I purchased a Ferguson VideoStar (FV205 HV) VCR in November 1997 from a Co-op. department store.
It's been a really great machine, still looks as good as new, always a good picture for VHS and still performing as if it was bought yesterday. On screen set-up which couldn't be simpler.
The operating instructions booklet on the back gives the address as:
What happened to AIWA. Not seen them around for a while.
Aiwa were mostly owned by Sony for many years (something like 75%), eventually with Aiwa struggling more and more, Sony took 100% control - and it's now a division of Sony.
If you ring Sony, the announcement says "welcome to the Sony and Aiwa helpline".
I've not seen any badged Aiwa products around though, so I don't know what they are doing with it?.
I purchased a Ferguson VideoStar (FV205 HV) VCR in November 1997 from a Co-op. department store.
It's been a really great machine, still looks as good as new, always a good picture for VHS and still performing as if it was bought yesterday. On screen set-up which couldn't be simpler.
The operating instructions booklet on the back gives the address as:
I had a Ferguson FV72 and it was bloody great, well actually I had two ! They were Thomson products (R2000 decks in fact) and they also made videos for Toshiba.
Excellent picture in play, pause and search, plus superb slow play forward and backward. It also had many useful search functions, such as "go to" a counter time or "go to" a certain time from the end of the tape. I loved it and had them both linked together.
Unfortunately both eventually developed intermittent faults (on the E to E I seem to remember) which I never could get to the bottom of.
If you could still buy a video that good I`d still be using my video, even though we`ve now got a PVR !
On the subject of Grundig, we`ve got a Grundig TV (Chassis CUC1930) on the bench. It`s tripping , I can`t find any obvious shorts on the secondaries and the PSU will run a bulb.
We`ve just put a new LOPTX in it, but it`s still tripping ! Anyone got any ideas ?
On the subject of Grundig, we`ve got a Grundig TV (Chassis CUC1930) on the bench. It`s tripping , I can`t find any obvious shorts on the secondaries and the PSU will run a bulb.
We`ve just put a new LOPTX in it, but it`s still tripping ! Anyone got any ideas ?
Make sure the LOPT transistor isn't leaky - disconnect the base drive to the LOPT transistor, and see if it trips then - if it does, then remove the transistor and see if it trips without it.
Make sure the LOPT transistor isn't leaky - disconnect the base drive to the LOPT transistor, and see if it trips then - if it does, then remove the transistor and see if it trips without it.
I thought I`d checked the LOPTR, but it may have been one of those which doesn`t read like a conventional TR. Generally if the Peak analyser descibes it as a diode junction (or a transistor obviously) it`s OK.
I`ll change the LOPTR anyway and see what happens.
I'm pretty sure Thomson took over Ferguson before then - about 1986/7 time.
By 1989 all new Ferguson TVs and VCRs were of Thomson origin - they were horrid things to set up, really complicated compared to the contemporary alternatives. Previous Ferguson badged VCRs had also been of JVC origin, which were vastly better than the Thomson ones.
Ferguson's VCRs pre-Thomson were designed by JVC and manufactured in Germany and Newhaven, England by a joint venture called JT2. This stood for JVC, Thorn and Telefunken. In 1983, Thomson acquired Telefunken and later Ferguson too.
I remember In West Auckland Co Durham Redifusion having a huge carpentry factory just to make the wooden cabinets !...whoever thought of injection moulded tv caibents must be a very rich man .
I served my apprenticeship at the Repair center for Rediffusion, we were at Heighington near Newton Aycliffe. The service center building is still there and is now called Aerial House.
Aiwa were mostly owned by Sony for many years (something like 75%), eventually with Aiwa struggling more and more, Sony took 100% control - and it's now a division of Sony.
If you ring Sony, the announcement says "welcome to the Sony and Aiwa helpline".
I've not seen any badged Aiwa products around though, so I don't know what they are doing with it?.
Aiwa seem to have concentrated in producing "High End, High Spec" audio product for the HiFi market, particularly in the US. In Europe and Asia they seem to concetrate more on Professional/ Studio Quality recording equipment, very much like Akai!
