A legacy of innovation: a short history of JBL and its contributions to sound systems and, more importantly, the world of entertainment.

JAMES B. LANSING BEGAN building loudspeakers under the JBL trademark in a tiny machine shop in San Marcos, California, in October of 1946. Records from the period are non-existent, but it's safe to assert that the only real asset the fledgling business had was the unique talents of its founder. A self-trained physicist, a skilled machinist, and a relentless perfectionist, Jim Lansing was uniquely endowed to revolutionize the world of audio.

Born James Martini in 1902 in Millwood, Illinois, the founder of JBL changed his name to James Bullough Lansing for reasons that are lost to history. As a boy he showed an early interest in the emerging electronics and audio technologies, and at the age of 12 he built a radio transmitter that was powerful enough to reach the Great Lakes Naval Station of Chicago nearly 200 miles away. Naval personnel were soon dispatched to supervise the dismantling of Lansing's transmitter.

After receiving a high school diploma in Springfield, Illinois, he worked briefly as an auto mechanic before taking a job at the Baldwin Loudspeaker Company in Salt Lake City in 1922. Two years later he moved to Los Angeles and established the Lansing Manufacturing Company to build 6" and 8" loudspeakers for the emerging audio industry.

Lansing's limited formal education belied his far-ranging intellect and commanding scientific skills. He taught himself differential and integral calculus for performing horn design calculations and also became a noted expert in magnetic theory. When it came time to put theory into practice he had the mechanical skills to machine any and all speaker components.

Two events in the 1920s signaled the start of what we now refer to as the audio industry. In 1922 electric radio technology spurred demand for home radio sets, and the 1927 release of The Jazz Singer ushered in the age of talking pictures. Initially, the only company in the world with the technical and manufacturing skills to supply these new markets was Western Electric, the manufacturing arm of American Telephone and Telegraph. However, Western Electric's virtual monopoly made it complacent, and the company ignored the pleas for more powerful sound systems from film studios and theater owners.

Western Electric's indifference created an opportunity for Lansing. In 1931 he teamed with MGM executive Douglas Shearer to create the Shearer Horn System. The speaker system represented such a dramatic improvement that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences presented Shearer and Lansing with a special award for technical excellence.

In 1938 the recently formed Federal Trade Commission ruled that Western Electric held an unfair monopoly in motion picture sound systems and ordered the company to divest itself of all loudspeaker operations. A group of Western Electric engineers bought the speaker operations and renamed it Altec Service Corp., short for "All Technical."

Altec had a lucrative business servicing cinema speaker systems but had limited expertise in designing and building speakers. Lansing had different problems. Although he produced exceptional products, he was never much of a businessman and constantly struggled to keep his business solvent. These mutual shortcomings led to a merger in 1941, creating the Altec-Lansing Corporation.

As vice-president of engineering at Altec-Lansing, Jim Lansing enjoyed one of his most fertile periods. He created specialized machinery for high-speed winding of flat-wire voice coils, and the hydraulic forming of aluminum speaker diaphragms. Five years later, though, he grew restless and decided to try launching his own company one more time. In October 1946 James B. Lansing Sound Company opened for business.

JBL's first product was the D101 15" loudspeaker. A year later came the D 175, a 15" speaker with a 4" voice coil that set new standards for power handling capabilities. During this time, he also pioneered the use of alnico magnets.

Although Lansing's primary focus was on serving the theater and radio markets, he played an early role in the development of rock 'n' roll. During the '40s he became friendly with Les Paul, and the two experimented extensively on speakers for optimizing an electric guitar. In the '50s, when Leo Fender began building amplifiers for his guitars, he naturally turned to Lansing for speakers.

While Lansing's company was making technical breakthroughs on a regular basis, it was also losing money at a rapid pace. All that kept the business afloat was an exceedingly generous credit line from Arnold Engineering, the manufacturer of alnico magnets. Robert Arnold, the company's president, hoped that Lansing's use of his magnets would prompt others to follow suit, so he was willing to offer extended terms. However, this generosity wasn't enough. In 1949 with the business on the brink of failure, Lansing took his own life. In a grim turn of events, a $10,000 life insurance policy the company held on him provided sufficient capital to turn things around.

From the founding of James B. Lansing Sound, Altec-Lansing objected to a competitor using the Lansing name. After years of legal haggling, William Thomas, who took over from Jim Lansing, resolved the issue of substituting the Lansing name for the initials "JBL." Thomas's other achievement was placing JBL on solid financial footing. In 1969, he sold the business to Harman/Kardon.

Harman/Kardon has evolved dramatically since 1969 from a specialty audio company into Harman International, a $3.0 billion (sales) electronics manufacturer and a leading supplier of "infotainment" systems for automakers like Mercedes, Toyota, Lexus, BMW, and Chrysler. The JBL brand and speaker-making expertise have been critical elements in every step of Harman's evolution. First, as a complement to high-end home audio receivers, then as a means of addressing the professional audio market, and most recently as a way of selling OEM audio systems to top automakers. Within Harman, the JBL brand is utilized by three divisions: the automotive business which sells JBL sound systems to carmakers on an OEM basis; the consumer division, which offers a variety of JBL sound products for home and personal use; and the JBL Professional division.