Integrated Amplifiers

‘TAD is still 100% part of the Pioneer Corporation’, says Jürgen Timm, now the Germany-based ‘Consultant to CEO’, Shinji Tarutani, and Chairman of the Board of the High End Society (organisers of the High End Show, now in Vienna for 2026). But TAD has clearly sheltered through a long storm – Pioneer sold its plasma TV technology to Panasonic in 2010 which is when Jürgen (a Pioneer employee from 1988) transitioned to TAD in Japan as its Marketing Director for Europe.

From 2015-18 Pioneer was merged with Onkyo and its distribution split between Aquipa in the EU and Voxx in the US. Onkyo retained the rights to the TEAC and Esoteric brands, while TAD remained separate, ‘assigned to Pioneer’s car audio division in Japan’, reveals Jürgen. At 2025’s end, Pioneer announced a shareholder transition, selling the Corp. to CarUX Holding Limited (a daughter company of Taiwan-based InnoLux, a major OEM display manufacturer).

TAD is now an independent company under the Pioneer Corp. umbrella, with additional facilities for R&D and production in Kawagoe, about an hour northwest of Tokyo. Its speakers are made in Tendo, further north in the Yamagata prefecture. ‘A new generation of engineers has recently joined the TAD brand’, says Jürgen, ‘but the “old guard” of the last quarter century remain to pass on their experience’.

Stability means new products: ‘At the upcoming High End in Vienna TAD will have a new “entry-level” standmount on display’. PM