| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Digital Audio and Computer Peripheral |
| Founded | 1936, as All Technical Service Company |
| Headquarters | San Diego, California, United States |
| Key people | Ross Gatlin, CEO |
| Products | Docking speaker systems for iPod and MP3 players, PC and desktop speaker systems, headphones and headsets and home audio speaker systems |
| Owner(s) | Prophet Equity |
| Employees | 150 |
| Website | www.alteclansing.com |
Altec Lansing is a line of professional, home, automotive, computer, and multimedia audio products first developed in 1936. They were used in many studios as monitor speakers. Altec Lansing loudspeakers were used in the sound system for the Woodstock Festival in 1969.
The current incarnation of the company, called Altec Lansing Technologies, is an OEM supplier to many computer makers such as Asus, Dell, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and Gateway.
In 1928, AT&T's Western Electric established a division for the specific purpose of installing and servicing their loudspeakers and electronic products for motion picture use. Called "E.R.P.I." (Electrical Research Products, Inc.), it was purchased as part of a consent decree in 1936 by a group of E.R.P.I. executives, including George Carrington, Sr. and Mike Conrow. They changed the name to "All Technical Service Company".
The All Technical Service Company purchased the nearly bankrupt Lansing Manufacturing Company (named after its founder James B. Lansing) and melded the two names, forming the Altec Lansing Corporation on May 1, 1941. James Lansing went on to found the James B. Lansing Company (JBL), another manufacturer of high-quality professional loudspeakers , which competed with Altec. The first Altec Lansing power amplifier, Model 142B, was produced that same year.
Altec produced a line of professional and high-fidelity audio equipment, starting with a line of horn-based loudspeaker systems. First developed for use in motion picture theaters, these products were touted for their fidelity, efficiency and high sound level capability. Products included "biflex" speakers where frequency range was increased by a flexible "decoupling" of a small center area of the speaker's cone from a larger "woofer" area; the 604-series of coaxial speakers employed a high efficiency compression driver mounted to the rear of the 604's low-frequency magnet, and exited through a multicellular horn that passed through center of the woofer's cone. An updated version of this speaker is still being built today by Great Plains Audio in Oklahoma City using the original Altec tooling.
They also made the Voice of the Theatre systems. The smallest of these, the A-7, used a medium-sized sectoral metal horn for high frequencies which featured dividers (sectors) to provide control sound dispersion, plus a medium-sized wooden low-frequency enclosure, which functioned as a hybrid bass-horn/bass-reflex enclosure. The most often used Voice Of The Theatre system was the A-4, many of which are still in use in motion picture theaters today. The efficiency of all of these products originally provided high sound pressure levels from the limited amplifier power available at the time, but it was also found to contribute to overall sound fidelity due to the minimal induced levels of distortion contributed by the loudspeakers themselves.
The early products were revised and enhanced over time with the addition of rubberized speaker surrounds and other modern features. Altec speakers remained in use well into the '70s.
The original main Voice Of The Theatre series of loudspeaker systems consisted of the Altec A-1, A-2, A-4, and the A-5. The A-7,and A-8 were designed for smaller venues.
James Ling purchased the Altec Corporation from the ailing George Carrington, Sr., in 1958. By the time he spun them off in 1974, his company, LTV-Ling-Altec, had assimilated a great deal of bad debt, which went with the Altec Corporation (established in 1964) as part of the spinoff. In 1984, Gulton, Inc., purchased the Altec Sound Products Division from the Altec Corporation, which was operating under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, due to difficulties paying off debts incurred when they were spun off by LTV Ling-Altec in 1974. Included with the purchase were the tooling, parts and product inventories, distributor network, designs, patents, and assets of the Sound Products Division of Altec Lansing. The motion picture theater sound installation and repair business, Altec Service Co., the descendant of E.R.P.I., was sold to J. Bruce Waddell, then Head of Altec Service, and Robert V. Gandolfi, who was their Comptroller at the time. They established it as A.S.C. Technical Services in Richardson, Texas.
