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Many voters pointed to brands whose old gear still outperforms modern products that cost far more.
Some of the best audio gear ever made came from companies that no longer exist. Bankruptcy, buyouts, and shifting markets killed brands that once defined what “good sound” meant.
We surveyed audiophiles to find out which discontinued names they miss most. The results show a deep longing for craftsmanship, innovation, and value that modern gear often lacks.
Here’s what the community voted for, ranked by popularity.
We gathered data from multiple surveys for this article. That said, you can check the most recent one and add your responses here.
1. Nakamichi (18.8% of Votes)
Nakamichi didn’t just make cassette decks. It made the cassette decks.
The Japanese company pushed analog tape technology to its limits. For instance, its 1970s models, like the 1000 and 700 series, achieved extended high-frequency response approaching 20-25 kHz, which were remarkable numbers for the format.
Of course, there’s also the legendary Nakamichi Dragon, which featured automatic azimuth alignment. This adjusted the tape head in real-time for perfect playback. Dual-capstan transports delivered rock-steady speed and low noise for the format.
That reputation carried the brand for years. Nakamichi ventured into tuners, amps, and early CD players, but the cassette side remained its identity.
However, as the tape market shrank, that identity boxed the company in. The pivots into car audio and multi-disc CD changers never caught on. Founder Niro Nakamichi eventually exited in 1998, and by 2002, the company collapsed into bankruptcy.
The remnants were bought by Hong Kong–based Grande Holdings, which kept the Nakamichi name but not the soul. What followed was a shift toward lifestyle soundbars and generic electronics, far from the obsessive, audiophile-grade machines that once defined the brand.
2. Sansui (13.5% of Votes)
Founded in Tokyo in 1947, Sansui grew into one of Japan’s most respected hi-fi manufacturers.
Its black-faced AU-series integrated amps, introduced in 1965, became icons alongside matching tuners. And, models like the Sansui AU-717 and 9090 receiver delivered high current and top-notch transformers. All these gave the brand a place alongside Pioneer and Marantz among vintage-gear fans.
Around 1988, Sansui began to lose visibility in the United States and shifted focus to manufacturing high-end components in Japan.
Digital audio and home theater rose, but Sansui didn’t adapt. Then, the company tried high-end Japanese market gear and even TV manufacturing. Still, nothing worked.
Sansui’s Japanese production of high-end amplifiers ended sometime between 2002 and 2005. The original Japanese manufacturer ceased operations in 2014.
Today, the brand name gets licensed out, and often slapped on budget electronics with no connection to the original engineering.
3. Revox (10.0% of Votes)
Willi Studer built his first tape recorder, the T26, in 1951. He used “Revox” for consumer models and kept the “Studer” badge for studio gear, creating a split identity that worked in his favor.
By the 1960s through the 1980s, Revox machines like the G36, A77, and B77had become staples in serious home systems. They delivered studio-level performance in a living-room setup, and the pairing of the B750 amplifier and B760 tuner rounded out a clean, neutral, and precise Revox chain that won over devoted fans.
However, Studer eventually sold the company in 1990 to Motor-Columbus AG. Since then, Revox was spun off to private investors in 1994, while Studer’s professional division was absorbed into Harman.
The brand kept moving through the ’90s and 2000s with hi-fi components and custom multiroom products, but the era of its dominance had passed.
Fans in Switzerland have opened a Studer/Revox museum, and there have been a few attempts to revive the brand with modern Revox-branded reel-to-reel machines. Those projects stayed small and experimental, but they show how much affection still surrounds the name.
4. Carver (8.4% of Votes)
In the 1990s, Bob Carver left Carver Corporation following a long-standing dispute with his board of directors. The company never recovered.
But before the split, Carver had shaken up high-end audio. His Magnetic Field Power Amplifier design let products like the 200-watt Carver M-400 “Cube” be lighter and cheaper than rivals, which is just 9-12 pounds for 201 watts per channel. Features like Sonic Holography also improved imaging by eliminating acoustical crosstalk.
Carver even “voiced” his amplifiers to match expensive brands, and proved it in blind tests using null difference testing. Lastly, the late ’80s lineup (M-1.0t, TFM series, Lightstar amplifier) showed you could get serious high-end sound on a reasonable budget.
Bob Carver went on to found Sunfire after his departure. The most recent attempt to revive the Carver name (Bob Carver Corp) closed its doors in April 2024.
