Dual (company)

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dual

logo
legal form various (including GmbH)
founding February 1, 1907
resolution 1982
Seat St. Georgen in the Black Forest
Branch Consumer electronics

The Dual company was founded in 1907 by the Steidinger brothers in St. Georgen in the Black Forest . Dual was at times the largest manufacturer of turntables and in its prime had more than 3000 employees.

Today, the Dual brand for Europe belongs to Dual GmbH in Landsberg am Lech .

history

Christian Steidinger (1873–1937) began manufacturing small parts for clocks in a workshop in St. Georgen around 1900. His older brother Josef Steidinger (1867–1925) started at the same time in the basement of a St. Georgen inn. On February 1, 1907, the brothers founded the Steidinger Brothers in St. Georgen - Factory for Precision Mechanics , which, in addition to various watchmaking tools, also manufactured gramophones with spring drives right from the start. The first spring mechanisms for gramophones were manufactured with initially 25 employees.

Steidinger / Dual (1911–1982)

In 1911 the brothers separated again. After the First World War (1914–1918) Christian's company profited from the boom in the phono industry. In 1927 Christian Steidinger presented the combination of spring drive and electric motor, the electric spring motor, which was called Dual and initially gave the name to the turntables equipped with it, and later to the company. In 1933 he left the company management to his sons for health reasons; Oskar Steidinger († 1964) the commercial, Siegfried Steidinger the technical area. They are supported by their brothers Christian jun. († 1963; tool and machine design), Richard († 1969, assembly), Erwin (sales), and Kurt Anton (purchasing), the husband of their youngest sister Otty.

After the Second World War (1939–1945), Dual's product range expanded further. At the beginning of the 1950s, Dual began manufacturing record players for the new microgroove records as the first in Europe , followed by the first so-called phono cases in the mid-1950s. The great success of these products brought rapid growth to the company, and thus also to the city of St. Georgen. Siegfried Steidinger opened a branch in Messkirch in 1956 , it existed until bankruptcy in 1982. In 1958, Plant 3 opened in Mönchweiler .

At the beginning of the 1960s, Dual developed the first hi-fi record player made in Germany with the model 1009 and subsequently became the largest German record player manufacturer with numerous models both under its own name and as a supplier for other brands. Up until the late 1970s, dual turntables were found in compact systems from Grundig , SABA , Wega , Rosita and numerous other German hi-fi and audio furniture manufacturers. At the turn of the year 1972/1973 the troubled arch-rival Perpetuum-Ebner was taken over and thus its market position was once again strengthened.

The product range at that time consisted of

  • the individual components [C x ]: record player [CS], phono case [p], tuner [CT], receiver [CR], cassette decks (C) (after 1982 [CC]), (full) amplifier [CV ] and speaker [CL].
  • Accessories such as microphones [MC] and headphones [HD].
  • In their compact systems [KA] mostly components of existing production lines were installed. In addition to compact systems, home systems (HS) were also manufactured; these were record players with built-in amplifiers and speakers.
  • Later, through cooperation with SABA also VHS - VCR and CD poker players [CD] to do so.

Perpetuum / Perpetuum-Ebner (1911–1972)

Josef Steidinger's collaboration with his brother Christian (see above) remained an episode, as early as 1911 Josef left the joint company and was paid out in spring drives. Just a few streets away he founded his own company, Perpetuum Schwarzwälder Federmotoren und Automatenwerke . In 1920 Josef entered into competition with his brother when he started producing gramophones. When Josef died in 1925, Perpetuum was continued by his sons Hermann and Arthur and their daughter Hermine Steidinger. The company is renamed PERPETUUM - Special Factory for Speech Machine Drives, Steidinger & Co. KG, St. Georgen / Black Forest .

In 1936 Hermine Steidinger married the Cannstatt developer and manufacturer Albert Ebner (1891–1956). After the marriage, the company was renamed Perpetuum - Ebner, Factory for Precision Mechanics and Electrical Engineering, Steidinger & Co. KG (PE).

Like Dual, PE also expanded after the Second World War and had around 1,400 employees at the end of the 1960s. In 1971, the company, which had got into trouble, was taken over by Dual.

