Hi everyone, i am searching and searching the internet to find out more about the origins of the Eurofunk brand. They have made beautifull tape decks, amps and recievers. But there is really nothing that gives a clue except that it is made in Japan. A mistery! I read some puzzling comments in blogs though: - it was a brand named for a German postorder-catalogue-service-company that wanted to sell a tape deck under an "in-house-brand" name. - it was one among other brands like Marlux coming from the same factory under the umbrella motherbrand/factory Kyocera - the models of Eurofunk were also sold under the Telefunken and Grundig brands... But i see no connections and no proof/verification. Who does have the real answer?
Still a mistery i guess! btw, the photos are from the internet, mine has a silver front, the repair guy is having a hell of a time to make the play- & recordheads work again he said.
I can't answer the question. However, Kyocera (Kyoto Ceramics) is a believable answer as they did have an electronics division making HiFi and other items as detailed in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyocera In 1981 when CB became legal in the UK about 1/3 of the rigs that were initially available were made by Kyocera. A small number carried their Cybernet brand, but the majority had more well known brand names such as Rotel.
@Longman tnx! Yes, i recall now, Cybernet, along with CEC were also mentioned, next to Marlux and Eurofunk. Both seem to have a good name. Rotel is still in bussiness as does Kyocera. I'm going to dig in futher
I did find some nice reading and a similar photo: A Kyocera when it took over Cybernet. A highly regarded Japanese manufacturer of audio equipment. I think i see similarities with Eurofunk. But still no direct proof Nice reading though: http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/information-on-the-quality-of-cybernet-audio.421383/ & http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?33426-Kyocera At https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.eltim.eu/data/mediablocks/Tonar%20reference%20list.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwih7faf1LnfAhXJZ1AKHZeqC184HhAWMAZ6BAgGEAE&usg=AOvVaw1C0efMckeVTCQUGiRLo8_Q i see Eurofunk together with Sonovox, Marlux, Acos and Sonica for tonar replacement. Exept for Marlux, the others does not ring any bell to me... But i guess there is a connection between those brands...
Did you dig into the contractor's thread on The Vintage Knob Website? The site and forum are kind of dormant but there's a ton of information on it. http://www.thevintageknob.org/tvk_talk/viewtopic.php?f=1477&t=2395
@Mister X thank you for submitting the link! Wow, i honestly never imagined how "spiderwebbish" manufacturers - brands - suppliers - oems were intwined with eachother. Very interesting! As for Eurofunk: no T-tag on de serial number sticker on the backs of the devices... On forum.audiofreaks.nl a forum member states the following: "Eurofunk was een volle dochter van ITT -Schaub Lorenz Grundig combinatie, was best goed spul degelijk gebouwd,,,,en klonk prima in die tijd". Free translation: "Eurofunk was a full daughter of ITT-Schaub Lorenz Grundig combination, good quality build devices" So, that makes the web of contractors even bigger: "Japan made" , sold as a brand of the German ITT-Lorenz Grundig manufacturer. But again: no proof, evidence... And there is more: another member of forum.audiofreaks.nl states: "Eurofunk... komen spontaan de namen Quelle en Neckermann bovendrijven in mijn geheugen... Ik meen, dat ik vroeger bij Neckermann in Aken weleens iets met "Eurofunk" erop heb zien staan; kan ook Quelle geweest zijn." Free translation: "Eurofunk ... spontaneously surface the names Quelle and Neckermann in my memory ... I think that I used to see something like "Eurofunk" at Neckermann in Aachen; may also have been Quelle" Quelle and Neckermann both are German postorder-catalogue companies. Like Conrad does now selling tape-decks under it's own in-house brand label Renkforce, maybe Neckerman and Quelle did the same selling cassette decks through OEM, contracting in this case from a Japanese company (CEC - Cybernet?). But again no evidence/proof...
It looks like they closely copied other manufacturers designs, a lot of their components look like Pioneer, one of their turntables looks like a Technics and the components above look like either Sharp or Sanyo, whomever did black face with some silver trim on the dials.
@Mister X As the article about T-tags stated in the link you send me: all cassette deck brands were dependend from a chain of different - crossover material - suppliers. Very interesting! The Eurofunks only have a serialnumber: 1letter6numbers. I also looked at the logo of Eurofunk at the frontplate and tried search for it, no lucky hits. As for now i'm at a dead end. Hopefully the repairguy can give me more info. After all he is looking inside the deck! Maybe he sees or discovers more!
I don't know if you see the same links as I do over here, but there's brief information on radiomuseum.org https://www.radiomuseum.org/dsp_hersteller_detail.cfm?company_id=7716 It looks like they were around since the 50's and doing consumer electronics until the 80's when they switched to bigger commercial applications.
When a company is just a brand as opposed to a Manufacturer then it is quite possible that different models were actually from different manufacturers. In the US and Europe Radio Shack / Tandy just had their name put on products from a whole range of manufacturers. Even amongst the big names like Sony brand engineering goes on. For example the more recent Sony TV hard drive recorders were made by Pioneer. I believe that on some models you could even go into a service menu and change what manufacturer was displayed for things like the start up menu. What is strange is that in the UK the Sonys were far more popular than the Pioneers possibly due to price and availabilty.