Without its founder, Carver Corporation had been losing money since 1987. It limped through the ’90s with dull products and growing losses. In May 1999, Carver Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The original era ended when the founder walked out the door.
5. Boston Acoustics (7.0% of Votes)
No announcement. No fanfare. By the late 2010s, it was just… over. Dealers quit receiving shipments. No new models appeared. Boston Acoustics, the speaker brand that had hit the sweet spot between performance and cost for four decades, died a slow corporate death.
The story started better. Founded in 1979 in Massachusetts, Boston made speakers that delivered high-end sound at mid-market prices. The A-100 floorstander and later A-series speakers (A-150, A-70) earned reputations for premium quality at fair prices.
Co-founder Andy Kotsatos, who came from Advent, also brought New England acoustic design know-how to every product.
Through the ’80s and ’90s, the HD, VR, and Lynnfield series exceeded expectations at their price points. The brand even moved successfully into car audio and OEM speakers for automakers. So, for audiophiles who couldn’t afford Wilson or B&W, Boston offered great enjoyment without guilt.
D&M Holdings (Denon/Marantz) bought Boston Acoustics in 2005. Sound United bought D&M in 2017. And as the market shifted toward soundbars and portable speakers, Boston’s traditional hi-fi lineup got pushed aside. The brand name still exists on paper, but R&D and production ended.
6. Altec Lansing (6.6% of Votes)
The “Voice of the Theatre” speakers (A5, A7) weren’t designed for living rooms. They were built for movie theaters in the 1940s. Massive horn-loaded systems with stunning dynamics and efficiency. Home audiophiles adopted them anyway.
For horn-loaded sound—high sensitivity, low distortion at loud volumes—vintage Altec remains among the finest.
Altec Lansing’s roots trace back to Western Electric’s theater sound division in the 1930s. The company was formed by former Western Electric engineers after the division was divested. The 604 Duplex coaxial studio monitors became industry standards from the ’40s through ’60s. Models like the Altec Model 19 turned into classic home horn speakers.
What followed was a corporate shell game. Gulton Industries acquired Altec in 1958. Later ownership changes moved the professional division under Mark IV, then Telex. The consumer and pro businesses split, and mass-market rights went to Sparkomatic for car and PC audio. Telex shut down Altec’s pro production in 2000.
Today, “Altec Lansing” appears on computer soundbars and cheap headphones made by licensees. The big horn systems and studio monitors are long gone.
7. Akai (5.4% of Votes)
The “Glass & Xtal Ferrite” heads inside Akai tape decks were extremely hard and long-lasting. They became the brand’s signature.
Reel-to-reel decks like the GX-635D and GX-747 offered near-professional sound at reachable prices. Cassette decks like the GX-9 were early adopters of three-head designs and Dolby noise reduction. Beyond tape, Akai made well-built amplifiers and receivers packed with features. The brand served as a “value” hi-fi option that didn’t cut too many corners.
Akai’s separate pro division created the iconic MPC sampler, which lives on today under different ownership.
When the Asian financial crisis hit in the late 1990s, Akai’s parent company fell hard. Akai Holdings filed for insolvency in November 2000, after severe losses. Then, Grande Holdings, the same Hong Kong group that bought Nakamichi and Sansui, grabbed the remaining assets.
Sadly, the new owners cared more about the brand name than continuing any hi-fi legacy. “Akai” became a badge on budget TVs, boom boxes, and appliances. The classic tape decks and amplifiers were discontinued. What’s left is just a trademark that pops up on cheap electronics.
8. ADS (5.1% of Votes)
How do ADS fans describe the experience?
“Your whole body being enveloped in the music, not just your ears,” with smooth highs with surprising bass for their size.
Founded in 1972 as Analog & Digital Systems (styled a/d/s/), the American brand made home speakers like the L810and L710. These used dome midranges and tweeters drawn from Braun technology. The sound was wonderfully open and detailed.
ADS also basically invented high-end car audio. In 1979, they launched some of the first car component speaker systems and high-power amplifiers. The PowerPlate series amps were considered among the best you could install in a vehicle.
Founder Dr. Godehard Günther retired in 1993. The company merged with Canadian firm Museatex. In 2001, Directed Electronics (a company known for car alarms) bought ADS. Manufacturing was outsourced. Costs were cut. The creative designs stalled. By the mid-2000s, a/d/s/ products quietly disappeared.
