Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic equipments intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications, and home-office activities. In British English, they are often called brown goods by producers and sellers, to distinguish them from "white goods" which are meant for housekeeping tasks, such as washing machines and refrigerators, although nowadays, these would be considered brown goods, some of these being connected to the Internet. In the 2010s, this distinction is not always present in large big box consumer electronics stores, such as Best Buy, which sell both entertainment, communication, and home office devices and kitchen appliances such as refrigerators.
Karlheinz Brandenburg is a German electrical engineer and mathematician. Together with Ernst Eberlein, Heinz Gerhäuser, Bernhard Grill, Jürgen Herre and Harald Popp, he developed the widespread MP3 method for audio data compression. He is also known for his elementary work in the field of audio coding, the perception measurement, the wave field synthesis and psychoacoustics. Brandenburg has received numerous national and international research awards, prizes and honors for his work. Since 2000 he is Professor of Electronic Media Technology at the Technical University Ilmenau. Brandenburg was significantly involved in the founding of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology (IDMT) and currently serves as its director.
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction and audio encoding/compression. Dolby licenses its technologies to consumer electronics manufacturers.
Harman Kardon is a division of Stamford-based Harman International Industries, a subsidiary of South Korean firm Samsung Electronics, and manufactures home and car audio equipment. It was its original division, founded in 1953 by Sidney Harman and Bernard Kardon.
Founded by David Hafler and Ed Laurent in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1955, Dynaco was an American hi-fi audio system manufacturer popular in the 1960s and 1970s for its wide range of affordable, yet high quality audio components.. Its best known product was the ST-70 tube stereo amplifier. They also manufactured other tube and solid state amplifiers, preamplifiers, radio tuners and bookshelf loudspeakers. Dynaco was liquidated in 1980, and the trademark is now owned by Panor Corp.
Professional audio, abbreviated as pro audio, refers to both an activity and a category of high quality, studio-grade audio equipment. Typically it encompasses sound recording, sound reinforcement system setup and audio mixing, and studio music production by trained sound engineers, audio engineers, record producers, and audio technicians who work in live event support and recording using audio mixers, recording equipment and sound reinforcement systems. In contrast, consumer audio equipment is a lower grade of gear which is used by regular people for the reproduction of sound in a private home on a home stereo or home cinema system.
The electronics industry, especially meaning consumer electronics, emerged in the 20th century and has now become a global industry worth billions of dollars. Contemporary society uses all manner of electronic devices built in automated or semi-automated factories operated by the industry. Products are assembled from integrated circuits, principally by photolithography of printed circuit boards.
Media Vision was an American electronics manufacturer of primarily computer sound cards and CD-ROM kits, operating from 1990 to approximately 1995 in Fremont, California. Media Vision was widely known for its Pro AudioSpectrum PC sound cards—which it often bundled with CD-ROM drives—and its spectacular growth and demise.
Sound-in-Syncs is a method of multiplexing sound and video signals into a channel designed to carry video, in which data representing the sound is inserted into the line synchronising pulse of an analogue television waveform. This is used on point-to-point links within broadcasting networks, including studio/transmitter links (STL). It is not used for broadcasts to the public.
Audio magazine was a periodical published from 1947 to 2000, and was America's longest-running audio magazine. Audio published reviews of audio products and audio technology as well as informational articles on topics such as acoustics, psychoacoustics and the art of listening. Audio claimed to be the successor of Radio magazine which was established in 1917.
Arthur C. Keller was a pioneer of high-fidelity and stereophonic recording techniques.
Home audio systems are audio electronics intended for home entertainment use, such as shelf stereos and surround sound receivers. Home audio generally does not include standard equipment such as built-in television speakers, but rather accessory equipment, which may be intended to enhance or replace standard equipment, such as standard TV speakers. Since surround sound receivers, which are primarily intended to enhance the reproduction of a movie, are the most popular home audio device, the primary field of home audio is home cinema.
Electronic engineering is an electrical engineering discipline which utilizes nonlinear and active electrical components to design electronic circuits, devices, VLSI devices and their systems. The discipline typically also designs passive electrical components, usually based on printed circuit boards.
The field of electrical and electronics engineering has grown to include many related disciplines and occupations.
Albert Neville Thiele, OAM, generally known as Neville Thiele and publishing under the name A. Neville Thiele, was a distinguished Australian audio engineer.
Noel Lee is American and the CEO of Monster Inc. Lee graduated from California Polytechnic State University with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, before doing work in laser fusion for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He quit his engineering job in 1974 to play drums for a country rock band. After the band separated, he founded Monster Cable Products in 1979 based on loudspeaker cables he invented and manufactured in his garage.
Daniel R. von Recklinghausen was an electrical engineer.
Howard Philip Ladd was an electrical engineer, inventor, marketer, entrepreneur and bank founder. Ladd was a pioneering giant in American and international consumer audio and video electronics.
