ARD 4000 System
Mon, Sep 20 2010, 12:24PM
Hello, I was wondering if anyone has heard of a Hi Fi manufacture from the 1970s called ARD (Audio Research and Development) as I have been given a Tuner and Amp from the ARD 4000 system and I'm trying to find out a bit of history about it. I have found this and thats about all i can find http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/February%201977/117/863417/ARD+4000+system
Thanks
Garry
Mon, Sep 20 2010, 3:48PM
#2
RE: ARD 4000 System RE: ARD 4000 System
Hi, thanks for the info, like you say it must be an OCR error, i have found one picture on a Google book search:
Its the silver kit in the middle.
Mon, Oct 25 2010, 12:22PM
#3
RE: ARD 4000 System
I used to work for ARD when I was at school in 1976-78. The company belonged to my (then) girlfriend's father. It was run from the top floor of their house in Camberley. I used to work there with a friend on Sunday mornings assembling and testing both the ARD 4000 and the older ARD 2000 which I still have working!
I took the publicity photographs reproduced in the Gramaphone archive as I was a keen amateur photographer and although I then went on to train as a geologist I in fact became a commercial photographer which is what I still do. I still have those original negatives of the product shots that were lit with anglepoise lamps in a bedroom! That was my first paid photographic commission!
Hope this adds a bit to the history!
I wonder if "the retail price is around £15750" is an OCR error? That would be about £75,000 today (based on RPI) - or around £125,000 (based on increase in average earnings) - which seems rather a lot! (Unfortunately, since the withdrawal of the PDF versions of the pages, it's now impossible to check what the original actually says.)
"Audio Research and Development" doesn't appear ever to have been a limited company name, according to a quick check at Companies House. There was an A.R.D. Limited, with a registered office in Horsham, which is not too far from Camberley (the registered office address seems to have been used by several companies, so may be that of an accountancy firm, or similar), but that was dissolved in 1998.
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