Vancouver, B.C. – Canadian pro-audio supplier Radial Engineering is bringing the audiophile Hafler brand back to the consumer-audio market.
Radial purchased the brand earlier this year from car-audio supplier Rockford Corp., which had purchased the brand in 1987 and focused on pro amplifiers for music studios, Radial said. The brand has been dormant for more than a decade.
Radial, which was Hafler’s Candian distributor in the 1990s, turned out at the recent CEDIA Expo to sign up U.S. reps and international distributors.
Radial is relaunching the brand with small-box products such as phono preamps and headphone amplifiers but expects to launch power amplifiers in 2015.
The first products are the:
–$400-estimated PH15 headphone amplifier,
–two new $1,000-estimated moving coil step-up transformers,
— the first two in a new series of phono preamps designed for dynamic and moving cartridges, with an estimated price of $400 and $500,
–and the $1,000 HA75 Tube Head tube headphone amplifier.
Hafler’s roots go back to the 1950s when David Hafler “basically invented high-fidelity amplifiers” under the Dynaco brand, Radial said. David Hafler later launched the David Hafler company.
Radial admits that it is not well known in the hi-fi and home theater industries, but it is a major supplier to the professional touring and recording markets.
Radial owns the Reamp, Tonebone and Primacoustic brands and ships almost 100,000 electronic devices a year on a global basis, the company said.
Artists who use Radial include The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Vince Gill, The Boston Pops Orchestra, Keith Urban, Chick Corea and Metallica .
Radial said it will leverage relationships with its musician customers to promote the Hafler brand and has already won an endorsement by engineer Al Schmitt, who is known for his work with Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand and Steely Dan.
