JBL

JBL audio technology for studios, stages and installations

JBL is one of the leading manufacturers of high-quality audio components for live events, studio work and fixed installations. Alongside professional studio monitors such as the LSR Series, JBL produces the well-known loudspeakers of the Control Series. Its professional PA range also includes products from the EON Series as well as the VRX, MRX and SRX Series. Read more…

JBL: history, innovation and professional audio technology

The history of JBL began with James Bullough Lansing, an inventive engineer with an early interest in technology and sound reproduction. After finishing school, he attended several college courses, worked as an automotive mechanic in the 1920s and later became an engineer at a radio station. He eventually founded the Lansing Manufacturing Company, which specialised in producing radio loudspeakers.

With the rise of sound film, Lansing became an expert in cinema sound. Between 1933 and 1935, Douglas Shearer and James B. Lansing developed a horn-loaded loudspeaker system that significantly improved sound reproduction in cinemas. The resulting Shearer-Lansing system proved so successful that it received an award for outstanding technical quality from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1936.

Following a period of economic difficulty, the company name first evolved into J.B.L. and later into JBL. In the early 1960s, JBL worked with Capitol Records, then home to artists including the Beatles and the Beach Boys, to develop monitor loudspeakers for recording studios. This collaboration led to the successful 4320 system. Since then, JBL has continued to develop professional audio components for recording studios around the world.

In the mid-1970s, JBL engineers introduced Symmetrical Field Geometry™, a technology designed to reduce loudspeaker distortion. A few years later, the company developed Bi-Radial® horn technology, which improved sound dispersion and performance across a broad frequency range.