For auld lang syne, ..high-end companies you really liked that are gone....


’tis that time of year. Another year nearly gone and a new one full of land mines ahead...etc. I thought I would ask, what companies are now gone that were a part of you audio history? Mine would be:

Thiel,
Nakamichi (when they were doing some high end stuff, N. Pass)
Sony....same thing, when they were doing some high end, esp. early CD players
Classe """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
California Audio Labs
Straightwire
Advent
Dahlquist

And please add to this list. Now some of these I mentioned do exist, but are not now really two-channel/stereo "high-end"

Have a good and safe New Year holiday.


whatjd
I have to repeat Nakamichi because I still use the 410 pre-amp that I bought in Jan 1978. It doesn't have the Nelson Pass circuitry. Still,it's got a superb phono section  and that handy contour control, a fine-tuning volume control. I've tried other pre-amps since (Crown IC 150A, Yamaha C-4), and feel they don't measure up in terms of either build quality, sound or both. 
Simon Yorke, for 8 years in the 1990s his S7 was Michael Fremer's reference player.

I have had three SYs: the Zarathustra who's design was appropriated by Cello, the S7; the final S10 with Aeroarm is a lifetime keeper.
Sad to see him leave the business, driven out by his pure business principles, hatred of marketing hype, unwillingness to pay a dealer margin, inability to do bling in turntables ('bling is not engineering') and, not least his idiosyncratic and dogmatic style many could not abide.
I could.