Grundig are still alve and trading. I have purchased 2 high quality lcd tvs (not the ones argos sell) 2 Internet radios, 1 high end media player, 1 Hdmi DVD player and a selection of shortwave radios. 1 cd/radio unit with magic fidelity sound. My next purchase will be the new Grundig Fine Arts LCD, with LED backlight Television. All the items I have purchased are real Grundig items, not the sort of items purchased from large sheds on the edge of town, that sell cheap items with a Grundig badge or sticker.
Most of my items have been purchased direct from Grundig, or from Amazon, who use a first class seller called Avides Media who give a 2 Year Garantie on Grundig products.
All audio video products in my house and car are Grundig, except one a Technisat hds2 High Definition Satellite PVR Twin Tuner Receiver, which I purchased 2 years ago, as Grundig did not have a similar product. The Technisat is a top end product, similar to the quality of the original Made in Germany Grundig products.
In the early 1990s I purchased a high end Grundig VHS which has an archive system, so all programme names were stored with the tape number.a fantastic system , so easy to find titles from my collection of over 100 VHS tapes, The machine still works, The only problem is the goverment have closed our analogue tv, and there is no teletext with the digital system. So the Grundig can record the programme but not the titles. Titles can be manualy entered, but lifes too short for that.
I also have a High End Grundig Fine Arts HiFi which includes an Astra Digital Radio Tuner
which I purchased direct from Grundig in Rugby. According to the salesman at Grundig, I have one of only two, inported by Grundig I can still get around 40 to 50 Stations on the digital radio tuner. This is not the same system as is on the new digital sat tv
Astra Digital Radio (adr) is only radio, without television.
I got interested in Grundig in the early 1970s when I looked at a Grundig Ocean Boy in a shop, I was so interested in all the distant place names on the dial. It was great fun traveling around the world on a Grundig radio. I still get a nice feeling when I look at all the old Grundig radios on Ebay
At the moment Grundigs future looks good. I think they went wrong wasting money developing the DAB radio system. Which is well out of date now. They also made a mistake getting involved with Phillips from Holland. All this cost them a lot of money, at a time that cheap electronics were starting to come from china.
Grundig are still alve and trading. I have purchased 2 high quality lcd tvs (not the ones argos sell) 2 Internet radios, 1 high end media player, 1 Hdmi DVD player and a selection of shortwave radios. 1 cd/radio unit with magic fidelity sound. My next purchase will be the new Grundig Fine Arts LCD, with LED backlight Television. All the items I have purchased are real Grundig items, not the sort of items purchased from large sheds on the edge of town, that sell cheap items with a Grundig badge or sticker.
Sorry, but you're dreaming - Grundig went completely bust ages ago - any Grundig products since then have been cheap badged rubbish, currently Beko own the name, and Alba/Harvard still have rights to use it in the UK for a little longer.
Grundig no longer exist - try going to their old facility in Rugby and see, I used to go there on training courses.
From the Grundig website:
At the beginning of the year, Turkey's Koç Holding took full ownership of Grundig Multimedia B.V., the parent company of Grundig Intermedia GmbH in Nuremberg. Previously, 50% of the shares were owned by the British company Alba Radio Ltd. and the Koç subsidiary Beko Electronic A.S. In doing this, the Koç Group, one of the world's 200 largest corporations, showed that following its successful consolidation, Grundig Intermedia GmbH can be expected to achieve further positive progress. The company's headquarters will remain in Nuremberg.
Grundig Intermedia GmbH now manufactures television sets at its own plant in Turkey. The high-end appliances produced there are still developed and overseen by engineers from Germany.
In 1972, Grundig GmbH became Grundig AG. After this Philips began to gradually accumulate shares in the company over the course of many years until assuming complete control in 1993. Philips resold it to a Bavarian consortium in 1998 due to unsatisfactory performance.
