International CES: Directed Revives Orion Car Audio Products

December 29, 2008 
VISTA, Calif. -- Directed Electronics will introduce a revamped Orion Car Audio line at International CES to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Orion, which had a heyday in the 1980s.

Directed is bringing the XTR, XTR Pro and Orion Wired, Orion's most powerful HCCA amplifier ever, and the affordable COBALT gear. The products feature the classic Orion logo.

The business unit of DEI Holdings began reintroducing Orion-branded products in 2003.

Orion was born in three offices on River Road in Tempe, Ariz. in 1984 by car audio enthusiasts who turned their expertise of building MIL SPEC components for the government into creating amplifiers.

Those initial Orion products debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January of 1985. They were the industry's first high-current amplifiers, optimized to produce maximum power into low impedance loads continuously.

Orion HCCA amps are designed with the technological expertise and high quality production standards developed in those early years, according to the company.

When Orion left the River Road complex in 1987, it had already expanded to 5,000 square feet but that was not enough. The growing company moved to West Julie Drive, a complex that was originally 15,000 square feet, but by 1990 had doubled again in size. By 1990, the company had grown to 110 employees and had 600 dealers in the U.S. and in 14 foreign countries.

The brand was widely used on the sound-off competition circuit. There were thousands of Team XTREME members on three continents, and hundreds of first place finishes in IASCA, USACi, dB Drag and MECA, with 20 trophies at the 1992 IASCA Finals.

In 1994, Orion merged with ADS Technologies, pooling the resources of some of the leading home audio and professional equipment engineers in the world, resulting in products such as the DEQ30--the industry's first fully digital, standalone
30 band equalizer.

Orion was acquired by Directed Electronics, its current owner, in 2001.

At CES in January of 2003, Directed relaunched the Orion line. The following year, Orion won an Innovations Award for the Orion H2 15.2 subwoofer with dual gap geometry.

At CES 2005, Orion relaunched the HCCA amplifier line, including the D5000, a 5,000-watt peak amplifier, Orion's largest amplifier up to that time. The HCCA line continued to grow and spark interest with the release of the next generation HCCA subwoofers in January of 2007.

Loyal Orion fans remember the HCCA subs of the late 1990s and were blown away by the new HCCA subwoofer line. With power handling of 4,000 watts peak and over 5,000 watts in burps, the new HCCA subs raised the benchmark for SPL subs, according to the company.