Chord Electronics

The history behind the brand

Chord Electronics does not buy its digital conversion off a shelf. Every DAC in the range runs code Chord wrote itself on a programmable chip, so the filter can be improved rather than reordered, and every amplifier runs a circuit topology the company developed rather than licensed. The casework is machined from solid aluminium billet in England because a resonating box undoes the electronics inside it. Joenit has carried Chord since 2019, and the reason is simple enough to say in one line: these are among the few products that get harder to argue with the longer you listen.

Chapter 01

An idea that came out of the aviation world

In the early 1980s John Franks was a young electronics engineer at Marconi Avionics, designing equipment for aircraft. It is a discipline with a particular kind of pressure: nothing is allowed to be approximately right, and nobody is impressed by an elegant solution that fails once. His speciality was ultra-high-frequency power supplies - the unglamorous end of electronics, and the end where most of the real problems live.

While he was there he worked out something that had nothing to do with aeroplanes. By coupling an amplifier's power supply rails through strong magnetic flux inside a specialised high-frequency transformer, he could remove the short-term distortions that appear when large currents feed back into the ground loop. He called it Dynamic Coupling. It worked, and it was judged far too expensive to put into a product.

Chapter 02

1989 - a company founded to build it anyway

Franks went on to hold directorships at Astec, Raytheon and AT&T, and the idea did not go away. In 1989 he founded Chord Electronics for the straightforward reason that no existing manufacturer was going to build his amplifier at the standard it needed. That is still the company's operating principle: do it right, and price it at whatever right costs.

It is worth pausing on how unusual that founding is. Most hi-fi companies begin with a listener who becomes an engineer. Chord began with an engineer from a sector where failure is not a review score, who then discovered that the standards he had been trained to work to happened to make remarkable audio equipment. Everything the brand is known for now - the aluminium billet casework, the visible engineering, the refusal to make an ordinary-looking box - reads differently once you know it started in avionics.

Chapter 03

The BBC, Abbey Road and Skywalker Sound

The first people to take Chord seriously were not audiophiles, they were engineers with deadlines. Samples went to the BBC, and the result was a broadcast-qualified unit. Abbey Road followed. Then Sony in New York, Toshiba in Japan, the Royal Opera House, and Skywalker Sound - George Lucas's studio, where the amplifier's job is to be the one thing in the room nobody has to think about.

Professional work is an unforgiving reference: a studio amplifier runs all day, every day, and it either stays out of the way of the recording or it gets replaced. Having built that reputation, Chord was asked for domestic equipment carrying the same design, engineering and build standards - which is the correct order to do it in, and the opposite of the usual one. Everything is still made in the United Kingdom.

Chapter 04

2019 in Belgium, 2026 across the Benelux

Joenit took on Chord for Belgium in 2019, and in 2026 that became the exclusive distribution for the whole Benelux. It is the newest of the house's long partnerships but not the least considered: the brand had been watched for years before the question was asked, and what decided it was that Chord's products survive the demonstration. They are unusual to look at, and a shop can be tempted to sell them on that alone. Played against the competition they win on the boring merits instead - control, quiet, and the sense that nothing is being added.

Joenit's job here is the same as with every other name in the house. Make sure the dealer has one to play, make sure the customer hears it before they buy it, and make sure that whatever happens afterwards is handled by people who can actually fix it.

Milestones

1980s

At Marconi Avionics, John Franks devises Dynamic Coupling.

1988

Joenit is founded in Mechelen.

1989

Franks founds Chord Electronics to build the idea properly.

1990

The BBC qualifies a Chord amplifier for broadcast use.

1990s

Abbey Road, Sony New York, Toshiba, the Royal Opera House and Skywalker Sound follow.

2019

Joenit becomes Chord's importer for Belgium.

2026

That becomes the exclusive distribution for the whole Benelux.

Joenit

And since 2019, in European living rooms.

That is the whole reason this site exists: a brand worth explaining, and a listener worth explaining it to. Explore the range, or find the dealer nearest you.

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