At the end of June 2000 the company relocated its headquarters in Fürth and Nuremberg, and Grundig took a loss of €1.281 million the following year. In the autumn of 2002, Grundig's banks did not extend the company's lines of credit, leaving the company with an April 2003 deadline to announce insolvency. Grundig AG declared bankruptcy in 2003, selling its satellite equipment division to Thomson. In 2004, Britain's Alba plc and Koc's Beko jointly took over Grundig Home InterMedia System, Grundig's consumer electronics division. In 2007, Alba sold its half of the business to Beko for US$50.3 million,[3] although it would retain the licence to use the Grundig brand in the UK until 2010 and in Australasia until 2012.[4]
In the United States, products marketed under the Grundig brand are manufactured by the Eton Corporation (formerly Lextronix), based in Palo Alto, California. Spain's Grupo Vitelcom is licensed to manufacture mobile telephones using the Grundig Mobile brand - and auto parts company Delphi manufactures car radios branded Grundig.
Just to add a correction.
Teletext is available on Digital Freeview.
Select ITV or CH4 and press the Text button on your Freeview remote (not the Tv remote unless it's an IDTV).
The new teletext is not as good as the old one, they seem to have removed some of the pages, also ceefax had pages such as the weather pages which gave you the min and max from the day before, is not available on the new teletext
I have also read that teletext is closing at the end of the year. Not sure how true this is.
My Grundig Cosmopolit 7 internet radio is not a cheap badge design The radio was designed in Nürnberg, and made by a subcontractor in China, to a very high spec
I would not think of 249.00 Euro, as a cheap badge job, for a small radio.
Please look at www.grundig.com you will see that most of products are expensive. and are not sold through c...t or c...s The tvs sold in argos are rebadged cheap tvs, as they are not in the Grundig catalogue, or on the Grundig website
I would only buy a Grundig product that is in the Grundig brochure, or on the Grundig website.
Yes I know that Grundig are products are no longer Made in Germany. They are designed in Germany, and made in Turkey, China, or wherever. To me it does not matter where they are made. Some Sony televisions are made by Beko/Grundig in Turkey, others are made by subcontractors in eastern Europe. I did read somewhere that Beko were one of the largest tv manufacturers in the world. An employee from Grundig told me that Grundig have their own production plant at the Beko factory I have looked at a Grundig tv and a Beko tv, They are not the same, the beko tvs seem to be made cheaper, with less features. As is normal in life you only get what you pay for.
The new teletext is not as good as the old one, they seem to have removed some of the pages, also ceefax had pages such as the weather pages which gave you the min and max from the day before, is not available on the new teletext
I have also read that teletext is closing at the end of the year. Not sure how true this is.
My Grundig Cosmopolit 7 internet radio is not a cheap badge design The radio was designed in Nürnberg, and made by a subcontractor in China, to a very high spec
I would not think of 249.00 Euro, as a cheap badge job, for a small radio.
Please look at www.grundig.com you will see that most of products are expensive. and are not sold through c...t or c...s The tvs sold in argos are rebadged cheap tvs, as they are not in the Grundig catalogue, or on the Grundig website
I would only buy a Grundig product that is in the Grundig brochure, or on the Grundig website.
Yes I know that Grundig are products are no longer Made in Germany. They are designed in Germany, and made in Turkey, China, or wherever. To me it does not matter where they are made. Some Sony televisions are made by Beko/Grundig in Turkey, others are made by subcontractors in eastern Europe. I did read somewhere that Beko were one of the largest tv manufacturers in the world. An employee from Grundig told me that Grundig have their own production plant at the Beko factory I have looked at a Grundig tv and a Beko tv, They are not the same, the beko tvs seem to be made cheaper, with less features. As is normal in life you only get what you pay for.
Get it into your head- as Nigel said, Grundig DO NOT EXIST! They don't have their own production plant at the Beko factory, they are now part of Beko; it's just a brand!
Some Sony televisions are made by Beko/Grundig in Turkey
No they aren't, Sony have assembly facilities in various countries - where they assemble ready made Sony PCB's in Sony factories. Turkey isn't one of those countries, and in no cases do they sell TV's made by anyone else.
Hi NIgel.
