History of Sonographe?

[arnel]

I have some Sonographe products. I feel they are excellent bang for the buck. Was wondering the relationship to Conrad Johnson. Are they simply a budget line or were they actually a company that CJ bought like Mccormack? If so where were they based? I know Mccormack was California based until CJ bought them. Currently it seems Sonographe is defunct there hasn't been any products since the 90's it seems. Any info would be great.

[admin]

As I understand it, Sonographe was simply a CJ made budget line set of equipment. I'm not sure why they ended up discontinuing the line, perhaps the profit margin was simply not there? Unfortunately, I have not found too much information about that line on the Internet. If you go through their products, it seems like CJ was trying to expand outside of the amp and preamp market in the 1990 area +/- a few years. Speakers, CD players, DAC's.... I think they have now since refocused and other than the HD3 DAC, pretty much just amps and preamps.

[rthomeint]

At that point in time CJ had a number of line there was the Motif the high end line of solid state electronics before they made CJ solid state gear, also there was the Synthesis line of Loudspeakers. The sonograph was designed to compete with lines like B&K, PSaudio, Hafler and Amber. The equipment was built in the same factory along side the regular CJ equipment. I had a Sonographe SA250 that was a rally nice amp. Below is some brochures I have.

[Musictek]

I have some Sonographe products. I feel they are excellent bang for the buck. Was wondering the relationship to Conrad Johnson. Are they simply a budget line or were they actually a company that CJ bought like Mccormack? If so where were they based? I know Mccormack was California based until CJ bought them. Currently it seems Sonographe is defunct there hasn't been any products since the 90's it seems. Any info would be great.

Actually Sonographe was a separate company that CJ purchased in the late 80's. It had only one product, the SG-1 turntable, which CJ kept in production for quite a while, incorporating a number of improvements. The Sonographe name was then applied to a lower cost line of electronics (CD player, preamps, power amps and bookshelf speakers and subs). All this stuff was great bang for the buch and the preamps and power amps have tremendous upgrade potential, although they're very nice just as they are. The speakers, while they got almost no attention at the time, are still very good, if you can find them. The subs (unpowered) are exceptional. I still use a pair in my home theatre system.
Hope this helps.

[Musictek]

I have some Sonographe products. I feel they are excellent bang for the buck. Was wondering the relationship to Conrad Johnson. Are they simply a budget line or were they actually a company that CJ bought like Mccormack? If so where were they based? I know Mccormack was California based until CJ bought them. Currently it seems Sonographe is defunct there hasn't been any products since the 90's it seems. Any info would be great.

A typo. I meant SG-3 for the turntable, not SG-1.
Sorry.