chebby:
AEJim:iterally made it the day of the 4pm deadline due to late confirmation from our MD in the US...
I had always thought AE were a UK company.
I just re-read your website's company blurb in the 'About us' section and found no mention of US ownership.
Technically: Owned by World's largest volume speaker manufacturer "Formosa Prosonic Industries" in Malaysia since the mid 90's (they build many of Sony/Toshiba/Panasonic's speakers amongst others), but run as an independent UK company - they have no say over what we do and certainly do us no favours! (we have to buy all our parts and stock like anyone else!) We are pretty much a handy marketing tool for them to help showcase their manufacturing capabilities to the large volume Far East companies.
Our MD and last remaining original AE founder retired about 3 years ago and the ex head of Boston Acoustics in the US came over to run the company as we had a good working relationship distributing Boston in the UK (also sharing much manufacture from the Malaysian parent company, who also build for other UK Hi-Fi companies). He's still based in the US but is over here about 1 week in 5 - the rest of the company are all from the UK and mostly local to Cirencester, all reference product is still built here too! Myself and the head of R'n'D are very English indeed and responsible for all product design, though he drinks coffee so is partially foreign, myself resolutely sticking to PG tips as often as possible! Hope that clarifies it all!