Please send any factual corrections, dead links, information and/or links that you feel that should be on this page to the page maintainer or if you have a question that might interest others such as about a specific equipment or brands, leave a message on the Facebook page.
|
Videoton
Founded in 1938 Hungary as a manufacturer of electronics for armed forces usage, initially manufacturing for the German Army but after WWII for the various Eastern-Block governments. Entered the consumer electronics business in 1955 with a line of radios and later that decade started manufacturing television sets. Started acting as a subcontractor for American and European computer manufacturers in the 60's but when the COCOM rules were introduced they moved into making consumer products both as an OEM and as a contract manufacturer for a number of European and Asian firms although their loudspeakers where for a time sold under their own brand in the west, these were exceptionally good value in the 1970's and 80's. Privatised in 1991 but is now a exclusively a contract manufacturer with the exception of designing some very specialised test equipment and is known as Videoton Rendszertechnika Ltd. -- Official homepage.
Vindobona Radio GmbH
Austian enginner Friedrich Horny begun manufacturing radios in Wien in 1923 under his own name, he incorporated his company in 1924 as Vindbona Radio and manufactured radios under the Horny brand, in addition to making passive and active electronic components. The company became the leading producer of brown goods in Austria almost from the word go and held a number of patents both locally and internationally, the company registered the brandname Hornyphon in 1927 and used that name on their products thereafter. At a similar time the company entered into a deal with the Dutch giant Philips whereby Vindobona stopped the manufacture of valves and bought them instead from Philips which in return licensed some of their patents, in the following years the company undertook an ambitious expansion plan that stretched their financial capacity to the limits and in 1936 the company went bankrupt, but bounced back almost immediately as Radiowerk Horny under the ownership of Philips.
Viking (Canada) See --> Eaton's
Virtual Dynamics
A manufacturer of high end cables and interconnects based in Barred, Alberta, Canada and run by Rick Schultz. It was one of the first high end audio cable producers to try to market their wares directly to the punter, but normally cables and accessories are the audio product that require most dealer sales support. Mr. Schultz started out in late 2000 or 2001 by selling cables on the Audiogon site under the Dr Audio name, in 2002 he started selling them on his website under the VD name.
The company announced in December 2009 that they would be closed during the latter half of the month since they were moving their premises and would open up again in the middle of January 2010 and at the same time advertised for a more or less a complete new sales and manufacturing team. In February 2010 an announcement appeared on their site that they were closed for good.
Virtual Dynamics landed something of a marketing own goal in 2008 when someone's power cord came apart and he posted pictures of it on the internet (see link below), but the company's site usually listed suggested retail prices of 3x what they actually charged, in this case the cable sold for USD99 but was listed on the site as having a MSRP of 299USD which may have sounded like a good idea at the time.
The fairly inexpensive construction of the cable along with an overinflated MSRP meant that people looked at it as a scam, in actuality the construction of the cable was in pretty much in line with a USD 50 to 75 power cable and would if the real retail price have been shown not been anything outrageous, with with the claim that this it was a 300 USD cable things started to sound a bit fishy. The story and the pictures of the cable spread far and wide on the blogosphere in 2008 but it is not known if this had anything to do with the demise of the company.
Other resources : The company's Youtube Channel -- With no less than 77 videos uploaded by the company.
Rick Schultz's Youtube channel -- The former VD CEO's Youtube channel, with some 20 odd videos mostly on Virtual Dynamics.
The now famous broken cable
Vita Audio See --> Ruark (2006 to 2011)
V-M Corporation
USA based maker of budget hi-fi products. Went bankrupt in 1977.
Volksamp Inc.
Although this was run as a separate company it was actually a project run by Nelson Pass of Pass Labs along with some financial backers, founded in 2000 in an attempt to break into a more cost conscious market with an upgraded line of their Aleph single ended transistor amplifiers that Pass labs had discontinued in the 1990's, but provided them in a more inexpensive housing thus maintaining a lower price point than what the original product archived. Not a success and the company discontinued the line in February 2002.
Volta Graphophone Co.
Founded in 1888 by Charles Sumner Tainter and Alexander Graham Bell to manufacture the Graphophone (now better known as the Dictaphone).
Vortexion 
British manufacturer of open reel tape recorders and related products such as mixers etc., believed to have been started up in the late 1940's although that is not for certain but was taken over by Clarke & Smith (S.T.D.) in the early 70's after the passing of its founder.
Voyd Design 
British turntable manufacturer founded in 1985 and run by engineer Guy Adams, also sold a number of turntable related upgrades for third party decks such as power supplies etc. The company's main claim to fame was the original Voyd turntable but it was the first British table to use multipile motors, and 3 Pabst Aussenlaufer at that, but unlike its mainland European counterparts the Voyd featured a suspended subchassis.
The company was bought by Audio Note UK Ltd. sometime in the latter half of the 1990's and the original Voyd designs live on as the Audio Note UK TT-3 series. Voyd's former proprietor is now working for Hewlett Packard no service is provided for older products from the company except that ANUK can provide you with spares for certain models..
VV See --> AVVT
Next Page : Defunct Audio Companies. W & X -- Previous Page : Defunct Audio Companies – V