A few more:
Wharfedale (1932)
Wharfedale has launched enough pairs of anniversary speakers in recent years (the latest of which is the 85th-anniversary
Denton 85) to remind us that the British brand is fast approaching its centurion.
Indeed, it's been 88 years since Wharfedale’s first speaker was built in the cellar of the llkley home of founder Gilbert Briggs, who designed Wharfedale speakers over two decades and wrote over 20 books on high-fidelity audio. The Bronze speaker started life purely as a drive unit (enthusiasts assembled their own cabinets) before being housed in a wooden cabinet a year later as an option for those who wanted an ‘extension’ speaker.
Its invention of the first two-way loudspeaker in the '40s, and the use of ceramic magnets in its speakers, have been among Wharfedale's most notable achievements, but the brand went on to be defined by the monumental success of its Diamond speaker range, launched in the '80s and still enjoying success to this day.
Tannoy (1926)
To borrow an excerpt from our
Tannoy: after 90 years, what does the future hold? piece, "Tannoy wasn’t always Tannoy. It was the Tulsemere Manufacturing Company in 1926, when broadcasting was in its infancy and the first talking film had yet to be shown. Radio sets needed huge batteries, which in turn needed huge chargers. Enter one Guy R Fountain, who came up with a new type of electrical rectifier, with the aim of making home-friendly chargers.
"This did rather well, and Fountain founded a company named after the two metals used in the rectifier: Tantalum and lead alloy. The Tannoy trademark first appeared in 1928 and quickly became associated with inescapable public address systems. They even made it into the British House of Commons."
Having provided PAs to the British Ministry of Defence and RAF airfields during WWII, and inventing the Dual Concentric speaker in the years following, Tannoy finally entered the place most of it subsequent efforts would reside: the home. And it has had a fair bit of success...
Bang & Olufsen
Celestion (1924)
Celestion is a big name in the guitar world thanks to its decades spent manufacturing guitar speakers, but the hi-fi industry owes a great deal to the British brand. Soon after it was founded in 1924 by Cyril French (who was later joined by two of his brothers), Celestion manufactured one of the world's earliest cone loudspeakers, based on the design of Eric Mackintosh.
The company became one of the pioneering speaker driver manufacturers in the decades following. It made drivers for the legendary B&W P1 and Spendor BC1 speakers in the '60s, for example, and, amid multiple acquisitions and name changes (Celestion's history has been nothing short of a rollercoaster ride!), the brand continued to make award-winning designs, such as the ribbon tweeter.
In 1992, Celestion was sold to Kinergetics Holdings UK Ltd, the company under which it, and KEF, still operate.
