CEDAR Audio celebrates its 10th birthday
12 March 1999
From its odd beginnings as a Cambridge University research project funded by the British Library National Sound Archive, through its early stages as a subsidiary of the NSA and Cable & Wireless, CEDAR has never been a conventional company.
Following exposure of the university prototype at the European AES Convention in 1987 and an appearance on the BBC's "Tomorrow's World" programme, CEDAR Audio opened its doors as a restoration service to the audio industry on 13 February 1989, the day that the NSA formally engaged Gordon Reid as the company's General Manager.
"I was approached by Christopher Roads, then Director of the National Sound Archive, who had enormous enthusiasm for the new technology he had funded," says Reid. "I told him that I was sceptical, but delighted to be asked to establish the company. I remember saying that CEDAR Audio would definitely last for two weeks, and probably for two months, but I couldn't promise that it would still be around in two years."
"We completed our first restoration job in March 1989, removing clicks and hiss from a 1953 recording of Holst's "The Planets" for PRT Records. Our contact at PRT was Michael Dutton, who later performed award-winning restorations using CEDAR at Abbey Road Studios. Mike was instrumental in securing other contracts for us in the very early days, including those with the Reader's Digest and Castle Communications. After that, progress was rapid. We supplied the first two CEDAR Production Systems to Digipro's studios in Brussels and Paris during July 1990, and together with HHB Communications we demonstrated the prototype Series 1 rackmount units at the Viennese AES Convention in April 1992. Series 2 followed in February 1994, a management buy-out was concluded two months later, and the "impossible" DH-1 Dehisser appeared in September of that year. The affordable Series X range broadened our market considerably in September 1997, and today we have dealers and customers on every continent but Antarctica."
"So CEDAR Audio is still here ten years later, and is now recognised as a mainstream company within the pro-audio community. We are very pleased to have achieved this, and very grateful to all the customers and associates - past and present - who have made this possible."
CEDAR Audio is a private company owned and controlled by its senior staff. It maintains close links with Cambridge University and invests much of its time and funds on new research as well as development and implementation of existing technologies.
