In Hy

History of isophon

When in 1928 Kellogg and Rice invented the dynamical voice-coil speaker they gave the impetus to three young German engineers in Berlin.
In 1929 they founded Isophon and within 5 years became a famous brand name all over the world.
All the parts of a speaker were produced by the Isophon facilities themselves.

As early as in 1935 the engineers of Isophon developed the world's first two-way speaker with a 12 " woofer
and a 2" cone as tweeter both divided by an electric cross-over.

Even specialists then were impressed by the naturality of sound of this cabinet speaker.
In 1949 Isophon was the first company to get a world-wide patent for a two-way coaxial speaker which was produced
till the eighties (Orchester 2000).

The sixties saw Isophon as the biggest European loudspeaker manufacturer with distributors all over the world.
The company designed trend-setting techniques as the soft dome tweeter and woofers with a long-throw 4"-voice-coil.

During that period, isophon published do-it-yourself plans for loudspeakers of high quality (some of which are still famous today),
including the isophon Horn H510.

In the seventies Isophon decreased its public activities and became a high-innovative OEM-deliverer with many international customers
in the HiFi- and Car-HiFi-section.
So, the name disappeared somewhat out of the customers'minds but the engineers did a very good job in research and development.

In the eighties, isophon was taken over by the French Thomson group after long and irritating financial difficulties.
While still supplying the DIY market, they concentrated their efforts on large OEM customers, mostly automotive.

In contrast to competitor VISATON, isophon was an insiders tip among DIY enthusiasts, marketing effort in the DIY scene was low.
The isophon website never showed details on drive units offered by isophon.

With the beginning of the nineties Dr. Roland Gauder joined the company and designed a new loudspeaker series.
This series was introduced to the retailer-market and brought the brand a new image and a new standing in the upcoming High-End market
with many German HiFi- and High-End awards.

At the same time, one of the largest isophon OEM customers dropped isophon.
It was Volkswagen under Jose Ignacio Lopez (who was famous for leaving Opel and leading an extremely tough financial regime at Volkswagen).
isophon had to give up their large manufacturing plant at Berlin, Eresburgstraße.

As of today, there are rumours that isophon drive units are still in production.
According to these rumours, it is possible to order isophon drive units at Dräger Electronic.