Vintage audio. Vinyl player Perpetuum Ebner 3044. Made in Germany

The Perpetuum Ebner (PE) company was founded in 1911 by Josef Steidinger after he left the Dual company run jointly with his brother Christian in St. Georgen in the Black Forest, making it one of the oldest phono companies in the world.

The company initially produced spring drives as “Perpetuum Schwarzwälder Federmotoren und Automatenwerke” and from 1920 also gramophones. When Josef died in 1925, Perpetuum was continued by his sons Hermann and Arthur and their daughter Hermine Steidinger. The company is renamed “PERPETUUM – special factory for voice machine drives, Steidinger & Co. KG, St. Georgen / Black Forest”.

In 1936, Hermine Steidinger married the Cannstatt developer and manufacturer Albert Ebner (1891–1956). After the marriage, the company was renamed “Perpetuum – Ebner, Fabrik für Feinmechanik und Elektrotechnik, Steidinger & Co. KG (PE)”.

PE expanded after World War II and by the 1950s was one of the continent’s largest phono manufacturers. At the end of the 1960s, PE had around 1200 employees and was a major employer in St. Georgen. To this day, the name PE stands alongside Dual and Saba as a synonym for excellent quality in consumer electronics. In 1971 the company, which had started to falter, was taken over by Dual.

WE Audio Systems has been developing, producing and selling turntables under the brand name Perpetuum Ebner (PE) at the St. Georgen site since 2015.

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