Sparkomatic
| Private | |
| Industry | Audio electronics |
| Founded | 1953[1] |
| Defunct | 2000 |
Key people | =Jonas Anchel (Founder & CEO) Edward Anchel (later owner/son) |
| Products | Consumer loudspeakers, car audio |
Sparkomatic was a USA based manufacturer of car audio products. The company had a production facility in Milford PA and sold car speakers, cassette players, radios and other audio accessories.
History
Originally incorporated in 1953 as Sparkomatic Corporation. It first operated primarily as a local wholesale distributor of automobile aftermarket parts, by 1961 the company had started to sell products with their own Spark-O-Matic brand name and the product line included aftermarket car transmission shifters and related automotive accessories such as tachometers and oil gauges. In 1968 the company branched into the car audio accessories business with a line of FM car radios, speakers and related accessories. In the USA autos were normally sold standard with only an AM radio until the late 80’s, FM radio and cassette players were optional extras. By the mid 70’s the company had become better known for their car audio’s and accessories although they continued to sell other car accessories for a while longer but they changed their logo to the more familiar red log and dropped hyphens or spaces from the brand.
Sparkomatic was at that time primarily a vendor of low to mid-end car audio products, with some that would be considered quite odd ball these days, like the device that converted an 8 track into a quadrophonic unit, by the latter half of the 70’s it expanded again into the other car related accessories such as digital dashboard clocks and CB radios. A few years later it also attempted to go make some inroads into the high-end with a new car audio brand called Amplidyne and added other products like radar detectors to the line-up in the mid 80’s. By the latter half of that decade their automobile accessories where folded into a new brand called “Kenco” and by the early 90’s they had exited the market segment altogether.
At the beginning of the 90’s the company entered the home audio market and created a new brand called Sennet or “Sennet Concepts” that in addition to being used on audio and home theatre speakers was also used on car audio speakers that where in a price segment higher than the Sparkomatic ones, this was not successful and thus short lived, the company continued in the home audio business tough but using the original brand. In 1992 the company decided to purchase Altec Lansing from Telex. For Sparkomatic the purchase is understandable but Sparkomatic only had low to mid-end connotations in the USA. So Altec Lansing gave Sparkomatic a new face to the public. In 1992 Altec Lansing moved to join Sparkomatic in Milford PA and began building a new line of car and home loudspeakers. The home loudspeakers had solid walnut cabinets which were sourced locally in Pennsylvania. Altec Lansing was one of the only companies at the time to build its own cabinets and develop and build its own drive units; all under one roof. In 1998 Altec Lansing introduced the very first sound bar/subwoofer system called Voice of the Digital Theatre but didn't follow up with any other models.
In 2000 Altec Lansing and Sparkomatic formed as one company and dropped the Sparkomatic name altogether.