About Design Acoustics:
”The founder of D-A George Sioles was a really cool guy who designed some unique and good sounding speakers in the 1970's and anything I can do to keep that legacy alive is my pleasure. George was an acoustical engineer that worked at the Mattel toy company in the 1960's who designed and built the first pair of D-12's for himself in his garage as a project. Everyone that came to his house and heard the D-12's wanted George to build them a pair and that is how D-A was born. Once George decided to go all in he quit his job at Mattel and D-A thrived through the early to late 1970's. By the late 1970's sales began to decline and by 1979 the closing of D-A's single biggest customer, the Cal-Stereo chain in So. California, meant D-A was no longer economically viable. George sold the company, and most importantly the respected brand name, to phono cartridge manufacturer Audio Technica around 1980 who carried over nothing product wise from the original company. A-T opened a factory in Stowe, Ohio making their in-house designed P-S Point Source series of models that sold extremely well in the 1980's. I have never heard a P-S series model in person but reviews on AK have been favorable.
One thing that made the original D-A viable in the 1970's was the fact George Sioles became a personal friend of Julian Hirsch who wrote loudspeaker reviews for:Stereo Review magazine. The two most popular stereo equipment magazines in the 1970's were Stereo Review and High Fidelity and Julian wrote extremely positive reviews about Design Acoustics speakers partially in exchange for D-A doing a fair amount of advertising in Stereo Review almost exclusively.
Three things that helped lead to the demise of the original D-A were: 1.) George was completely satisfied with his original speaker designs and saw no reason to upgrade or change them over the years until the final couple of years in the late 1970's as sales began to falter, but by then it was too late,, 2.) The 1970's were a stereo equipment crazy decade with new speaker manufacturers coming out of the woodwork causing increased competition for established brands., 3.) D-A was always a small company with limited production and distribution capabilities and when the dominant customer Cal-Stereo quit buying speakers and went out of business, it pretty much took D-A down with it.
After the sale of the company around 1980 I've been told George didn't last very long and passed away even though he wasn't that old, probably due to cancer or a heart attack like most men in that age bracket, but I don't have any actual details. I found this out when I ran into D-A Production Manager Doug Smith years later and was very much saddened to hear of it. It was a fun place to work and I'm glad I had the opportunity during my college years of the late 1970's to be part of it as a part-time employee.”
A personal thank you to stickman from me for his openness and help. He is now for posterity sake, the only “ I was there” historian I have found for this very unique and acoustically stunning brand. My D-8 s continue to amaze me. Thank you stickman.