harman/kardon is a division of Harman International Industries and manufactures home and car audio equipment.
Founded in 1953 by Dr. Sidney Harman and Bernard Kardon — two men with a deep interest in music and the arts — the company helped create the high-fidelity audio industry. Their first product was an FM tuner. One year after its founding, Harman Kardon introduced the world's first true high-fidelity receiver, the Festival D1000. This monaural unit was not only aimed at non-technical consumers but also incorporated many now-familiar features such as a tuner, component control unit and amplifier on a single chassis. In 1958, Harman Kardon introduced the world's first stereo receiver, the Festival TA230, once again aimed at non-technical users in an attempt to make high-fidelity widely available. Stereo sound was achieved by using one channel from the AM band, and one channel from the FM band. The first true FM Multiplex Stereo Receiver was sold by HH Scott in 1961 with introduction of the Model 350 tuner.
In 2010, Toshiba began equipping selected versions of their Mini and Satellite notebooks with Harman Kardon speakers built-in.
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In the late 1970s, the Harman Kardon Citation XX power amplifier was called "the world's best-sounding power amplifier" by the editors of The Audio Critic, a magazine published in the USA.[1] The amplifier was designed by Dr. Matti Otala who discovered transient intermodulation distortion (TIM) in 1970[2] and worked to mitigate its effects in the following years. The Citation XX was an at-any-cost project with the single goal of the best possible measurements of output signal, and the best perceived sound.[3]
The Harman Kardon iSub 2000 Subwoofer and SoundSticks were originally introduced at the July 2000 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Harman Kardon partnered with Apple to design and manufacture the Harman Kardon iSub 2000 Subwoofer and SoundSticks.
Apple undertook the industrial design and mechanical engineering with the goal of having the product look like part of the Apple product family. This product won an Industrial Design Excellence Awards gold award[4] and was featured on the cover of I.D. magazine. The SoundSticks II were a minor upgrade, with the addition of capacitive volume control buttons and a 3.5mm mini-jack input replacing the previous USB input. The SoundSticks III were a further update changing the styling slightly using black highlights and white lighting to match the new iMacs, instead of green and blue of previous models (original SoundSticks and SoundSticks II respectively).[5]
Harman Kardon is a supplier of audio equipment to a variety of vehicle manufacturers including, BMW, Land Rover,[6] Mercedes-Benz, MINI, Saab, Harley-Davidson and Subaru.[7] Harman also market in car entertainment under the Mark Levinson brand for Lexus.[8]