The Rola Jensen Muter story?

[Rhodesplyr]

Recently, I've been finding out a bit more about Jensen and Rola speakers from the 1960s, and it made me curious about the connections between the two brands. (Note that I'm talking here about the *American* branch of the Rola Company, not British Rola/Celestion. It's comparatively easy to find out about British Rola.) Since I work on Leslie cabinets, I knew from experience that, at some point, the V-21 horn driver that had been made by Jensen started to be supplied by Rola, and you occasionally find Rola woofers in Leslies rather than Jensen or Utah.

Here's what I've found out:

In 1943 Peter L. Jensen left The Jensen Manufacturing Company, and, at some point (by 1956 for certain) Jensen Mfg. was acquired by The Muter Company of Chicago.

In 1945, The Muter Company of Chicago acquired The Rola Company of Cleveland, Ohio from the widow of the founder.

Thus, for years, even though I would have assumed they were competitors, Jensen Mfg. and Rola were both subsidiaries of the same parent corporation--Muter.

Around 1972, all Jensen speaker production was moved to the Rola production facilities (still in Cleveland?). I've heard rumors that this was due to declining quality of the Jensen drivers, but I don't know if that's the whole story. (Worn-out production equipment? Bad management? Changing market?)

And I found a reference to McIntosh engineers checking out "the Rola-Jensen speaker manufacturing facilities in Punxsutawney and Dubois, PA" in 1973.

Does anyone know more about this?

Thanks,
David

[Enzo]

I know very little about this. I would assume the brands were still competitors, regardless of ownership. Chevy competed with Pontiac by putting Cameros up agains Firebirds, while both were GM brands. And I have no trouble believing a company decided to combine all their similarly made products into one plant. If nothing else, it reduced the expense of maintaining two management structures that duplicated each other's efforts.

[Enzo]

Have you seen this page:

HistoryLink Essay:Engholm, Ben (1899-1945): Seattle's pioneering radio loudspeaker designer of the 1920s

[Rhodesplyr]

Enzo,

Yes, I saw that site. Your GM analogy is an interesting one. I'd just like to know if anyone knows what the actual story was. For a company as well known as Jensen, it's odd that no one would remember why they shut down their Chicago production.