JBL

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For other uses, see JBL (disambiguation).

JBL is an American audio equipment manufacturer[1] headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United
States. JBL serves the customer home and professional market. The professional market includes
studios, installed/tour/portable sound, music production, DJ, 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.

JBL

Formerly

Lansing Sound

Company type

Subsidiary

Industry

Audio

Founded

1946; 78 years ago

Founder

James Bullough Lansing

Headquarters

Los Angeles, California, United States

Products

Amplifiers, loudspeakers, headphones

Owner

Samsung Electronics

Parent

Harman International Industries

Website

jbl.com

JBL was founded by James Bullough Lansing (1902–1949), an American audio engineer and loudspeaker
designer best known for establishing two audio companies that bear his name, Altec Lansing and JBL,
the latter taken from his initials.

History edit

Lansing and his business partner Ken Decker started a company in 1927, in Los Angeles, manufacturing
six- and eight-inch speaker drivers for radio consoles and radio sets. The firm was named Lansing
Manufacturing Company, from March 1, 1927.[2]

In 1933, head of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) sound department, Douglas Shearer, dissatisfied
with the loudspeakers of Western Electric and RCA, decided to develop his own. John Hilliard, Robert
Stephens, and John F. Blackburn were part of the team that developed the Shearer Horn, with Lansing
Manufacturing producing the 285 compression driver and the 15XS bass driver. The Shearer Horn gave
the desired improvements and Western Electric and RCA received the contracts to each build 75 units.
Western Electric named them Diaphonics, and RCA used them in their RCA Photophones. Lansing
Manufacturing was the only firm selling them as Shearer Horns. In 1936, the Shearer Horn received the
Academy Scientific and Technical Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Lansing Iconic
JBL TI 5000, 3-way system with a 30 cm bass driver and a titanium membrane tweeter, built from about
1992 to 1999. With a height of 1.15 m and a weight of 55 kg, it was the top model for the consumer
market.

Based on the experience developed with the Shearer Horn, Lansing produced the Iconic System
loudspeaker for cinemas. The Iconic was a two-way speaker using a 15-inch woofer for the low
frequencies and a compression driver for the highs.

In 1939, Decker was killed in an airplane crash, the company soon began having financial troubles and,
in 1941, Lansing Manufacturing Company was bought by Altec Service Corporation, after which the
name changed to "Altec Lansing". After Lansing's contract expired in 1946, he left Altec Lansing and
founded Lansing Sound in which later the name changed to "James B. Lansing Sound" and was further
shortened to "JBL Sound".

In 1946, JBL produced their first products, the model D101 15-inch loudspeaker and the model D175
high-frequency driver. The D175 remained in the JBL catalog through the 1970s. Both of these were
near-copies of Altec Lansing products. The first original product was the D130, a 15-inch transducer for
which a variant remained in production for the next 55 years. The D130 featured a four-inch flat ribbon
wire voice coil and Alnico V magnet. Two other products were the 12-inch D131 and the 8-inch D208
cone drivers.

The Marquardt Corporation gave the company early manufacturing space and a modest investment.
William H. Thomas, the treasurer of Marquardt Corporation, represented Marquardt on Lansing's board
of directors. In 1948, Marquardt took over operation of JBL. In 1949, Marquardt was purchased by
General Tire Company. The new company, not interested in the loudspeaker business, severed ties with
Lansing. Lansing reincorporated as James B. Lansing and moved the newly formed company to its first
private location, on 2439 Fletcher Drive, Los Angeles.

A key to JBL's early development was Lansing's close business relationship with its primary supplier of
Alnico V magnetic material, Robert Arnold of Arnold Engineering. Arnold saw JBL as an opportunity to
sell Alnico V magnetic materials into a new market.

Lansing was noted as an innovative engineer, but a poor businessman. Decker, his business partner, had
died in 1939 in an airplane crash. In the late 1940s, Lansing struggled to pay invoices and ship product.
Possibly as a result of deteriorating business conditions and personal issues, he committed suicide on
September 4, 1949. The company then passed into the hands of Bill Thomas, JBL's vice-president.
Lansing had taken out a $10,000 life insurance policy, naming the company as the beneficiary, a decision
that allowed Thomas to continue the company after Lansing's death. Soon after, Thomas purchased Mrs.
Lansing's one-third interest in the company and became the sole owner. Thomas is credited with
revitalizing the company and spearheading a period of strong growth for the two decades following the
founding of JBL.[3]

Early products included the model 375 high-frequency driver and the 075 ultra high frequency (UHF)
ring-radiator driver. The ring-radiator drivers are also known as "JBL bullets" because of their distinctive
shape. The 375 was a re-invention of the Western Electric 594 driver but with an Alnico V magnet and a
four-inch voice coil. The 375 shared the same basic magnet structure as the D-130 woofer. JBL engineers
Ed May and Bart N. Locanthi created these designs.[4]

Two products from that era, the Hartsfield and the Paragon, continue to be highly desired on the
collectors' market.

In 1955, the brand name JBL was introduced to resolve ongoing disputes with Altec Lansing Corporation.
The company name "James B. Lansing Sound, Incorporated", was retained, but the logo name was
changed to JBL with its distinctive exclamation point.[5]

The JBL 4320 series studio monitor was introduced through Capitol Records in Hollywood and became
the standard monitor worldwide for its parent company, EMI. JBL's introduction to rock and roll music
came via the adoption of the D130 loudspeaker by Leo Fender's Fender Guitar Company as the ideal
driver for electric guitars.

In 1969, Thomas sold JBL to the Jervis Corporation (later renamed "Harman International"), headed by
Sidney Harman. The 1970s saw JBL become a household brand, starting with the famous L-100, which
was the bestselling loudspeaker model of any company to that time. The 1970s were also a time of
major JBL expansion in the professional audio field from their studio monitors. By 1977, more recording
studios were using JBL monitors than all other brands combined, according to a Billboard survey.[6] The
JBL L-100 and 4310 control monitors were popular home speakers. In the late 1970s, the new L-series
designs L15, L26, L46, L56, L86, L96, L112, L150, and later the L150A and flagship L250 were introduced
with improved crossovers, ceramic magnet woofers, updated midrange drivers, and aluminum-
deposition phenolic resin tweeters. In the mid-1980s, the designs were again updated and redesigned
with a new titanium-deposition tweeter diaphragm. The new L-series designations being the L20T, L40T,
L60T, L80T, L100T, the Ti-series 18Ti, 120Ti, 240Ti, and the flagship 250Ti. To test speaker drivers, JBL in
Glendale and Northridge used the roof as an outdoor equivalent to an anechoic chamber.[7]

Over the next two decades, JBL went more mass-market with their consumer (Northridge) line of
loudspeakers. At the same time, they made an entry into the high-end market with their project
speakers, consisting of the Everest and K2 lines. JBL became a prominent supplier to the tour sound
industry, their loudspeakers being employed by touring rock acts and music festivals. JBL products were
the basis for the development of THX loudspeaker standard, which resulted in JBL becoming a popular
cinema loudspeaker manufacturer.

JBL are currently fitted to vehicle manufacturers such as Fiat,[8] Kia[9] and Toyota.[10]