Sansui

Infobox_Company
company_name = Sansui Electric Co.,Ltd
山水電気株式会社
company_type = Corporation tyo|6793
company_
foundation = Tokyo, Japan (June 3rd 1947)
parent =Grande Holdings| location = Tokyo, Japan
key_people = Takeshi Nakamichi, President
capital = 5,794 million Yen (Fiscal year ended December 31, 2006)
industry = Electronics
products = Audio-Visual and communication equipments, Home appliances, Information equipment,
subsidiaries = Sansui Electric SPV Private Limited, Sansui Sales Pte. Ltd.
company_slogan = "Born in Japan. Entertaining the World".
homepage = [http://www.sansui-jpn.co.jp/ Sansui Japan Website]
Nihongo|Sansui Electric Co., Ltd.|山水電気株式会社|Sansui Denki Kabushiki-gaisha) (tyo|6793) is a Japanese manufacturer of audio and video equipment. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, it is part of Grande Holdings, a Chinese Hong Kong-based conglomerate, who also owns Japanese brands Akai and Nakamichi.

Founded in Tokyo in 1947, Sansui initially manufactured electronic parts, but by the 1960s had developed a reputation for making serious audio components. They were sold in foreign markets through that and the next decade. Sansui's amplifiers and tuners from the 1960s and 1970s remain in demand by audio enthusiasts.

In the UK around 1982, the Sansui AU-D101 amplifier and its more powerful sibling the AU-D33, were highly acclaimed by audiophiles and were so well matched to a pair of KEF Coda III speakers that they could be bought as a set from some outlets. These amplifiers used a complex Feed-forward servo system which resulted in very low 2nd order harmonic distortion. Despite this success, Sansui completely failed to follow up with further mass market audiophile components.

As the mid 1980s arrived, sales were lost to competitors (Sony, Pioneer, Matsushita's Technics). Sansui began to lose visibility in the United States around 1988, and then focused on manufacturing high-end components in Japan. The company began to manufacture high-end television sets and other video equipment, but ceased exportation. In the late 1990s, the company's brand was used on video equipment manufactured by other companies. The current manufacturer of the rebranded sets is Orion Electric, based in Osaka and Fukui, Japan. Its U.S. subsidiary markets products under the Sansui brand, among others. Sansui is thus a mere umbrella brand at present. This radical change in Sansui's corporate identity has resulted in a notable change in its product quality as consumers now tend to consider Sansui a mass-market brand rather than a maker of high-end electronics.

Trivia

*President Takeshi Nakamichi is also the President of electronics brand Nakamichi as it is owned by the same parent company Grande Holdings.

*To program certain universal remotes for use with certain Sansui audiovisual products, the code(s) for Orion Electric devices provided with the remote may be used.

External links

* [http://www.sansui-jpn.co.jp/index.html Company website]
* [http://www.sansui-india.com/ Sansui India English website]
* [http://www.classicsansui.net/ ClassicSansui.Net enthusiast site]
* [http://www.sansui.us/index.shtml Audio enthusiast site]
* [http://www.orion-electric.co.jp/english/profile.htm Current mass video product manufacturer]
* [http://www.sansui-global.com/ Sansui Electric Ltd. overseas business Singapore base]
* [http://www.hifi-studio.de/hifi-klassiker/Sansui/sansui.htm German audio classics site, Sansui and others]
* [http://www.sansui.co.za/ Sansui Electronics South Africa] South African site for Sansui products