Defunct Audio Manufacturers - En to E9

Encel Electronics
Founded in 1958 in Victoria, Australia by Alex Encel as a a builder of custom hi-fi systems but he soon thereafter opened up a specialist hi-fi store and started importing and distributing related products. In those day's people more often than not bought consoles assembled by local concerns featuring components from third parties and it is primarily on that kind of consoles that you will see the Encel brand on but the company also made loudspeaker enclosures, loudspeaker systems and similar products as late as the 1970's. The company is still around both as a chain of stores and as the distributor International Dynamics, but Encel has long since stopped manufacturing hi-fi products.

Engineered Sonic Technologies

USA based company that manufactured cables and connectors intended for use in the pro-audio and musician markets and sold under the Ensotec brand. While originally listed as being owned by Pettiswille, Ohio based drummer Mike Avina, after 2005 the company appears to have been a subsidiary or front end for G&H Industries but they shared personnel (G&H sales manager Jack Haines was presented at NAMM 2006 as EST president for instance) and all of their products featured plugs and/or cables manufactured by G&H and EST went out of its way to hide their addresses and staff names from publication materials and website.

Cables with this name start to appear in or around 2003 and early marketing material had an emphasis placed on the country of manufacture a lifetime warranty, the fact that they were "made by musicians for musicians" and the quality of the G&H materials their cables were built of, but the cables that you were most likely to actually find in guitar stores were the "Rock Rope Full Metal Jacket Instrument Cables" a novelty product that had bullet casings for as a plug cover and proved popular amongst the heavy metal crowd.

In 2005 this changed a lot, the company started showing up in music trade shows and suddenly had a host of endorsers including Matt Aschkynazo, Jeff Beasley, Bob Charvel, Rick Charvel, Robert Conti, Steven King, John Murphy, Jeff Mahl, Todd Johnson, Nokie Edwards, Henry K Allen, Michael Dempsey, Vanishing Point, Tony Vincent, Matt Bissonette, Art Greenhaw, Dave Illig, Jerry Shurtleff, Jeff Novack and Draa Hobbs.

In addition they started to offer high discounts to any musician that could prove that they were a professional musician and even had cables "designed in co-operation with" arstrist series cables including the and the "Art Greenhaw Signature Series" and Alan Holdsworth's "Sonic Weapons" cables, these were listed by the company as being designed by him but that is disputed. The company then disappears completely in late 2007.

Enigma Acoustique
Loudspeaker manufacturer based in Montreal, Canada that made really high quality bookshelf models, best known for the Oremus model, according to the Canadian authorities the company went bankrupt in 2003 or 4 but an USA distributor is still offering models from the company, it is not known if these are NOS or if he bought the rights to the name and products. Note that in some publications the company's name is spelled the English way: Enigma Acoustics.

Enlightened Audio Designs See --> Tara Labs

Ensotec See --> Engineered Sonic Technologies

Eon Research And Development Corp.
Company based in Tarzana, California, USA that made turntable accessories such as record clamps etc., appears to have been a small concern that did not even handle their own distribution (that was done by Hervic Electronics). Timeline is unknown by they are definitely operating in 1980 and early 1981.

EPI International

USA based loudspeaker manufacturer founded in 1970 by Winslow Burhoe, made fairly inexpensive but well liked series of loudspeakers, in the 80's the company introduced a line of speakers branded as Epicure that where very popular with the US audio press, the company actually changed it's name to Epicure Products, Inc. ca 1977. The concern was by then owned by Concord Electronics and they sold the company to Harman International in or around 1987 and that company did for a time manufacture speakers under the EPI name but these are believed to have been made by other Harman owned concerns.

Era (Loudspeakers) See --> Signal Path International

Ercona Camera Corp.
Company based in New York, USA that is best known as the USA importer of German cameras and lenses such as the legendary Contax by Zeiss Ikon and others in the late 40's and early 1950's. In the latter half of that decade they started branding some of the products they imported with their own name, noticeably Voigtlander cameras where sold as Erconas and the company also commenced importing tape recorders that where sold under their own name but nota bene the company never actually made any audio products themselves. The company later dropped the Camera from it's name and still exists as a distributor of electronic parts and is currently located in Florida but no webpage, and no support for their older products.

