 | |
| Owner | B&M Group |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Introduced | c. 1925 |
| Previous owners | Alba / Harvard International (until 2022) |
| Website | www |
Goodmans is a British consumer electronics brand and former company, currently under the ownership of the B&M Group. A wide range of products have been marketed under the name, traditionally focused in audio, stand-alone speakers and radios.
Goodmans Industries was founded in either 1923, [1] 1925, [2] or 1926, [3] in Wembley, Middlesex. [2] The company started as a manufacturer of loudspeakers for public address systems. The company was sold in 1959 to Relay Exchanges Ltd and through a series of sales and mergers ended up under ownership of Radio Rentaset Ltd, Thorn-EMI plc, and TGI Group. [3]
As of the post-war period through to the 1960s, Goodmans Industries was based in Lancelot Road, Wembley, [3] where production and engineering took place. Following a merger resulting in a Goodmans Loudspeakers Ltd., the company moved away to Downley Road, Havant, Hampshire, in 1970. [3]
Goodmans had merged with Tannoy to create TGI plc (Group of Companies) in 1986. Goodmans Loudspeakers Ltd was based at Ridgeway in Havant. [4] The TGI group also owned the Tannoy, Mordaunt-Short, Epos and Creek Audio brands. [5] The Goodmans company had effectively split. Goodmans Industries, which by then was marketing foreign-made products like in-car entertainment and television sets, was purchased by the Alba Group in 1994. [3] In 2008 the Alba Group was renamed to Harvard International [6] when their Alba and Bush brands when purchased by the Home Retail Group. Legally, Harvard International went by as Alba Broadcasting Corporation Ltd. [7]
Goodmans was the shirt sponsor of the English football team Portsmouth F.C. from 1989 [8] to 1995.
The Goodmans brand was sold by Harvard International to the B&M Group in 2022, which had been a long time licensee selling Goodmans products in its B&M retail stores. [9]
In the 1960s, Goodmans Industries extended their products to amplifiers with the introduction of the Maxamp30, the first British made solid state amplifier. Also at the time, Goodmans marketed a loudspeaker named Maxim, which was described as "unusually small" in a BBC research department's document. [10]
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Goodmans continued to develop loudspeakers, amplifiers, tuners and receivers. At one point it was a major supplier for loudspeakers to the hi-fi market and to the motor car industry. [11]
Goodmans launched their first DAB digital radio products at the end of 2002, including the GPS280 portable stereo CD player. [12] By the new century, Goodmans products had shifted in large part away from audio to set-top boxes during the rise of digital TV. [13] They launched their first HD ready TV on 27 July 2007.
To breathe new life into the brand, Goodmans began to return to its audio roots in 2013. [13] It collaborated with a design consultancy, Rodd Design, and led to the release of the 50s-style Goodmans Heritage radio and various other products. [14] [15] The next year Goodmans rebranded with a fresh new logo featuring a squirrel. [16] It also launched the Canvas, Go and Pebble portable radios, [16] then in 2015 the Aspect soundbar [14] and the 60s-style Oxford digital radio. [17]
A public address system is an electronic system comprising microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers, and related equipment. It increases the apparent volume (loudness) of a human voice, musical instrument, or other acoustic sound source or recorded sound or music. PA systems are used in any public venue that requires that an announcer, performer, etc. be sufficiently audible at a distance or over a large area. Typical applications include sports stadiums, public transportation vehicles and facilities, and live or recorded music venues and events. A PA system may include multiple microphones or other sound sources, a mixing console to combine and modify multiple sources, and multiple amplifiers and loudspeakers for louder volume or wider distribution.
Kenwood is a Japanese brand for consumer electronics. Since October 2011, Kenwood has been owned by JVCKenwood as a result of a merger between Kenwood Corporation and JVC. Kenwood manufactures audio equipment such as AM/FM stereo receivers, cassette tape decks/recorders, amateur radio equipment, radios, cellular phones, speakers and other consumer electronics.
Marantz is a company that develops and sells high-end audio products. The company was founded in New York, but is now based in California.
McIntosh Laboratory is an American manufacturer of handcrafted high-end audio equipment headquartered in Binghamton, New York. It is a subsidiary of McIntosh Group, which in November 2024 was acquired by Bose Corporation, a fellow American audio company..
Naim Audio is a British hi-fi manufacturer based in Wiltshire, United Kingdom.
QUAD Electroacoustics is a British manufacturer of hi-fi equipment, based Huntingdon, England. QUAD is part of the IAG Group, with corporate headquarters located in Shenzhen, China.
Amphion Loudspeakers Ltd. is a Finnish company that manufactures home loudspeakers and professional studio monitors. It was founded in 1998 by Anssi Hyvönen, and in 2023 it had 17 full-time employees. Amphion's turnover in 2022 was 3.5 million euros. Their acoustic design and product range has received many awards and accolades, and its line-up includes passive speakers, bass extenders, amplifiers, and a newly introduced active monitor One25A.
