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Early Days

Paul Harvard Taylor c 1932
Edgar Lavington c. 1932

Pamphonic was founded by Paul Harvard Taylor and Edgar Lavington in 1931. Aged just 23, they had just left Faraday House, the leading electronics college in London.  Their enterprise started in the garage of Paul Taylor’s mother at 56 Albert Road (which became Prince Albert Road, Regent’s Park), London.  Pamphonic Reproducers Limited was registered the following year (1932). The original company name was Zenith Sound Reproduction Co. but was quickly changed to Pamphonic Reproducers Limited.  They retained and often used the trademark Paramphonic until 1939, following a naming dispute with the authorities in late 1932.

The Faraday House Old Boys magazine dated Lent Term 1932 announces that Paul Taylor and Edgar Lavington had invented a new amazing amplifier, “equivalent in power to 3,000 voices”, and by the Summer Term of 1933 they were reported to be seriously in business and to have installed the world’s most powerful reproducer of sound at the White City Stadium.  At 250 Watts, the White City system was a huge installation for the time, weighing over a ton.