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Defunct Audio Firms :
Hafler See --> David Hafler Co.
Hagemeyer N.V.
Dutch trading company that took over the Yorx International company in 1994 and sold Asian sourced low budget brown goods and portable multimedia products under the Yorx brand and later under their own GPX brand. Actual division that handled the AV stuff was called Trabelco N.V. but that company was listed in the Dutch Antilles for tax purposes and unlike most such European trading operations was mostly unkown in Europe but quite well known in the USA as a budget provider. Later sold budget audio products under the Koss brand, but they licensed the brand from Koss in the Americas and Europe. Hagemeyer sold the Trabelco business unit to its USA management team in 2004 who founded a US listed company called GPX Inc. that continues using the same brands and business models. -- Official homepage.
Haitai See --> Etronics
Hammond See --> Hammond Manufacturing (Canada - Radios 1923 to 1926 and Amplifiers 1927 to 1940's)
Harksound See --> CEC
Heart Audio
Dutch company that appears to have started out in the late 90’s and was a part of the Rik Stoet high end hi-fi retail shop that is based in the Hague. Originally sold modified CD players that were commodity players, usually from Marantz, that had had the analogue board disabled and replaced by a valve based board, these were referred to by the company as “Tubed CD players” and often branded as “Tubed by Heart”. These became quite well known in the early 00’s since this was before the onslaught of low budget Chinese valve based CD players and the valve based alternative at the time was a high end player from a specialist concerns costing a few thousand euros while a modified one from Heart typically set you back less than a thousand.
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Heath
A company started in the 1920's to make aircraft parts, went into the surplus electronics trade in the late 1940's and started selling electronic kits shortly thereafter. Was one of the pioneers of selling high quality audio kits in the 50's and 60's under the Heathkit name, many of their valve designs especially beloved in some sectors to this day, note that the company traded in Europe under the Daystrom name. The company is still going but has exited both the kit and the audio business. For more information on the company's past products and history visit the Heathkit Virtual Museum or this page on the history of the Heath company.
Heco GmbH & Heco Electronics GmbH
German manufacturer of quality loudspeakers originally founded in 1949 but was taken over by Rank Organisation in the latter half of the 1950's. Company went independent again I believe in the latter half of the 80's but I have not been able to verify when and how, and expanded by buying a manufacturing facility in East Germany but went bankrupt in 1996 and was taken over by Recoton German Holdings.
Herald Electronics See --> Olson Electronics
Hervic Corporation
Small company based in Van Nuys in California, USA that was incorporated in 1977 but had existed in some form or another prior to that. Distributed and rebranded all kinds of photography related products and sold them throughout the United States, most of these products originating in Europe but in the latter half of the 70’s some Japanese products start showing up. Company was run by Otto Hervic and its heyday was in the early to mid-1970's but it was still going as a one man operation as late as 2002. Audio products you are most likely to see with this brandname are Microphones and Headphones that where sold as home cinematography accessories, the latter where sourced from an unknown UK based company. Not believed to be related to Hervic Electronics (Below).
Hervic Electronics
Company founded by and named after William Herskovic in 1972 and based in Sherman Oaks, California, USA. Distributed British audio products such as AR Sugden & Co, Keith Monks Sound Systems and Goldring in the USA and later added Eon Research And Development Corp., Dynavector and more to their line of distributed products, but they also sold products under their own Hervic brand, most of them sourced from local OEM's like SAE although a few Japanese products showed up with the Hervic name on them as well. It does appear that the company was involved in a little bit of skulduggery in regards to Sugden, but loudspeakers from the 70’s bearing Sugden’s “Connoisseur” brand turn up from time to time in the USA that are not from A. R. Sugden but seem to have been made for Hervic by an unknown OEM. Appears to go out of business in 1981 or thereabouts.
Himmelwerke
German manufacturer of industrial machinery based in Tübingen, the direcor of the company was a noted opera buff and for a few years the company made upmarket radios and similar products as a sideline, all of their products bearing the name of operatic characters. Production ceased in the 60's or so and the company was taken over by Bauknecht and after the latters company bankrupcy in 1982 it was taken over again by Flender.
HopProd
Dutch company started in 1998 or 99 by Eddy Hopman to manufacture the HopProd HPM57xx Series, boundary layer microphone. The founder said he had tried to get hold of Crown Audio PZM microphones in Europe but hand not managed to and thus in the end resorted to building his own and when people started inquiring about his mics started making them. The company disappears in or around 2003 and we have not been able to find out anything more.
Quote from the HopProd website: "Recording microphone type HPM5790. This microphone was developed especially for studio recordings and recordings of live performances of bands, choirs and orchestras, also in larger rooms. The 'hollow' sound which a traditional microphone often produces under these circumstances is now history. The result is a true-to-life rendering of the complete audio spectrum, bright high tones and deep bass tones.".
Horny - Hornyphon See --> Vindobona (1923 - 1936) & Radiowerk Horny (1936 - Present ?)
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