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I know this is off topic here, but I thought some of you audio files might know the story behind what happened to California Labs,the company from Scottsdale Arizona.

They made some of the best sounding CD players known to man and they cost thep rice too! I had an old bro-sure from 1999 I had picked up in a Sam Ash out of all places. It had all the current models in the 2500 series. Back then there bottom the the line CD player the DX1 was $600.00.

My qestion to anyone who can tell me is why and when did this great company (who made more than Mackie, Technology seem fun!) go out of business? I completely missed that. I am now in need of a pro CD player on THAT level and was upset to find that California Audio Labs was no longer.

Are any of those people continuing the great sonic work else where?

Cheers,

Comments

anonymous Mon, 03/08/2004 - 10:48

Well, I don't know the whole story...or if what I've heard is true. But I believe Cal got bought out by Sonic Blue...who kept the name and products going. But Sonic Blue the was having difficulties and sold off the name (division). Who the current owner or if they'll revive Cal Audio is unknown. It has also been mentioned that some of the engineers are working for Denon now.

again...this is all just hearsay

Thomas W. Bethel Tue, 03/09/2004 - 02:43

Last information on them is

California Audio Labs
PO Box 1218
113 Taylor Way
Blue Lake, CA 95525
United States
707-668-1736 (Phone)
707-668-1923 (Fax)

More info here: audioweb.com/Directory/DirectoryInfo.asp?companyid=148

There are places like Play it Again Sam http://www.playitagainsam.com/ that deal in USED audio equipment and can be contacted if you need a particular product that is no longer manufactured. Do a search for CALIFORNIA AUDIO LABS USED and see how many hits you get on your browser. (I got 98000)

Here is the story on California Audio Labs

California Audio Labs
Digital specialist based in Blue Lake in California, USA. Well known for their CD players, high end DVD players and DAC's etc and branched out into the world of home theatre around 2000 with the introduction of multichannel amplifiers, processors and the like, in 2001 however its mother company Sensory Science was bought by Sonic Blue who was interested in that company's multimedia technologies but had not interest in the high end audio market and thus closed the company down in 2002.

More info on defunct audio companies can be found at http://audiotools.com/dead.html

Hope this helps.