Although 2016 marks the 70th anniversary of founder James Bullough Lansing’s launch of Lansing Sound Inc. — which later became JBL — the story goes well beyond that.
The Early Days
The ninth of 14 children, James Lansing was born as James Martini on Jan. 14, 1902, in Macoupin County, IL. His father was a mining engineer and the boy took an interest in technology and according to lore, he built his small yet powerful radio transmitter at age 12. He attended high school and a business college, although he never had any formal electronics training.
He added the middle name Bullough and changed his last name to Lansing. After a few years working as an auto mechanic, he moved to Salt Lake City. In 1924 he took an engineering job at a radio station and then founded Lansing Manufacturing Company, focused on building radio speakers.
In 1927, Lansing moved his company to Los Angeles, just as talking motion pictures began evolving. Al Jolson’s mega-hit The Jazz Singer — even with its crude Vitaphone film+disc system — became an instant sensation and marked the end of the silent screen. Suddenly there was a demand for sound systems and Lansing was ready to get his piece of the pie.
Once the novelty of talking pictures wore off, audiences wanted better sound. MGM sound chief Douglas Shearer was dissatisfied with the existing 5k Hz bandwidth systems. He set off to create an improved system and brought in various experts to the team, including Lansing, who worked on the project for four years.
The resulting Shearer Horn was a two-way system with a large multicellular horn coupled through a “Y” throat adapter to Lansing 284 compression drivers. Low-end was handled by a “W” bin folded horn loaded with two 15-inch Lansing woofers. This Shearer-Lansing system was an immediate hit and was awarded a technical Academy Award in 1936. Perhaps more importantly was its role in launching an entire new industry of pro audio awareness for fidelity.
In 1937, Lansing developed the Iconic, the first studio monitor, a fairly compact two-way system with a 15-inch woofer and compression driver/ multicell horn. Among the many fans on the Iconic system was Les Paul, who used them in his recording studio.
Unfortunately, Ken Decker — who ran the business side of Lansing’s company since its inception — was killed in a 1939 plane crash. Lansing Manufacturing began a downhill slide and was sold to Altec Service Corporation, becoming Altec Lansing in 1941, with Lansing as its VP of engineering. During his five-year tenure there, Lansing led with classic products such as 1944’s 604 15-inch coaxial and laid the groundwork for the A-7 Voice of the Theatre — an industry standard for more than half a century.
The Genesis of JBL
Wanting the freedom of his own company, Lansing left and, on Oct. 1, 1946, founded Lansing Sound, Inc. After a legal challenge from Altec Lansing, the name became James B. Lansing Sound. His first products were copies of the theater sound products he developed for Altec Lansing.
Although a bright engineer, he was unskilled in running a business. Suffering from depression and in serious debt, he committed suicide in 1949.
Thanks to a $10,000 insurance policy taken out a few years earlier, the company was able to continue operating under the leadership of its treasurer William Thomas. He later bought shares owned by Lansing’s widow and shortened the company name to JBL.
The timing was right. Cinema and P.A. products were doing well, the Hi-Fi craze opened the home audio market and JBL started working with Leo Fender to develop speakers for instrument amps, such as the D-130. The 1960’s brought demands for improved studio monitors, and in the late-60’s, the JBL Professional division was launched, with the consumer side simply called JBL.
The Harman Years
In 1969, Sidney Harman, co-founder of stereo company Harman-Kardon, acquired JBL, and both the consumer and pro sides of the company prospered and developed new designs, including the 100,000+ selling L100 stereo speakers and the 4311 studio monitors.
Whether used individually or shared between its divisions (or even within the Harman Pro family) JBL has always been about the spirit of innovation set into place by James Lansing so long ago. These have been numerous over the years, but certainly include JBL’s mid-1970’s Symmetrical Field Geometry developed as a means of eliminating DC flux modulation in the voice coil; the late-1980’s Vented Gap Cooling, which significantly improved heat transfer from the voice coil; or the Differential Drive woofers with their in-line dual voice coils.
However, these were not simply technologies for discovery’s sake, but found their way into products such as 1995’s then-radical EON molded 2-way loudspeakers, which as later generation versions, continue in production and have sold hundreds of thousands of units worldwide. Another such example is the VerTec line array system, which employed both the Radiation Boundary Integrator as well as Differential Drive woofers and made its debut at the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
Perhaps one of the strengths of the JBL Professional brand is the interconnection of shared technologies with other Harman Pro companies, such as Crown, BSS, Lexicon, dbx, etc. — within its product offerings. Harman HiQnet networking/control, JBL/Crown DrivePack modules and BSS Soundweb are just a examples few of this synergy, which continues to strengthen the entire brand. In fact, it’s probably something that even James B. Lansing himself would have been proud of.
For more information, please visit related websites www.harman.com and www.jblpro.com.
