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Cambridge Audio is a British manufacturer of high-end audio equipment. As the name suggests, it has its origins in Cambridge, England, where in the early 1960s a group of young technology graduates established a high-technology R&D and prototyping business: Cambridge Consultants.
The purchaser of the business in 1994 was the newly-established Audio Partnership, which was formed by two entrepreneurial businessmen, Julian Richer and James Johnson-Flint, who were already enjoying significant success with home entertainment retailer Richer Sounds.
Audio Partnership was specifically formed to look for opportunities in acquiring under-developed brands with the intention of providing the investment to allow stability and growth, both in the UK and overseas. Target companies would be ideally British brands that had already developed exceptional technical and design credibility and popularity, but had been lacking in resources or funding to be consistent market leaders in the UK or other markets. Cambridge Audio was considered a perfect fit, becoming the company's first acquisition.
Audio Partnership set up production facilities in China, with Cambridge Audio products manufactured in the country from 1994.
The company established an office in Hong Kong in 2001 and an office in mainland China in 2011, allowing Cambridge Audio to have its own production and QC engineers on site. Sales offices and teams were established in Hamburg, Germany and Hong Kong in 2015, followed by an office in Chicago, USA in 2017.
Investment in new products continues and the company now employs more than 100 people including an in-house engineering team, based at the Cambridge Audio HQ in London, SE1.
The 2020 to 2021 annual turnover of Audio Partnership was in excess of £33 million.