The Altec Lansing Corporation was formed by Gulton as part of the purchase, and headquartered in Oklahoma City, the site of the University Sound factory built by Jimmy Ling when he moved there from White Plains, New York. Altec Lansing had relocated there prior to the Gulton purchase in an effort to reduce operating costs, selling their Anaheim, California facilities.
Altec Lansing Corporation enjoyed a brief resurgence within the professional audio industry from the middle 1980s until 1995, when Telex, who had purchased Altec Lansing's parent company, EVI Audio, Inc., in 1997, consolidated all of their electronics manufacturing facilities into one location in Minnesota. By 1998, the original Altec Lansing was gone.
In 2000, the Altec Lansing Professional division was closed by the Telex corporation and Altec Lansing Technologies (formerly Sparkomatic), purchased the rights to the following trademarks:
Through a series of negotiations, ALT was able to acquire the "Duplex" trademark labelling the 604 loudspeakers.
The actual entity called Altec Lansing was never sold by Telex/EVI. All other claims notwithstanding, THE Altec Lansing company no longer exists - only the brand names do.
The Altec Lansing Professional line was relaunched in 2002 by Altec Lansing Technologies using former executives of the old Oklahoma City-based Altec Lansing Corporation, but it did not fare well. Reduced to being a supplier of off-shore built high-fidelity ceiling loudspeakers and associated electronics, Altec Lansing Professional's Oklahoma City offices were closed in late 2006 and all remaining activities relocated to the Milford, Pennsylvania headquarters.
In 1996, Altec Lansing Multimedia established an R&D center in Kfar Sava, Israel. The center focused on advanced multimedia technologies such as USB audio, surround sound and wireless audio. The center was closed in 2001 and the development activities moved to the Milford PA headquarters.
On July 11, 2005 Altec Lansing Technologies announced that it was to be acquired by Plantronics for approximately $166 million dollars.[1]
On September 10, 2008. Altec Lansing went through a major company rebranding; the logo was changed from a "whirlpool" logo to the current logo based on the tip of a hat to the lines of a multi-cellular horn that Altec Lansing is proud of. The company's colors also changed from the traditional blue and white to gold and black.
Altec Lansing introduced their first line of earphones in 2003, including the inMotion brand Etymotic Exclusives, and later partnered with Ultimate ears in 2006-2007 to introduce another line of newer earphones. Altec Lansing later discontinued signing contracts with other companies, and instead introduced their earphones in 2008.
Product lines include the inMotion Series-Etymotic Exclusive (2005), the Upgrader Series-Ultimate Ears Exclusive (2006), and both the Muszx and Backbeat Series introduced in 2009.
Under the inMotion brand, Altec Lansing Technologies sold headphones that were created in partnership with Etymotic Research to be much like the ER-4 series headphones. The inMotion 716 and 616 looked and performed much like their Etymotic cousins but were marketed toward the average listener looking to replace their free bundled portable earbuds with higher-performance earphones. The eartips used were the same style as the ER-4 and ER-6 series with some minor adjustments to fit the iM716/616. The iM716 and im616 contained some Etymotic-made parts but were not identical to an ER-4.
In 2007, in partnership with Ultimate Ears and within the Upgrader Series of Altec Lansing's earphone and headphone category, Altec Lansing launched the UHP306 (based on the Ultimate Ears MetroFi 2 and MetroFi 200) and UHP336 (based on the Ultimate Ears SuperFi 3 Studio). After acquiring the technology and parts from Ultimate Ears, Altec Lansing made further modifications to the designs.
In early 2009, Altec Lansing launched a new series of earphones called the "BackBeat Series", very similar to the 2008 models of Ultimate Ears MetroFi and at a similar price. Altec Lansing also offered the UHP906, which was a wireless noise-isolating set of earphones.
In 2009, Plantronics sold Altec Lansing to the private equity firm Prophet Equity.