Bose Corporation is an American manufacturing company that predominantly sells audio equipment. The company was established by Amar Bose in 1964 and is based in Framingham, Massachusetts. It is best known for its home audio systems and speakers, noise-canceling headphones, professional audio products, and automobile sound systems. Bose has a reputation for being certainly protective of its patents, trademarks and brands. The majority owner of Bose Corporation is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Non-voting shares were donated to MIT by founder Amar Bose and receive cash dividends. The company's annual report for the 2021 financial year stated that Bose Corporation's yearly sales were $3.2 billion, and the company employed about 7,000 people.
A sound reinforcement system is the combination of microphones, signal processors, amplifiers, and loudspeakers in enclosures all controlled by a mixing console that makes live or pre-recorded sounds louder and may also distribute those sounds to a larger or more distant audience. In many situations, a sound reinforcement system is also used to enhance or alter the sound of the sources on the stage, typically by using electronic effects, such as reverb, as opposed to simply amplifying the sources unaltered.
JBL is an American audio equipment manufacturer headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States. JBL serves the home and professional market. The professional market includes studios, installed/tour/portable sound, music production, DJ, and cinema markets. The home market includes high-end home amplification/speakers/headphones as well as high-end car audio. JBL is owned by Harman International, itself a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics.
Bang & Olufsen (B&O) is a Danish high-end consumer electronics company that designs and manufactures audio products, television sets, and telephones, originally from Denmark, founded in 1925 by Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen, who designed a radio to work with alternating current, a product of significance at a time when most radios were still running on batteries.
Boston Acoustics was an American manufacturer of home and mobile audio equipment founded in 1979. The company produced speakers for home, custom/architectural, and car audio.
Cabasse is a French audio manufacturer founded by Georges Cabasse (1928-2019) in 1950. It is mainly known for its home loudspeakers but has also produced professional audio speakers for studio recording or sound reinforcement in theatres and power amplifiers. The company is now part of a larger group called Veom Group.
Studio monitors are loudspeakers in speaker enclosures specifically designed for professional audio production applications, such as recording studios, filmmaking, television studios, radio studios and project or home studios, where accurate audio reproduction is crucial. Among audio engineers, the term monitor implies that the speaker is designed to produce relatively flat (linear) phase and frequency responses. In other words, it exhibits minimal emphasis or de-emphasis of particular frequencies, the loudspeaker gives an accurate reproduction of the tonal qualities of the source audio, and there will be no relative phase shift of particular frequencies—meaning no distortion in sound-stage perspective for stereo recordings. Beyond stereo sound-stage requirements, a linear phase response helps impulse response remain true to source without encountering "smearing". An unqualified reference to a monitor often refers to a near-field design. This is a speaker small enough to sit on a stand or desk in proximity to the listener, so that most of the sound that the listener hears is coming directly from the speaker, rather than reflecting off walls and ceilings. Monitor speakers may include more than one type of driver or, for monitoring low-frequency sounds, such as bass drum, additional subwoofer cabinets may be used.
Foster Denki KK is an electronics company that manufactures loudspeakers and audio equipment for other companies or sells them under the trade name Fostex. It is traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Meyer Sound Laboratories is an American company based in Berkeley, California that manufactures self-powered loudspeakers, multichannel audio show control systems, electroacoustic architecture, and audio analysis tools for the professional sound reinforcement, fixed installation, and sound recording industries.
TC Electronic is a Danish audio equipment company that designs and imports guitar effects, bass amplification, computer audio interfaces, audio plug-in software, live sound equalisers, studio and post-production equipment, studio effect processors, and broadcast loudness processors and meters. In August 2015, the company was purchased by Music Group, a holding company chaired by Uli Behringer.
An audio engineer helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, and reinforcement of sound. Audio engineers work on the "technical aspect of recording—the placing of microphones, pre-amp knobs, the setting of levels. The physical recording of any project is done by an engineer…"
KEF is a British company specialising in the design and production of a range of high-end audio products, including HiFi speakers, subwoofers, architecture speakers, wireless speakers, and headphones. It was founded in Maidstone, Kent, in 1961 by a BBC engineer named Raymond Cooke (1925–1995). In 1992, the Hong Kong–based Gold Peak Group acquired KEF; and GP Acoustics, a member of Gold Peak, now owns the company. KEF continues to develop and manufacture its products in Maidstone.
A coaxial loudspeaker is a loudspeaker system in which the individual driver units radiate sound from the same point or axis. Two general types exist: one is a compact design using two or three speaker drivers, usually in car audio, and the other is a two-way high-power design for professional audio, also known as single-source or dual-concentric loudspeakers. The design is favored for its compactness and behavior as an audio point source.
Focusrite PLC is an English music and audio products group based in High Wycombe, England. The Focusrite Group trades under eight brands: Focusrite, Focusrite Pro, Martin Audio, ADAM Audio, Novation, Ampify Music, Optimal Audio and Sequential. Focusrite designs and markets audio interfaces, microphone preamps, consoles, analogue equalizers (EQ) and channel strips, and digital audio processing hardware and software for professional and home studios.
Cliff Henricksen is a musician, inventor and audio technologist. He is self-taught as a musician with a graduate degree in mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Throughout his career Cliff has found innovative ways to apply engineering basics to electro acoustics and to audio technology as it applies to music and in particular to live music performance. He has invented and engineered a wide variety of technologies and products well known in the world of professional audio. Today he balances work in audio and work as a performing musician.
The Yamaha NS-10 is a loudspeaker that became a standard nearfield studio monitor in the music industry among rock and pop recording engineers. Launched in 1978, the NS-10 started life as a bookshelf speaker destined for the domestic environment. It was poorly received but eventually became a valuable tool with which to mix rock recordings. The speaker has a characteristic white-coloured mid–bass drive unit.
A professional audio store is a retail business that sells, and in many cases rents, sound reinforcement system equipment and PA system components used in music concerts, live shows, dance parties and speaking events. This equipment typically includes microphones, power amplifiers, electronic effects units, speaker enclosures, monitor speakers, subwoofers and audio consoles (mixers). Some professional audio stores also sell sound recording equipment, DJ equipment, lighting equipment used in nightclubs and concerts and video equipment used in events, such as video projectors and screens. Some professional audio stores rent "backline" equipment used in rock and pop shows, such as stage pianos and bass amplifiers. While professional audio stores typically focus on selling new merchandise, some stores also sell used equipment, which is often the equipment that the company has previously rented out for shows and events.
Vifa is a brand name used by Danish company Vifa Denmark A/S. In everyday speech, the brand name also refers to the company itself. The company designs and manufactures consumer and professional audio products.
RCF S.p.A. is a widely recognized Italian manufacturer of high performance audio products including power amplifiers, loudspeakers, digital mixers and digital signal processors (DSP).