My info regarding sony and Grundig, comes from the Reuters website. and from www. sonyinsider.com
(Grundig Elektronic to make Sony Bravia Televisions)
I would have thought that reuters info was correct as they are no1 in the world for news, also Sony insider should know what is happening. in the world of Sony.
Do you know for shure that the above is not true?
They were a good company but how could they compete when the public mainly wanted the cheapest possible tat?
Not completely true. After all, Panasonic, Sony, Pioneer and B&O have all managed to survive and prosper at the top end.
Mid range players such as Sharp, Samsung, Toshiba and LG seem to have fared reasonably well.
This doesn't tally with your claim that the public "mainly wanted the cheapest possible tat" - if that were true then fewer of these players would be doing so well.
I suspect a more likely reason is that Grundig, together with other European manufacturers such as Philips, Ferguson or Thomson, produced products from the 70s which were decidedly average in terms of performance and didn't compare with any of the Japanese alternatives for reliability.
The public voted with their feet and chose the alternatives.
Hi Mike.
Yes I agree with you 100% on that. Its a throw away world we live in. I tend to buy more expesive products and just keep them. I have some Grundig and ITT Schaub Lorenz products from the 1970s that still work today
(I still have the original boxes, invoices, and sales brochures.)
They did cost a lot of money back then. I have a Grundig Video that cost around £600.00 in the early 1980s. Considering that house prices are up about 8 to 10 times since then. Thats the same as £5000.00 in todays money
Even the £1000.00 Dreambox is cheap in comparison
What do you think?
An employee from Grundig told me that Grundig have their own production plant at the Beko factory I have looked at a Grundig tv and a Beko tv, They are not the same, the beko tvs seem to be made cheaper, with less features. As is normal in life you only get what you pay for.
I too read that Beko have a dedicated production line and staff for Grundig badged products. That is probably to justify the premium price over the standard Beko products.
I have no view on whether there exist Grundig branded/produced items not related to Beko.
I have two Grundig 2x4 Super (V2000) and two Grundig VS680 (S-VHS flagship £1200) VCRs the latter circa 1989. AFAIK the V2000s were operational when put away, whilst both the S-VHS are awaiting the time to do board substitution to make the one with the replaced heads work.
Hi Alan.
I have never had aproblem with reliability. I have enough Grundig products to open a museum. A 18 year old VHS that still works, untill a couple of months ago it was in use nearly every day. I would say, that was reliable.
Not all Jap stuff is reliable My mate purchased a Pana TV, which was back for repair 3 times in the first 6 months. He says that he would not buy another one. I think its the luck of the draw. Some people never have problems with electronics, and for other people every thing just goes wrong. I have know people that whatever brand name they buy, they have problems with the product.
Grundig did waste a lot of money being involved in the developement of DAB radio. (what were they thinking of) The far east companies did not invest in DAB radio, so could keep thier prices low.
Hi Alan.
I have never had aproblem with reliability. I have enough Grundig products to open a museum. A 18 year old VHS that still works, untill a couple of months ago it was in use nearly every day. I would say, that was reliable.
Not all Jap stuff is reliable My mate purchased a Pana TV, which was back for repair 3 times in the first 6 months. He says that he would not buy another one. I think its the luck of the draw. Some people never have problems with electronics, and for other people every thing just goes wrong. I have know people that whatever brand name they buy, they have problems with the product.
Grundig did waste a lot of money being involved in the developement of DAB radio. (what were they thinking of) The far east companies did not invest in DAB radio, so could keep thier prices low.
Sorry, but the development of DAB is irrelevant in the failure of Grundig. Panasonic and Sony have both developed DAB receivers and neither of these two have gone under as a result of it.
The simple fact is by the late 1980s customers weren't choosing Grundig over Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba or Sharp. By every available measure both Panasonic and Sony are most reliable and have been for a number of years.
By the late 80's Grundig's financial problems were already known - as my earlier post points out:
"In 1972, Grundig GmbH became Grundig AG.After this Philips began to gradually accumulate shares in the company over the course of many years until assuming complete control in 1993. Philips resold it to a Bavarian consortium in 1998 due to unsatisfactory performance."
