Magnavox

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Magnavox (Latin for "great voice") was an American electronics company founded by Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen. The brothers invented a moving-coil loudspeaker in 1915 at their lab in Napa, California, they named their brainchild "Magnavox." The company was formed in 1917 under the same name in order to market the invention.

Magnavox became a major consumer and defense electronics company. It manufactured radios, TVs and record players (gramophones).

With the introduction of the Odyssey in 1972, Magnavox began the home video game console market. Philips acquired Magnavox's consumer electronics division in 1974. During the late 1970s the company released the Odyssey², also known as the Philips Videopac. In the late 1990s, some Philips electronics were marketed under the brand name "Philips Magnavox" in an attempt to increase brand awareness of the Philips name in the United States. While it did work to a degree, it also caused confusion to the consumer as to the difference between "Philips Magnavox" products and "Philips" products. Philips now once again markets the brands separately.

The defense group remained independent under the Magnavox Electronic Systems name until it was acquired by Hughes Electronics in 1995.^[1] When Hughes Electronics sold its aerospace and defense operations to Raytheon, the former Magnavox defense operations were transferred as well.^{[citation needed]}

The brand also has worked with Funai with their televisions after the Philips Magnavox name was popular.

The Magnavox name is still used by Philips to market "value-priced" (lower priced) consumer electronics.

In Australia, the rights to the Magnavox brand are not owned by Philips but by Mistral Ltd, a Hong Kong trading company that uses it to sell audio/video equipment of a different make. [1]

Magnavox also manufactured the AN/ARC-164 UHF radio.