Some former engineers started a consulting firm to service old products. But no new ADS speakers have been made in two decades.
9. OPPO Digital (4.3% of Votes)
In April 2018, OPPO Digital announced it would “gradually stop manufacturing new products” and wind down.
The audiophile community was stunned. OPPO wasn’t struggling. It wasn’t making bad products. The UDP-205 was still the reference standard, as a disc player competing with units many times its cost.
OPPO packed flagship DACs, great analog output stages, and wide format support into players costing well under the high-end norm.
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, OPPO’s universal disc players (BDP-95, BDP-105, UDP-205) had become benchmarks. ThePM-1 andPM-3 planar-magnetic headphones won praise. Firmware updates and customer service were top-tier. Few new brands gain audiophile trust so quickly.
But the company was honest about the math. The market for universal disc players had dropped sharply in the streaming era. Fewer people were buying dedicated Blu-ray or CD players. Existing models kept getting firmware support, but no new players or headphones would come.
By mid-2018, once the last batch shipped, OPPO Digital closed, leaving a gap that hasn’t been filled.
10. Blaupunkt (4.2% of Votes)
Europe’s first car radio came from Blaupunkt in 1932. Decades later, it introduced the first in-car traffic information receiver in 1974. The brand was never the flashiest name, but it shaped car sound for more than fifty years.
Even its name came from a simple detail: a blue dot once stamped on early headphones to mark they’d passed quality control.
Blaupunkt units became a familiar sight in premium European cars; BMWs, Mercedes, and others often rolled out of the factory with them pre-installed. The Köln, Berlin, and Bremen models earned a reputation for clean sound and smart features, turning the brand into the default choice for drivers who wanted better audio without going aftermarket.
For most of its life, Blaupunkt operated under Robert Bosch GmbH. Ownership shifted when Bosch let it go in 2008, and private equity firm Aurelius took over in 2009.
The company struggled to compete in the increasingly brutal car-electronics market and eventually filed for bankruptcy in late 2015. By the following year, production stopped, and its assets were sold off.
Its name still appears on shelves today, carried by roughly 50 licensees around the world, and producing everything from car speakers to dash cams and home appliances. What’s gone is the original German company, its factories, and the engineering culture that made the vintage gear so admired.
11. Aiwa (3.2% of Votes)
Sony killed Aiwa on May 14, 2008.
That official termination ended a brand that had fueled countless first hi-fi experiences. Mini component systems, boomboxes, Walkman-style cassette players, car stereos, all offering great bang for the buck from the 1970s through the 1990s.
Aiwa often packed in advanced features at lower costs than rivals. The AD-6900 and XK-S9000 cassette decks were great. Portable players in the late ’80s (the HS series) sometimes beat comparable Sonys. It wasn’t the absolute best, but it was often the best for the money.
Sony had owned a controlling stake since the late 1960s. In the late 1990s, Aiwa hit serious trouble with competition from cheaper Korean brands and poor management causing losses. Sony bought out Aiwa completely in 2002 and tried a relaunch in 2003 as a “youthful, PC-focused” brand with new logos and MP3 players.
The relaunch flopped. By 2005, Sony stopped developing new products, and in 2007, Aiwa was pulled from most markets.
The name has been revived by unrelated companies since, but they are not a continuation of the original company.
12. Fisher (3.0% of Votes)
To own “The Fisher” in the 1950s was to have the Rolls-Royce of audio equipment.
Avery Fisher’s goal was to reproduce music as accurately and naturally as possible, and his products delivered.
Fisher Radio Corporation made tube receivers and amplifiers celebrated for great sound. The Fisher 500C and 800B receivers, the SA-100 amplifier, and the legendary FM-1000 tuner were smooth, musical, and finely built. Fisher gear combined performance with handsome styling and easy-to-use features. It brought high fidelity to a broader audience.
Avery Fisher sold the company in 1969 to Emerson Electric. Fisher had grown large, Japanese rivals were emerging, and he opted out. Emerson sold Fisher to Sanyo in 1975.
Classic tube gear gave way to solid-state receivers that were decent but no longer top-tier, often rebadged Sanyo designs. The Fisher name ended up on rack systems, VCRs, and budget electronics.
In 2000, Sanyo retired the Fisher name. The lineup was rebranded as Sanyo. When Panasonic bought Sanyo in 2009, any remaining assets were absorbed.
