operated under the Swallow Acoustics name and a few companies with a similar name such as Swallow Loudspeakers (or Swallow Audio) and Swallow Acoustic Consultants, none of which have any connection with this company.

Spares & service : Most if not all SA products appear to use drivers from Dalesford, these have a tendency to show foam rot and other minor mechanical problems over time but despite the fact that replacement drivers are no longer available it should not be a problem since the Dalesford drivers used fairly standard geometries and are thus easily repairable. Be aware tough that Dalesford often supplied customers with mildly modified versions of their stock drivers especially it is common to see driver units with doped paper for more upmarket designs so make sure if you are getting a driver re-coned for the ASL1 ask the repairer to make sure that the replacement paper is identical (the drivers on that unit may be stock though), compatible doped cones are available. The tweeters are actually rebranded Audax units but much improved and fully compatible tweeters are available from that operation, not surprising since the Dalseford re-brands were not exactly the top of the line Audax models of the time.

Swan Speaker Systems
Formed in 1994 by Frank Hale and sold to Acoustic Technology International in 1997.

SWTP/SWTPC See --> SWTP

Symfonia See --> Berkley Testa Electronics

Symphonic Radio and Electronic Corporation.

Originally founded in 1936 but where and under what name is actually unknown, but started selling radio receivers under the Symphonic brand that same year, by 1947 the company was known by it's above name and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and was by then a manufacturer of radios, phonographs and record cutters for personal use. Company had moved to New Brunswick, New Jersey by 1960 and in 1964 it moved to New York and changed its name to Symphonic Electronic Corporation, it was by then selling televisions and tape recorders in addition to its traditional radio and phonographic products but some of them appear to have been sourced from OEM's rather than being made by the company itself. The company appears to have been taken over by Funai Electric Co. in 1986 and that company does indeed still sell some of its product lines under the Symphonic brandname in the USA.

Symphonix Ltd.

A loudspeaker manufacturer based in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, England that was founded in 2000, but at the time NXT was trying to sell off its remaining loudspeaker manufacturing capabilities and transform itself into an IP company. The management team of that division decided to buy the factory themselves and formed a new company called Symphonix that took over the manufacturing assets of NXT and licensed the Mission brand-name from them as well. Seemed to be going well for a few years but apparently underfunded and hit some serious financial trouble in 2004 which resulted in the company being taken over by venture capitalists Fundamental-e Investments plc. (FEI) in June that same year. While FEI did reorganise the business to some degree no new cash was injected into the company and Symphonix went into voluntary administration in May 2005 and their assets were sold to International Audio Group in June of that same year.

Syn Factory
Italian manufacturer of lifestyle loudspeakers sold under the U-Vola brand. http://www.synfactory.com

Syntronic Instruments
US based defence subcontractor that specialised in the manufacture of magnetic coils etc.., proposed a range of metal cone speakers in the early 90's that would have some interesting characteristics, these were supposed to be hi-fi speakers primarily but for some reason when they were finally introduced to the market a couple of years later they turned out to be intended for car audio usage only. The core business of the company was sold in 2003 but the loudspeaker division lives on as Alumapro.
Homepage: http://www.syntronicinst.com

Szabo Audio Systems Limited
Loudspeaker manufacturer run by designer John Szabo and based in Cambridge, Canada.

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The site was last compiled on Sun Nov 10 2013 at 9:15:00am