Dual (since 1982)

In the late 1970s, competitive pressures increased; Japanese brands in particular penetrated the German market successfully, at the expense of local manufacturers, whose products were considered stale. The company had in 1982 Insolvency Register, which several hundred jobs were lost in the city. Dual was bought by the French Thomson Group ( Telefunken , SABA and Nordmende ) and then in 1988 by Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG . Since its introduction in the first half of the eighties, the compact disc began to push the record and thus also the record player from the market.

The products of the Black Forest company not only included turntables and record changers, but also (cassette) tape recorders, loudspeaker boxes, receivers (tuners), amplifiers, receivers and cassette players of very high quality. In the course of the 1980s and early 1990s, Dual concentrated again on turntables and had the rest of the hi-fi equipment produced by Rotel and Inkel , for example , in order to market them under its own name, although it should be noted that rumors suggest that the Black Forest was not uninvolved in the development have been. Nevertheless, the self-produced devices were of higher quality. During the time under Schneider, televisions and video recorders also appeared under the dual logo. These originated from the Schneider product range.

After production initially continued under the umbrella of Schneider Electronics GmbH , the Dual brand (except for turntables) was sold in 1994 by Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG to Karstadt AG , which sold various entertainment electronics devices with the slightly changed logo. 2004, now renamed sold KarstadtQuelle AG the rights to use the brand Dual for Europe Linmark Electronics Ltd . After Linmark Electronics Ltd. had filed for bankruptcy in July 2009, Dual GmbH ( operating as DGC until the end of 2019 ) acquired the trademark rights for Europe from the insolvency administrator. As the owner of the naming rights, Dual GmbH also manufactures other entertainment electronics in addition to record players.

Dual Phono GmbH (since 1993)

The production line and the range of analog dual turntables were taken over in 1993 by Alfred Fehrenbacher GmbH , also located in St. Georgen. In 2002 and 2007, Alfred Fehrenbacher GmbH renewed the license rights for the use of the Dual brand name with the respective rights holders.

Dual Phono GmbH, a subsidiary of Alfred Fehrenbacher GmbH, still produces the analog turntables with the type designation CS xxx .

  • Old dual logo

  • Newer dual logo

  • Model 1215 dual turntable from the early 1970s

  • Dual 1219 with open secret compartment frame for accessories, around 1972

  • Dual 300 installed in Vega radio device with 4 speeds 16-33 - 45-78 min -1

  • Dual pickup with steel needle for scanning. On the right in the picture integrated storage container with spare steel needles

Current

Dual products from DGC GmbH and Alfred Fehrenbacher GmbH are currently available in Europe. In addition to televisions, iPod systems, audio systems, DVD players, digital picture frames, the Dual GmbH product range also includes turntables (DT xxx series) and, above all, DAB radios. The products are mainly imported from the Far East.

Alfred Fehrenbacher GmbH received the license for the original dual turntables (CS xxx series), which are being produced again today in St. Georgen in the Black Forest, from DGC GmbH. These turntables are currently being sold by SINTRON Vertriebs GmbH.

literature

  • Norbert Kotschenreuther: Dual and PE - Black Forest precision with a worldwide reputation. The rise and fall of the St. Georgen phono industry. 5th edition, N. Kotschenreuther, Passau 2018.

Web links

Commons : Dual (audio brand)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Alexander Michel (mic): Three pioneers of phono technology . In: Südkurier of November 11, 2011
  2. ↑ The era of the Steidinger brothers on the Dual-Plattenspieler.de page, 2008; Retrieved November 11, 2011
  3. ↑ DUAL on the site of the city of St. Georgen; Retrieved November 11, 2011
  4. ↑ Radio manufacturer - information and history from Perpetuum-Ebner (PE); St.Georgen on Radiomuseum.org; Retrieved November 11, 2011
  5. ↑ AECO Albert Ebner & Co. on the website of the city of St. Georgen; Retrieved November 11, 2011
  6. ^ Website of Alfred Fehrenbacher GmbH , accessed on November 7, 2012.
  7. ↑ Dual turntables: products. Retrieved May 11, 2020 .