13. Dahlquist (2.3% of Votes)
In 1989, company co-founder Jon Dahlquist was in a serious car accident that left him in a coma for nearly two weeks. He never fully recovered, and the family sold the business the following year.
Before the accident, Dahlquist had already shifted the way audiophiles thought about speaker design. The DQ-10, released in 1973, used a five-driver array on an open baffle and a “time-aligned” layout aimed at achieving the phase accuracy usually associated with electrostatic speakers.
Backed by investor Saul Marantz, Dahlquist built something that looked unconventional but sounded remarkably coherent.
Tens of thousands of pairs sold, and many are still in use today. The DQ-10 earned near-top rankings from Stereophile and other reviewers.
Its success led to the DQ-1 subwoofer, the DQ-1LP crossover, and the DQ-20. Even then, the company stayed small, with roughly 15 employees at its peak.
After the sale, the core engineering team moved on, most notably Carl Marchisotto, who later founded Nola Speakers. The new owners shifted toward cheaper speakers and early home-theater products, and the brand gradually lost its identity.
By the early 2000s, Dahlquist had faded completely from the market.
14. Advent (1.5% of Votes)
The Advent Loudspeaker (1970) delivered performance matching speakers twice its price. A large two-way acoustic-suspension design with a 10-inch woofer, it was directly compared to the AR-3a but cost about half. Hundreds of thousands of pairs sold. One of the best-selling audiophile speakers ever. Henry Kloss had made high-fidelity truly affordable.
Advent also released the Advent VideoBeam 1000 in 1972, which was the first big-screen projection TV for home use.
The Advent 201 cassette deck (1971) was among the first to use Dolby B noise reduction and chromium dioxide tape. This helped make cassettes a real hi-fi medium. Kloss had a gift for bringing advanced technology to regular consumers.
That push into projection TVs stretched the company too thin. R&D costs ran high and some products underperformed. Henry Kloss left in 1977 to start Kloss Video. In March 1981, Advent declared bankruptcy and never came back.
15. Thiel (1.4% of Votes)
Time-and-phase coherent speakers were Thiel’s obsession. Their use of first-order crossovers, driver alignment, and cabinet geometry to achieve true coherence is documented in analyses of the CS3.6 design.
The CS2, CS3, CS3.6, and CS2.4 impressed audiophiles with holographic soundstages and tonal precision, a reputation echoed in owner impressions and long-term reviews from communities like AudioKarma and Reddit.
Founder Jim Thiel died in 2009, a turning point documented in company histories and archives. The company struggled without his design leadership.
New investors bought Thiel Audio in 2012, moved the company to Nashville, and pivoted toward lifestyle home-theater speakers, abandoning the first-order, time-coherent engineering that defined the brand. This strategic shift and its reception among longtime owners are reflected in secondary-market analyses of legacy models such as the CS3.6.
By 2017–2018, Thiel Audio was in serious trouble. The company filed for bankruptcy in October 2018 and auctioned off remaining assets.
After the shutdown, a longtime employee created Coherent Source Service, which is dedicated to supplying parts, documentation, and repairs for legacy Thiel designs. This makes sure that the original time-coherent speakers survive even though Thiel, as a manufacturer of new products, is gone.
16. Realistic (1.2% of Votes)
Walk into any RadioShack and walk out with a decent stereo system. That was the promise.
Realistic, the house brand of RadioShack (Tandy Corporation), offered receivers, integrated amps, speakers, turntables, tape decks, and DIY kits that were affordable and often surprisingly good.
Their products were typically made by solid OEMs of receivers by Foster Electronics, turntables by CEC, then branded Realistic.
But the Realistic Minimus 7 mini-speakers (die-cast aluminum cases) still have devoted fans for their great sound in a tiny package. Mach One speakers satisfied young fans’ hunger for big bass. STA-series receivers offered plenty of power per dollar.
Realistic made hi-fi reachable for Middle America. Generations of audiophiles cut their teeth on this gear.
In the mid-1990s, RadioShack phased out the Realistic name. They shifted toward major brands and their new “Optimus” label. By the late 1990s, Realistic was gone. In 1999, RadioShack signed a deal to carry RCA-branded products instead.
RadioShack itself went into decline with its bankruptcy in 2015 and 2017. There’s also a short-lived 2016 revival that put the Realistic name on budget Bluetooth speakers and wireless headphones, but it didn’t last.
