ELAC is a German

loudspeaker A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or " ...

manufacturer. It was founded in 1926 as 'Electroacustic GmbH'. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, it built electroacoustic devices for the

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the a ...

and other nautical applications, and the company reached a peak of 5,000 staff. After the war, the company transitioned to mainly producing consumer goods, initially building sewing machines and later transitioning into consumer electronics, though it maintained its nautical division. It also distributed goods from foreign firms such as

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, and

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within Germany. In 1978, the firm filed for bankruptcy and the nautical division was sold to the American firm

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

and renamed to 'Honeywell-ELAC'. The nautical side of the business would be sold again to

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in 1998,

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in 2015, and Cohort PLC in 2019. In 2016, ELAC acquired the American audio company

Audio Alchemy Audio Alchemy was a high end audio equipment manufacturer based in California, USA. The company was first formed in the late 1980s, producing many lines of relatively affordable audio products, including CD players, transports, digital audio process ...

References

{{Authority control Electronics companies established in 1926 Audio equipment manufacturers of Germany 1926 establishments in Germany Companies based in Schleswig-Holstein German brands