What extinct Hi Fi manufacture do you miss the most?

Heybrook. 

For me it would be Armstrong. I had a friend at school whose father had an Armstrong 621 (pictured above) and I thought it was the coolest thing on the planet. It was 40wpc which in the late 70s was quite a powerful amplifier, particularly given its diminutive size. I eventually managed to save enough money from my Saturday job to buy one, but it must have had some fault as I seem to recall that I took it back and bought a Japanese amplifier instead.

I still think it is a beautiful looking design. 

Thanks for the memory Haim One of our school music rooms had a system very like the one in the picture. There was also a turntable, but I didn't know which make it was. The music it played sounded great, it was the best system I heard, in the early to mid 70's.

Armstrong (+1)

My dad had 526 tuner/amp followed by a 625 which I inherited. Still sounded good when over 35 years old, and was a very attractive looking piece of kit. I auctioned it on E-$$$, and it is now owned by a very famous tv personality. I wish I had kept it!

Nakamichi.

Back in the early '80s as a young student in the States I quickly discovered that Nakamichi was the name in Cassette decks. You didn't have to be an audiophile to know that the best tape decks in the world were made by Nakamichi - they were the best and nobody was going to argue with that. If you wanted to swap Dead bootlegs then it had to be recorded on Maxell UD XLII or XLII-S on a Nakamichi, otherwise it just wasn't good enough - despite the fact that really the performance of a Nakamichi was somewhat wasted on what were often fairly lo-fi multi-generational dubs taken from what were fairly ropey masters.

My first taste of a Nakamichi came from my neighbour who let me use his LX-5.  Next was a roommate who had the then-new BX-1.  Both were so much better than my own Technics.  I knew I and to have my own and so I traded the Technics for a BX-2.  My roommate moved on from the BX-1 to an RX-202.  That was a really cool deck with it's unidirectional auto-reverse and so when I realised that I was going to need a Nak back home in the UK for the holidays, I worked the summer picking hops and apples to scrape together enough to buy my own RX-202.  I was helped by the fact that a very strong pound that year mean't that Nak prices were at an all time low and the local dealer had just received their latest delivery which included a bunch of RX202s.  I kept that 202 for many years in spite of moving up to a BX300 and then a Cassette Deck 1.5.  Since then I have collected lots of different Naks of one sort or another, from an original 700 to my absolute dream Nak, the ZX-9, the deck that Nakamichi built to make their own recordings.  

What a wonderfully focussed company.  You always knew that when you had a Nakamichi, even a basic one, it was going to sound good.  Nakamichi we miss you.

Amstrad!!!......I'll get my coat

Interesting to see the Tandberg and the Armstrong kit. A school friends Dad had a 621 Receiver with SP25 and Ditton 15XR speakers. 

I miss Royd (although the brand is back in a somewhat different form) - Joe Ackroyd made some marvellous speakers and could do some amazing things with those little bass units 

Whatever happened to RAM loudspeakers? My first remotely decent HiFi included a pair of RAM Compacts purchased from Billy Bee in about 1981, and I had a lot of fun with them.

Sadly, the only Nakamichi I ever owned was a car CD/head unit.

james n posted:

I miss Royd (although the brand is back in a somewhat different form) - Joe Ackroyd made some marvellous speakers and could do some amazing things with those little bass units 

My second pair of speakers were Royd Apex, still doing sterling service in my daughter's house.

Rola Celestion.  

I don't know of any hi-fi enthusiast that lived in Ipswich in the 70s and 80s who didn't know somebody, either directly or indirectly, that worked at the factory and could get "cheap speakers".  I tried various models over the years but even with the discount, I never could quite stretch to the SL6/600 ranges. In hindsight that was probably a good thing because I reckon they would have shown up my front end and amps pretty badly.  

Full history here: http://www.bygonetones.com/the...ry-of-celestion.html

Tandberg ,had a cassette as in the first post picture plus ARC speakers.