17. Tandberg (1.0% of Votes)
Tandberg built such a strong reputation that even U.S. presidents used their tape machines. By 1970, people trusted the brand so much that price barely mattered as long as the product had the Tandberg name.
They earned that trust with great engineering. Their open-reel decks, like the Series 6 and TD20A, and cassette decks, like the TCD 3014, could match Studer and Nakamichi. They weren’t cheap, but owners got very low wow-and-flutter, wide frequency response, and gear that felt solid and precise.
Their receivers, the TR-2075 and Huldra models, also had a following for their warm, detailed sound and clean Scandinavian design. Owning one felt like having a well-made piece of furniture that doubled as hi-fi.
The company’s growth eventually caught up with them. After a 1978 bankruptcy, a 1984 spin-off kept consumer audio alive for a while. But through the ’90s, the line faded, and by the 2000s, the name lived on mostly in other categories
Its name survived through computer tape drives and videoconferencing gear (Cisco bought the video division in 2010), but Tandberg’s home-audio era ended around the turn of the millennium.
18. Phase Linear (0.7% of Votes)
They called it “Flame Linear.”
The nickname came from occasional spectacular failures. But the Phase Linear 700 amplifier changed the game anyway with 350 watts per channel in 1970. That’s a huge number for the era. So, for rock and dynamic music lovers, speakers couldfinally be driven to realistic levels without clipping. The 400 and 300 amps followed, along with great preamps and tuners.
Phase Linear was the cutting edge of ’70s American audio: bold, brash, powerful.
This was Bob Carver’s first company. Many audiophiles with big JBLs or Infinities treasured these amps for their high current and big dynamics.
In 1979, Bob Carver sold Phase Linear to Pioneer Electronics. He immediately founded Carver Corporation. Pioneer put out a few Phase Linear-branded products, some high-end cassette decks, and car stereo units. Without Carver’s vision, the brand lost steam.
By 1982, Pioneer had essentially discontinued Phase Linear’s home audio lineup. The name was later sold and saw some use on car audio amps, but it never returned to prominence.
19. SABA (0.6% of Votes)
In Germany, four names defined audio: Grundig, Telefunken, Blaupunkt, and SABA.
SABA (Schwarzwälder Apparate-Bau-Anstalt) dates back to the 1920s. In the 1950s and ’60s, the company made highly praised AM/FM tube radios and receivers known for rich sound and fine craftsmanship. The Freiburg and Meersburg console radios are collector’s items today.
SABA also made turntables, amplifiers, and speakers through the stereo era, plus some of Europe’s first remote-control TVs. Audiophiles who like vintage European gear often praise SABA’s tuner sensitivity and audio circuit quality.
SABA’s independenceended in 1980when the French company Thomson-Brandt bought it. By then, SABA was struggling as the color TV market had gotten tough, and Japanese rivals were strong in audio.
Under Thomson, SABA’s name lived on mainly on TVs and lower-end audio systems through the ’80s and ’90s. Thomson merged SABA with other brands it had bought, like Telefunken and Nordmende. By the 2000s, SABA had faded into a secondary house brand rather than a true hi-fi manufacturer. The original German engineering identity was long gone.
20. Boschmann (0.5% of Votes)
When you’re 18 and want your car to rattle, Boschmann got the job done.
The 1973 brand (officially BM Audio Labs) gained fans in the car audio scene from the ’90s onwards. High-wattage car amplifiers, subwoofers, and equalizers came at budget-friendly prices. For someone building a loud subwoofer system without spending a fortune, Boschmann was the go-to choice, especially in Asia, Eastern Europe, and New Zealand.
Some of Boschmann’s higher-end lines performed decently. The company made 7-band parametric equalizers and high-power class AB amplifiers that delivered raw punch at half the price of Alpine or Rockford Fosgate.
It wasn’t high-fidelity perfection. But it gave countless young fans their first taste of big bass.
In the 2000s, Boschmann’s presence started to fade as the car audio market consolidated. Major brands and new Chinese competitors took over the budget space. By the mid-2010s, Boschmann had largely disappeared from big North American and Western European retail channels, while remaining active in markets like New Zealand and parts of Asia and Africa.
The brand sticks around in those regions today. But for fans who remember setting up dual 12″ Boschmann subwoofers in 2005, that era feels like ancient history.
Andy G.