Ericsson See --> Telefonaktiebolaget L. M. Ericsson

Ernst Groß GmbH

Little known radio, electronic component and telephone equipment manufacturer, founded by a gentleman of the same name in probably 1946 or 1947 as a limited company and was based in Sömmerda, Freistaat Thüringen, East Germany. Primarily a contract manufacturer although some products were sold under the "Ernst Gross" name, often spelled with a stylised lighting in place of the ß (sz). Their client base was mostly West German companies until the early 50's, one of their customers was Rondo_GmbH for whom they made radios housed in ceramic urns.

Due to changes in company registration laws in East Germany that discouraged limited liability companies, Ernst Groß was made a private company around 1952, by the late 50's the company no longer listed it self as a electronics manufacturer, but rather as a "Elektromechanische Werkstätten", so we can assume it had become a more or less specialised as a maker of telephone equipment. Ernst Groß KG was nationalised in 1972 and be came part of the Robotron combine, but prior to that event it had become quite big for a East German contract manufacturer with around 400+ employees, and was making subassemblies for accounting machinery as well as telephone gear.

Erskine
English company based near Scarborough, made high end radios in the 30's, and in the late 40's and into the early 60's made tape recorders, some for consumer/professional usage, those were mostly sold under the Fi-Cord brand, but most of their intended for military use, the company still exists but exited the audio market in the late 60's.
Homepage: http://www.erskine-systems.co.uk

Esotec See --> Marantz

Estika (LED screens) See --> Clarity Vision

E. Thoman & Company
The E. Thomann company was started as a privately run business in Chicago, Illinois, USA in 1919 but incorporated in 1924 under the present name. Started out as a private garage based foundry that specialised in making small industrial products and became quite well known for their reproducer arms and other cast phonographic products and got used in quite a few gramophones including models from Melody Queen and Victor, but exited that market little by little as electric pickups replaced reproducers and acoustic gramophones.

Company moved to Lyons, Illinois in 1950 and we believe they are still around and still operating as a small part industrial foundry although their website was taken off the air in 2008.

Eumig

Founded in Wien, Austria in 1919 as a manufacturer of formed metal products such as lighters etc., entered the consumer electronics market in the 30's with a line of radios and continued the manufacture of similar consumer products into the fifties but is by far best know for their 16 and 8 mm film projectors and cameras that were simply without peer. The company initially entered the audio market in the 1977 with a couple of cassette recorders that had features that were useful for movie makers, these were so successful that the company formed a hi-fi division and in 1979 introduced the 1000 line of hi-fi separates including the legendary Eumig FL-1000µP cassette recorder. Sadly the company was by then in financial trouble that came about due to their contract with the Polaroid Land company in 1974 to produce cameras and playback equipment for the ill fated Polavision system, while the hardware made by Eumig was of a high quality and therefore price, the media provided by Polaroid had lots of problems and the picture quality could only be described as abysmal and sales were therefore non-existent. Since Polaroid had provided only verbal financial guarantees to Eumig the latter company never recovered financially from this fiasco and they had to close the Hifi division in Dec. 1981 and the company went into bankruptcy in 1982. None of the companies that currently trade under this name (and logo NB.) appear to have any connection with the original company.

Euphonics
USA based company with production facilities in Puerto Rico that made tonearms and crystal/ceramic cartridges in the 50's early 60's, some quite "innovative" (or rather oddball) designs in particular a model of a stain gauge pickup, company was gobbled up by Astatic in the early 70's and indeed they still make stylii for some of the old Euphonics pickups.

Eversonic Corporation
A trading company based in New York, USA that was founded in 1973 and initially imported and sold Asian portable radios branded under their own name, later they added portable tape recorders, CB equipment and other low budget audio and PA products to the mix but seem to disappear somewhere around 1980. Not to be confused with Taiwanese display maker of the same name, that company was not founded until 1981.

Eversonic Electronics
A trading company founded in Los Angeles, California, USA in 1985 that sold imported Asian portable boomboxes and possibly other low budget audio products under their own name. A very short lived operation and not to be confused with the above company or the Taiwanese one with a similar name.

E/V-Game See --> Game Electronics

Exclusive
A high end brand from the Japanese company Pioneer that was used between ca. 1975 and 1988, these where high end and ultra high end products that featured gorgeous finishes and build quality reminiscent of Accuphase and Luxman at their best in build and electronics quality, however none of these products appear to have been sold in the West although a few of the lower end products may have had "sister products" featured in the classic "silver" Pioneer lineup with less expensive casing etc..

Eymann See --> Eymann

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