Basically Philips felt it couldn't sustain Grundig any further.
Grundig of the 80s and 90s no longer exists - as others have tried to point out to you, the remains after bankruptcy were bought by Beko.
In fact, Beko are now using the Grundig name for it's listing on the Turkish stock exchange - per this excerpt from Reuters: "Grundig, formerly Beko Elektronik." and this from Wikipedia:
"Grundig AG is a German manufacturer of consumer electronics for home entertainment under Turkish control. Established in 1945 in Nuremberg, Germany by Max Grundig the company changed hands several times before becoming part of the Turkish Koç Holding group. In 2007, after buying control of the Grundig brand, Koc renamed its Beko Elektronik white goods and consumer electronics division Grundig Elektronik A.Ş.[1], which has decided to merge with Arçelik A.Ş. as declared on February 27, 2009[2]."
So Grundig exists, but only as a renaming of Beko.
Comments
It's been a really great machine, still looks as good as new, always a good picture for VHS and still performing as if it was bought yesterday. On screen set-up which couldn't be simpler.
The operating instructions booklet on the back gives the address as:
THOMSON multimedia Sales U.K.
Crown Road
Enfield
Middlesex
EN1 1DZ.
Not sure if that is now relevant.
Aiwa were mostly owned by Sony for many years (something like 75%), eventually with Aiwa struggling more and more, Sony took 100% control - and it's now a division of Sony.
If you ring Sony, the announcement says "welcome to the Sony and Aiwa helpline".
I've not seen any badged Aiwa products around though, so I don't know what they are doing with it?.
I had a Ferguson FV72 and it was bloody great, well actually I had two ! They were Thomson products (R2000 decks in fact) and they also made videos for Toshiba.
Excellent picture in play, pause and search, plus superb slow play forward and backward. It also had many useful search functions, such as "go to" a counter time or "go to" a certain time from the end of the tape. I loved it and had them both linked together.
Unfortunately both eventually developed intermittent faults (on the E to E I seem to remember) which I never could get to the bottom of.
If you could still buy a video that good I`d still be using my video, even though we`ve now got a PVR !
We`ve just put a new LOPTX in it, but it`s still tripping ! Anyone got any ideas ?
Make sure the LOPT transistor isn't leaky - disconnect the base drive to the LOPT transistor, and see if it trips then - if it does, then remove the transistor and see if it trips without it.
I thought I`d checked the LOPTR, but it may have been one of those which doesn`t read like a conventional TR. Generally if the Peak analyser descibes it as a diode junction (or a transistor obviously) it`s OK.
I`ll change the LOPTR anyway and see what happens.
Ferguson's VCRs pre-Thomson were designed by JVC and manufactured in Germany and Newhaven, England by a joint venture called JT2. This stood for JVC, Thorn and Telefunken. In 1983, Thomson acquired Telefunken and later Ferguson too.
I served my apprenticeship at the Repair center for Rediffusion, we were at Heighington near Newton Aycliffe. The service center building is still there and is now called Aerial House.
Aiwa seem to have concentrated in producing "High End, High Spec" audio product for the HiFi market, particularly in the US. In Europe and Asia they seem to concetrate more on Professional/ Studio Quality recording equipment, very much like Akai!
Most of my items have been purchased direct from Grundig, or from Amazon, who use a first class seller called Avides Media who give a 2 Year Garantie on Grundig products.
All audio video products in my house and car are Grundig, except one a Technisat hds2 High Definition Satellite PVR Twin Tuner Receiver, which I purchased 2 years ago, as Grundig did not have a similar product. The Technisat is a top end product, similar to the quality of the original Made in Germany Grundig products.
In the early 1990s I purchased a high end Grundig VHS which has an archive system, so all programme names were stored with the tape number.a fantastic system , so easy to find titles from my collection of over 100 VHS tapes, The machine still works, The only problem is the goverment have closed our analogue tv, and there is no teletext with the digital system. So the Grundig can record the programme but not the titles. Titles can be manualy entered, but lifes too short for that.
