I know…in this MPEG-compressed audio world, there is no market for analog based sound systems. But I wonder why we don’t see some once-famous brands anymore:
-RCA: once a top TV and audio brand…haven’t seen it in years
-Hitachi: once known for high quality stuff-never see it
-Fisher:gonzo
-HH Scott: gone
-Marantz: never see it
-Harmon Kardon: is it still alive?
-Magnavox: the flagship brand of NA Philips (in the USA); agin, haven’t seen it in years
-Sansui: dead?
-Pioneer: dead?
-Zenith: I see the name on a few TV sets, but nothing aside from that
So are all these names just about worthless?
Magnavox, Pioneer, and Zenith are still going. Magnavox is actually still going strong. Your local Best Buy/Target will likely have a few different models from Magnavox in their TV section. And Pioneer does a lot with car audio.
They’re not what they used to be. Now Zenith is just another brand owned by LG (Korean). Magnavox is a brand owned by Funai (Japanese). Pioneer still seems to be the same old Pioneer.
TEAC? Used to be a big name in tape recording. They seem to still be around but I think they’ve lost the reputation.
HH Scott (this is the only item though.)
The only thing I didn’t find products for is Fisher, but that is a generic word and I didn’t spend much time on it.
Just because you may see the name don’t assume it’s the same company. Companies are bought and sold, often just to acquire a brand name because the brand name is what has perceived consumer value.
[ul]
[li] Magnavox is just a brand name. It ceased to exist as its own company in 1974. I wouldn’t buy a Magavox-branded product today.[/li][li] Pioneer Corporation still exists. It has diversified but remains to its core technologies.[/li][li]Zenith is just a brand name. It ceased to exist as its own company in 1999. As with Magnavox, I wouldn’t buy a Zenith-branded product today.[/li][/ul]
I hope not, I bought a Pioneer VSX-922-K receiver a couple of weeks ago.
GE (which itself made televisions) bought RCA. Then GE sold its consumer electronics business to Thompson. Thompson sold the manufacturing to some Chinese company and sold the RCA brand to Audiovox.
This is the only TV to still have the RCA brand name.
Magnavox brand has a quality DVD recorder (sources antenna or cable, records to hard drive or DVD) that was a Philips design. use it like you used a VCR, you can watch and erase programs that you don’t wish to save.
Zenith brand was one of the best DTV converter boxes made for tuning DTV signals and playing on an analog TV.
I have some Marantz stuff from about 5 years ago; the big electronics chain here in Nolland carries some of their stuff… I’m not sure if it still considered high quality though (which my dad keeps claiming about the quality in the seventies).
I never see DAK catalogs any more.
Fisher was part of Sanyo which is now owned by Panasonic
I still have my BSR CD changer/receiver, BSR equalizer, and dbx speaker subwoofer system. They’re hooked up to my plasma TV and PS3.
Meh. Magnavox-branded TVs are still pretty good.
It may be a different company, but they still put out a quality product behind the name.
Nitpick: Thomson, now Technicolor.
Electrohome a Canadian company founded in 1907, pulled the plug on its manufacturing and licensed its name to Misubishi. From there it was passed down to others. It sold all that was left, its name, in 2008 and ran away to join the circus (or flee it, depending on point of view) in the big vacuum tube in the sky, along with Magnasonic and others.
Holy. Toledo.
I seem recall Curtis Mathes was a big electronics company when I was a kid in the '80s. Are they still around?
Curtis-Mathes was a firm that rented TV sets-they made outrageous profits renting to people who could not qualify for a loan. They never made their own sets-the sets were made by Philips, Sharp, and others.
A quick check on Wikipedia will answer a lot of questions like this. It is still around, in a technical sense. There are even C-M branded products (made by others). The Wikipedia page links to their web site.
Or you could just go to a company’s web site and find out directly what they’re up to. E.g., http://www.magnavox.com/ sure makes it seem like Magnavox is still in business. It’s a division of Philips, which is quite respectable, IMO. I’ve seen products sold under both names that appear to be identical, even under the hood. (I repair electronics for fun, so I catch this things.) Not always second rate stuff.
There’s a ton of RCA branded stuff out there (which is all that RCA really is anymore). I most commonly see RCA universal remotes. But there’s a lot of appliances too.
Haven’t seen a Muntz TV in years.