JBL 

is an American audio equipment manufacturer headquartered

in Los Angeles, California, United States. JBL serves the consumer
home and professional market. The professional market includes
studios, installed/tour/portable sound, cars, music production, DJ,
cinema markets, etc. JBL is owned by Harman International, a
subsidiary of Samsung Electronics.

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.[1]

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

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.[2]

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.

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.

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 best-selling 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.[5] 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.[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 for Chrysler (whose cars used Infinity) and Nissan (who
used Bose).

Timeline[edit]

 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 of suicide; 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 starting 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; it 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[edit]

Bluetooth headphones "SynchrosE50BT"

 

Car sub-woofer "1200GTI"

3-way loudspeaker system "Ti2000"

 
Flip 3 Bluetooth speaker

JBL Flip 4 portable Bluetooth speaker