I also have a High End Grundig Fine Arts HiFi which includes an Astra Digital Radio Tuner
which I purchased direct from Grundig in Rugby. According to the salesman at Grundig, I have one of only two, inported by Grundig I can still get around 40 to 50 Stations on the digital radio tuner. This is not the same system as is on the new digital sat tv
Astra Digital Radio (adr) is only radio, without television.
I got interested in Grundig in the early 1970s when I looked at a Grundig Ocean Boy in a shop, I was so interested in all the distant place names on the dial. It was great fun traveling around the world on a Grundig radio. I still get a nice feeling when I look at all the old Grundig radios on Ebay
At the moment Grundigs future looks good. I think they went wrong wasting money developing the DAB radio system. Which is well out of date now. They also made a mistake getting involved with Phillips from Holland. All this cost them a lot of money, at a time that cheap electronics were starting to come from china.
E.
Sorry, but you're dreaming - Grundig went completely bust ages ago - any Grundig products since then have been cheap badged rubbish, currently Beko own the name, and Alba/Harvard still have rights to use it in the UK for a little longer.
Grundig no longer exist - try going to their old facility in Rugby and see, I used to go there on training courses.
From the Grundig website:
That's Beko!.
In 1972, Grundig GmbH became Grundig AG. After this Philips began to gradually accumulate shares in the company over the course of many years until assuming complete control in 1993. Philips resold it to a Bavarian consortium in 1998 due to unsatisfactory performance.
At the end of June 2000 the company relocated its headquarters in Fürth and Nuremberg, and Grundig took a loss of €1.281 million the following year. In the autumn of 2002, Grundig's banks did not extend the company's lines of credit, leaving the company with an April 2003 deadline to announce insolvency. Grundig AG declared bankruptcy in 2003, selling its satellite equipment division to Thomson. In 2004, Britain's Alba plc and Koc's Beko jointly took over Grundig Home InterMedia System, Grundig's consumer electronics division. In 2007, Alba sold its half of the business to Beko for US$50.3 million,[3] although it would retain the licence to use the Grundig brand in the UK until 2010 and in Australasia until 2012.[4]
In the United States, products marketed under the Grundig brand are manufactured by the Eton Corporation (formerly Lextronix), based in Palo Alto, California. Spain's Grupo Vitelcom is licensed to manufacture mobile telephones using the Grundig Mobile brand - and auto parts company Delphi manufactures car radios branded Grundig.
Just to add a correction.
Teletext is available on Digital Freeview.
Select ITV or CH4 and press the Text button on your Freeview remote (not the Tv remote unless it's an IDTV).
I have also read that teletext is closing at the end of the year. Not sure how true this is.
My Grundig Cosmopolit 7 internet radio is not a cheap badge design The radio was designed in Nürnberg, and made by a subcontractor in China, to a very high spec
I would not think of 249.00 Euro, as a cheap badge job, for a small radio.
Please look at www.grundig.com you will see that most of products are expensive. and are not sold through c...t or c...s The tvs sold in argos are rebadged cheap tvs, as they are not in the Grundig catalogue, or on the Grundig website
I would only buy a Grundig product that is in the Grundig brochure, or on the Grundig website.
Yes I know that Grundig are products are no longer Made in Germany. They are designed in Germany, and made in Turkey, China, or wherever. To me it does not matter where they are made. Some Sony televisions are made by Beko/Grundig in Turkey, others are made by subcontractors in eastern Europe. I did read somewhere that Beko were one of the largest tv manufacturers in the world. An employee from Grundig told me that Grundig have their own production plant at the Beko factory I have looked at a Grundig tv and a Beko tv, They are not the same, the beko tvs seem to be made cheaper, with less features. As is normal in life you only get what you pay for.
End of.
No they aren't, Sony have assembly facilities in various countries - where they assemble ready made Sony PCB's in Sony factories. Turkey isn't one of those countries, and in no cases do they sell TV's made by anyone else.
http://www.grundig.de/en/company/grundig-history/years-2005-today.html
They were a good company but how could they compete when the public mainly wanted the cheapest possible tat?
