Manufacturers

Virtually every major manufacturer of electronic goods produced some portable stereo products. Some manufacturers have a very robust lineup or selection of portable audio products, while others have produced as little as a single device or model. There are even some manufacturers that are so obscure that even today, it is not uncommon to see a version or model that is new, the event almost like a biologist discovering a never before seen species. Some manufacturers released little more than rebranded offerings from other manufacturers and in the boombox collecting community, these are often referred to as aka's.

Below is a list of some portable audio gear manufacturers. For the purpose of this website, we are going to focus primarily on portable audio gear produced beginning during the late 1970's. Note that a few manufacturers are clumped together being that they are either the same company or a local rebranding. For example, JVC and Victor and Nivico are the same company. However, products released in North America would be branded JVC while products released in Japan were branded Victor. In fact, JVC is actually an acronym for Japan Victor Corporation.

MANUFACTURERS of portable audio gear

Aiwa
Akai
Amstrad
Casio
Citizen
Clairtone
Conion
Crown
Diatone (japan)
Fisher
GE (General Electric)
Grundig
Hitachi
JVC / Victor
Kenwood
Lasonic
Marantz
Magnavox
Mitsubishi
Onkyo
Panasonic / National
Philips
Pioneer
Quasar
Rising
Rotel
Sankei
Sansui
Sanyo
Sharp
Siemens
Silver
Sony
Superscope
Telefunken
Toshiba
Yamaha

There are many more manufacturers. Since the author is not familiar with manufacturers and models not released in the USA, please feel free to direct any missing manufacturers and model numbers to the owner of this website, and we will try update the list.