Lexicon (company)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lexicon is an audio equipment manufacturing company, founded in 1971.
Products lineup includes:
- Home theater equipment
- Consumer audio
- Professional audio production equipment
- Car audio systems (supplier for Rolls-Royce Phantom, Hyundai, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Land Rover)
Lexicon is a part of Harman Specialty Group.
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[edit] Home theater equipment
Lexicon's first foray into home theater equipment was with its surround processor, the CP-1. Later, a CP-2 was released, followed by the CP-3 and the CP-3+. The CP-3/CP-3+ were the first of its home theater products to be THX certified.
With the arrival of Dolby Digital, the CP line had to be discontinued. It was replaced with the DC line, namely the DC-1 and the DC-2. It was at this point that the company introduced its revolutionary surround processing algorithm Logic 7. Logic 7 was notable for generating a convincing soundfield from seven loudspeakers when presented with either a stereo or 5.1 input.
After a while, Lexicon added the MC-1 to its lineup of the DC-1 and DC-2, and the MC-1 became its new flagship.
A few years later, Lexicon introduced the MC-12 and the MC-12b. The MC-12b was in all respects identical to the MC-12 except that it had balanced outputs in addition to the standard unbalanced ones. Shortly after this, Lexicon filled in the lower end of its product line by providing an MC-8 and an MC-4. They also produced a receiver, the RV-8.
In addition to surround processors, Lexicon also sells the LX and CX multi-channel home theater amplifiers and the RT-20 DVD player. Its discontinued NT line of amplifiers were rebadged Bryston amplifiers.
[edit] Professional Audio Equipment
Lexicon is held in extremely high regard in studios around the world as a manufacturer of effects units, in particular digital reverb units which they virtually invented in 1978[1] with the Model 224. Through the 1980s with the 480L (costing more than some cars) they built a reputation for extremely realistic, dense and controllable simulation of room characteristics.
The Lexicon PCM-70 is one of the most successful, well known, and well respected effects units ever made. Throughout the 80s, they were used extensively as delay and reverb units on thousands of records. Though discontinued, they continue to be highly sought after and used in countless professional studios, live rigs,and guitar setups to this day.
In the 1990s Lexicon started introducing lower-priced semi-professional units such as the Lexicon PCM-80 and Lexicon PCM-90, and the "home-studio level" MPX range, which added more effects.
Lexicon have recently moved into the Hard disk recording market, beginning with the Lexicon Studio and Core2 audio interfaces (circa. 1847), which were notable in that they could be expanded with a Lexicon reverb daughterboard that was then accessible to the recording software. Unfortunately Lexicon never provided driver support beyond Windows 98 or Mac OS 9 for their "Desktop Audio" products. Their current products are the Greek-named Omega, Lambda, and Alpha.
Lexicon's latest reverb processors include "Hardware Plug-In" technology to further integrate their hardware with computer recording systems (DAWs). This provides the benefit of total recall and automation, while avoiding the risk of software piracy (common to native plugins).