My first pair of Loudspeakers were Celestion Hadleighs coupled with a Sansui AU101 and an Akai 4000DS reel to reel all bought in 1974 when I left sixth form prior to leaving home and going to university.

Pcd posted:

Tandberg ,had a cassette as in the first post picture plus ARC speakers.

Interesting that you mention ARC. I had a pair of their 050 speakers and they were really excellent. You could pull off the crossover and run them active with a Nytech. I used them with a Meridian 101/103D though. 

I miss Naim. They made brilliant speakers once. 

Royd, Royd and Royd..

Hungryhalibut posted:

I miss Naim. They made brilliant speakers once. 

Ouch.

Garrard 301....still an icon

Aiwa

I remember working in my sandwich year at Rank Xerox uxbridge in order to buy my first PC and Hifi/ AV 5.1 system, the Aiwa NSX-D858.  Great fun was had going up and down Tottenham Court Road to get the best price, then with my brother, getting the boxes into a cab to Baker Street to get it on the train home.  

Definitely Akai.

ChrisSU posted:

Whatever happened to RAM loudspeakers? My first remotely decent HiFi included a pair of RAM Compacts purchased from Billy Bee in about 1981, and I had a lot of fun with them.

Sadly, the only Nakamichi I ever owned was a car CD/head unit.

Ah RAM - my Dad used to take me to Martins Hi-Fi in Norwich when i must have been around 7 or 8 as i used to be fascinated by the RAM 150 and 200 models that had the ABR units. Martins used to have a big array of speakers on demo (as was fashionable then before single speaker demos) so you could select the speakers with a switch unit and i'd always want to get the big RAM speakers going to watch the drivers. The RAM factory was in Norwich and i used to pass on my way to and from school each day.  

Chartwell (How could I have let my LS3/5as go?)

C.

Richard Dane posted:

Nakamichi.

Back in the early '80s as a young student in the States I quickly discovered that Nakamichi was the name in Cassette decks. You didn't have to be an audiophile to know that the best tape decks in the world were made by Nakamichi - they were the best and nobody was going to argue with that. If you wanted to swap Dead bootlegs then it had to be recorded on Maxell UD XLII or XLII-S on a Nakamichi, otherwise it just wasn't good enough - despite the fact that really the performance of a Nakamichi was somewhat wasted on what were often fairly lo-fi multi-generational dubs taken from what were fairly ropey masters.

My first taste of a Nakamichi came from my neighbour who let me use his LX-5.  Next was a roommate who had the then-new BX-1.  Both were so much better than my own Technics.  I knew I and to have my own and so I traded the Technics for a BX-2.  My roommate moved on from the BX-1 to an RX-202.  That was a really cool deck with it's unidirectional auto-reverse and so when I realised that I was going to need a Nak back home in the UK for the holidays, I worked the summer picking hops and apples to scrape together enough to buy my own RX-202.  I was helped by the fact that a very strong pound that year mean't that Nak prices were at an all time low and the local dealer had just received their latest delivery which included a bunch of RX202s.  I kept that 202 for many years in spite of moving up to a BX300 and then a Cassette Deck 1.5.  Since then I have collected lots of different Naks of one sort or another, from an original 700 to my absolute dream Nak, the ZX-9, the deck that Nakamichi built to make their own recordings.  

What a wonderfully focussed company.  You always knew that when you had a Nakamichi, even a basic one, it was going to sound good.  Nakamichi we miss you.

Back in the 80s I so wanted a Naka but never got round to it.  Hi-Fi pornography.  

Dan.S posted:

Definitely Akai.

What are you talking about, Akai are still out there, pushing the boundaries...

Garrard 401 I still fancy one,

Heybrook, the turntable I bought!

leak, could they be an important uk brand again?

Ruark. Had a pair of Talisman 3 speakers. They're not the company they were.

should never have sold those speakers