1. History

2. Timeline

3. Product line examples

4. Examples of applications

5. References

JBL is an American company that manufactures loudspeakers. There are two independent divisions within the company – JBL Consumer and JBL Professional. The former produces audio equipment for the consumer home market while the latter produces professional equipment for the studio, installed sound, tour sound, portable sound (production and DJ), and cinema markets. JBL is owned by Harman International Industries, a subsidiary of South Korean company Samsung Electronics.

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

History

Lansing and his business partner Ken Decker started a company in 1927, in Los Angeles, manufacturing 6- and 8-inch speaker drivers for radio consoles and radio sets. The company was called Lansing Manufacturing Company, from March 1, 1927.^[1]

In 1933, head of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) sound department Douglas Shearer, dissatisfied with the loudspeakers of Western Electric (WE) and RCA, decided to develop a new loudspeaker. 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 WE and RCA received the contracts to each build 75 units, WE calling them Diaphonic and RCA using it in their RCA Photophone. Lansing Manufacturing was the only one selling them as Shearer Horn. In 1936 the Shearer Horn received the Academy Scientific and Technical Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Based on the experience developed with the Shearer Horn, Lansing produced the Iconic System loudspeaker for cinemas. The Iconic was a 2-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 without Decker's guidance 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 Inc. in which later the name changed to James B. Lansing Sound and even later shortened to JBL Sound.

In 1946, JBL produced their first product, 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 would remain 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 was not interested in the loudspeaker business and severed ties with Lansing. Lansing reincorporated as James B. Lansing, Incorporated, 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 Engineering extended favorable terms and deep credit to Lansing. Robert Arnold saw JBL as an opportunity to sell Alnico V magnetic material into a new market.

James 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. 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 then 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 of the company. Thomas is credited with revitalizing the company and spearheading a period of strong growth for the two decades following the founding of JBL.^[2]

Early products included the model 375 high-frequency driver and the 075 UHF (Ultra High Frequency) 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.^[3]

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 logo.^[4]

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, Bill 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 best-selling loudspeaker model of any company to that time. The 1970s also saw a 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.^[5] The JBL L-100 and 4310 control monitors were noteworthy, 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.^[6]

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 was formerly used in Ford's top-of-the-line vehicle audio systems, as competition with Chrysler (whose cars used Infinity) and Nissan (who used Bose).

Timeline

• 1902 – Birth of James B. Lansing in Illinois, U.S.
• 1927 – Founding of Lansing Manufacturing Company in Los Angeles
• 1934 – Douglas Shearer from MGM designs the first speaker for the cinema. Lansing builds system components.
• 1941 – Altec Service Company acquires Lansing Manufacturing Company
• 1944 – Lansing and Hilliard redefine the reference theater speaker with model A-4, renamed " Voice of the Theatre "
• 1946 – Lansing leaves Altec and founds a new company, James B. Lansing Sound Inc.
• 1947 – JBL has a 15" speaker (38 cm), model D-130, using for the first time a 4" (100 mm) voice coil in a speaker cone
• 1949 – James. B. Lansing dies; William Thomas became president of the company
• 1954 – The "375" compression engine is the first 4-inch engine sold; its response extends to 9 kHz
• 1954 – Presentation of acoustic lenses developed by Bart N. Locanthi
• 1955 – Leo Fender integrates the D-130 model in their amplifiers, thus signalling the entry of JBL into professional music
• 1958 – Introduction of JBL Paragon stereo speaker system
• 1962 – JBL creates the first 2-way studio monitor, using a high-frequency motor lens
• 1968 – JBL launches the 3-way speaker 4310
• 1969 – Sidney Harman acquires JBL.
• 1969 – L-100, a consumer version of the 4311 is launched – this would sell over 125,000 pairs in the 70s
• 1969 – JBL components deliver sound at Woodstock and many other rock festivals
• 1973 – 4300 Series launched, including the first 4-way speaker
• 1975 – 4682 Model Line Array " Strongbox "
• 1979 – Technology "diamond surround " for control of high frequency resonances in
• 1979 – Development of Symmetrical Field Geometry (SFG)
• 1980 – Pavilion Bi-Radial ® Constant dispersion technology
• 1981 – The first Bi-Radial monitor, 4400 for the recording studio
• 1982 – Titanium is used as a material for compression engines
• 1984 – JBL acquires UREI
• 1986 – The first models of Control series introduced
• 1990 – Vented Gap Cooling technology (reduces low frequencies transducer temperature)
• 1991 – The first pro-audio speaker based on neodymium with Array Series
• 1995 – Birth of EON system
• 1995 – First Neodymium Differential Drive speaker
• 1996 – Creation of the HLA standard with Line Array Space Frame design
• 1999 – JBL used at Woodstock 1999
• 2000 – Creation of VerTec Line Array system
• 2000 – Birth of EVO, the intelligent loudspeaker controlled by DSP
• 2002 – VerTec is used for the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards and the ceremony of the 2002 FIFA World Cup (Seoul, Korea)

Product line examples

Examples of applications

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - AMPAS^[7] (Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Hollywood, United States).
• Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique - IRCAM^[8] (Pierre Boulez, Paris, France, 1974–1991).
• Digital Cinema Project - GAUMONT^[9] (Philippe Binant, Paris, France, 2000–2008).

References

• Regius professorship of Modern History at Oxford
• Regius Professorships
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