My info regarding sony and Grundig, comes from the Reuters website. and from www. sonyinsider.com
(Grundig Elektronic to make Sony Bravia Televisions)
I would have thought that reuters info was correct as they are no1 in the world for news, also Sony insider should know what is happening. in the world of Sony.
Do you know for shure that the above is not true?
Not completely true. After all, Panasonic, Sony, Pioneer and B&O have all managed to survive and prosper at the top end.
Mid range players such as Sharp, Samsung, Toshiba and LG seem to have fared reasonably well.
This doesn't tally with your claim that the public "mainly wanted the cheapest possible tat" - if that were true then fewer of these players would be doing so well.
I suspect a more likely reason is that Grundig, together with other European manufacturers such as Philips, Ferguson or Thomson, produced products from the 70s which were decidedly average in terms of performance and didn't compare with any of the Japanese alternatives for reliability.
The public voted with their feet and chose the alternatives.
Yes I agree with you 100% on that. Its a throw away world we live in. I tend to buy more expesive products and just keep them. I have some Grundig and ITT Schaub Lorenz products from the 1970s that still work today
(I still have the original boxes, invoices, and sales brochures.)
They did cost a lot of money back then. I have a Grundig Video that cost around £600.00 in the early 1980s. Considering that house prices are up about 8 to 10 times since then. Thats the same as £5000.00 in todays money
Even the £1000.00 Dreambox is cheap in comparison
What do you think?
I have no view on whether there exist Grundig branded/produced items not related to Beko.
I have two Grundig 2x4 Super (V2000) and two Grundig VS680 (S-VHS flagship £1200) VCRs the latter circa 1989. AFAIK the V2000s were operational when put away, whilst both the S-VHS are awaiting the time to do board substitution to make the one with the replaced heads work.
I have never had aproblem with reliability. I have enough Grundig products to open a museum. A 18 year old VHS that still works, untill a couple of months ago it was in use nearly every day. I would say, that was reliable.
Not all Jap stuff is reliable My mate purchased a Pana TV, which was back for repair 3 times in the first 6 months. He says that he would not buy another one. I think its the luck of the draw. Some people never have problems with electronics, and for other people every thing just goes wrong. I have know people that whatever brand name they buy, they have problems with the product.
Grundig did waste a lot of money being involved in the developement of DAB radio. (what were they thinking of) The far east companies did not invest in DAB radio, so could keep thier prices low.
Sorry, but the development of DAB is irrelevant in the failure of Grundig. Panasonic and Sony have both developed DAB receivers and neither of these two have gone under as a result of it.
The simple fact is by the late 1980s customers weren't choosing Grundig over Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba or Sharp. By every available measure both Panasonic and Sony are most reliable and have been for a number of years.
By the late 80's Grundig's financial problems were already known - as my earlier post points out:
"In 1972, Grundig GmbH became Grundig AG.After this Philips began to gradually accumulate shares in the company over the course of many years until assuming complete control in 1993. Philips resold it to a Bavarian consortium in 1998 due to unsatisfactory performance."
Basically Philips felt it couldn't sustain Grundig any further.
Grundig of the 80s and 90s no longer exists - as others have tried to point out to you, the remains after bankruptcy were bought by Beko.
In fact, Beko are now using the Grundig name for it's listing on the Turkish stock exchange - per this excerpt from Reuters: "Grundig, formerly Beko Elektronik." and this from Wikipedia:
"Grundig AG is a German manufacturer of consumer electronics for home entertainment under Turkish control. Established in 1945 in Nuremberg, Germany by Max Grundig the company changed hands several times before becoming part of the Turkish Koç Holding group. In 2007, after buying control of the Grundig brand, Koc renamed its Beko Elektronik white goods and consumer electronics division Grundig Elektronik A.Ş.[1], which has decided to merge with Arçelik A.Ş. as declared on February 27, 2009[2]."
So Grundig exists, but only as a renaming of Beko.