Marantz Corporation, founded in New York City in the early 1950s, was a pioneer in audio fidelity. It's founder, Saul B. Marantz, like his contemporary Avery Fisher, was an avid music enthusiast and musician who was not at all happy with the state of audio fidelity in the 1940's and 50's. He was particularly frustrated with the battle raging between record producers who favored the 45 standard records or the new 33 lps. The problem for audio manufacturers was that they had to produce pre-equalization, or pre-amp, capability for dozens of different producers, an impossible task. The development of the Marantz Audio Consolette was a major step forward in solving this problem. The company grew of the fame and eventually became part of Phillips Electronics, where it remains today, still producing products.