Bush is a British consumer electronics brand owned by J Sainsbury plc (Sainsbury's), the parent company of the retailer Argos, both of which exclusively sell Bush products. The brand has existed since the 1930s and originated as a London-based company named Bush Radio.
Studio monitors are loudspeakers in speaker enclosures specifically designed for professional audio production applications, such as recording studios, filmmaking, television studios, radio studios and project or home studios, where accurate audio reproduction is crucial. Among audio engineers, the term monitor implies that the speaker is designed to produce relatively flat (linear) phase and frequency responses. In other words, it exhibits minimal emphasis or de-emphasis of particular frequencies, the loudspeaker gives an accurate reproduction of the tonal qualities of the source audio, and there will be no relative phase shift of particular frequencies—meaning no distortion in sound-stage perspective for stereo recordings. Beyond stereo sound-stage requirements, a linear phase response helps impulse response remain true to source without encountering "smearing". An unqualified reference to a monitor often refers to a near-field design. This is a speaker small enough to sit on a stand or desk in proximity to the listener, so that most of the sound that the listener hears is coming directly from the speaker, rather than reflecting off walls and ceilings. Monitor speakers may include more than one type of driver or, for monitoring low-frequency sounds, such as bass drum, additional subwoofer cabinets may be used.
Pure International Ltd. is a British consumer electronics company, based in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, founded in 2002. They are best known for designing and manufacturing digital audio broadcasting (DAB) and DAB+ radios. In recent years the company has moved away from being a digital radio company with more broad-based audio products in the radio, bluetooth and wireless speaker market.
Rogers is a British brand name of Rogers International Ltd, a subsidiary of Wo Kee Hong Holdings Ltd, a company based in Hong Kong that produces a variety of audio electronic products.
TC Electronic is a Danish audio equipment company that designs and imports guitar effects, bass amplification, computer audio interfaces, audio plug-in software, live sound equalisers, studio and post-production equipment, studio effect processors, and broadcast loudness processors and meters. In August 2015, the company was purchased by Music Group, a holding company chaired by Uli Behringer.
QSC is an American manufacturer of audio, video and control products such as amplifiers, loudspeakers, cameras, video endpoints, and digital signal processors including the Q-SYS networked audio, video and control platform. QSC and Q-SYS products are used by audio and video professionals for commercial applications, including corporate, higher education, sports venues, themed entertainment, and cinema customers worldwide.
Mordaunt-Short is a British loudspeaker manufacturer. It is currently a subsidiary of Audio Partnership Plc., having been bought from TGI Plc. in 1999.
Technics is a Japanese audio brand established by Matsushita Electric in 1965. Since 1965, Matsushita has produced a variety of HiFi and other audio products under the brand name, such as turntables, amplifiers, radio receivers, tape recorders, CD players, loudspeakers, and digital pianos. Technics products were available for sale in various countries. The brand was originally conceived as a line of high-end audio equipment to compete against brands such as Nakamichi.
Crown International, or Crown Audio, is an American manufacturer of audio electronics, and is a subsidiary of Harman International Industries, which has been part of South Korea-based Samsung Electronics since 2017. Today, the company is known primarily for its power amplifiers, but has also manufactured microphones, loudspeakers, and a line of commercial audio products, as well as digital audio networking products.
Creek Audio is a manufacturer of audio equipment.
Alba was a British consumer electronics brand and a former company that designed budget electronics. Its origins date to 1917 when it became active in the radio and TV industry as A.J. Balcombe Ltd. Under new ownership in the 1980s, its parent company was known as Alba plc and it owned and marketed numerous other brands, including Bush, becoming popular in the low-end market in the UK. The Alba Group later also consisted of further acquired brands Goodmans, Grundig, and home appliance brands such as Breville and Dirt Devil. The Alba Group was bought by the Home Retail Group, the parent company of the retailer Argos in 2008, who in turn was taken over by J Sainsbury plc in 2016. The Alba brand was quietly dropped by Sainsbury's in 2022 and replaced by its more upmarket sister brand Bush.
TC Group was a Danish multinational corporation specializing in audio related products for musicians, installers, producers, engineers, broadcasters, audio consultants and contractors. Its individual brands include Lab.gruppen, Lake, Tannoy, TC-Applied Technologies, TC Electronic and TC-Helicon. Overall, the company organizes itself around four market verticals: Musician, Install & Tour, Broadcast & Production, and Residential. TC Group was acquired by Music Tribe in 2015.
RCF S.p.A. is a widely recognized Italian manufacturer of high performance audio products including power amplifiers, loudspeakers, digital mixers and digital signal processors (DSP).
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