Insights In Sound 207 – Mark Gander, Harman/JBL – S21 E7

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0:2727 secondsWe are live from the NAM show. The Harmon JBL truck. Is that what we’re calling it? I don’t know. It’s a big
0:3636 secondstruck and we’re in the middle of it with the illustrious Mr. Mark Gander. Um
0:4545 secondsI could rewind like 40 50 years and you’d already still be there. Well, I spent 40 40 plus years at at uh the JBL
0:5353 secondsdivision of Harmon and saw saw Sydney sell it and buy it back again.
0:5959 secondsAnd you are one of the few people who actually dates back to the original James B. Lancing. No, no, he died in 1949. Did Did he really?
1:071 minute, 7 secondsYeah, he died very very early on. Um,
1:101 minute, 10 secondswhat I always wanted to do though, you know, JBL was this magic thing that made these special speakers that everybody
1:171 minute, 17 secondsused for everything from guitar amps to to studio monitors to whatever. So, I,
1:221 minute, 22 secondsyou know, I chose to to uh pick a career at JBL and move forward
1:301 minute, 30 secondswith that. And but part of doing that was me wanting to know, well, who were those guys in the 1950s and60s? you
1:361 minute, 36 secondsknow, the these names that some people still know like George Alexberger, Ed May, Bart Lanthy that created these speakers and uh so I I sought them out,
1:491 minute, 49 secondsyou know, sort of on my own time just to to educate myself and um I I was I joined
1:581 minute, 58 secondsJBL Harmon in uh the mid70s and uh because of my background in
2:042 minutes, 4 secondscollege education and and interest. I I wanted to move over into marketing into communicating with customers. And so
2:132 minutes, 13 secondsthat’s what led me to to be a product manager and a uh uh then then a uh well
2:212 minutes, 21 secondsI started as an application engineer answering phone calls. So a lot of people know me from from the early early 80s. The guy on the phone that would be
2:302 minutes, 30 secondspolite and give them answers to their polite. I I tried to I was I was a personable guy but then uh moved into
2:382 minutes, 38 secondsproduct management and then uh when I joined JBL Pro uh a guy named Ron Means came over from the university division
2:472 minutes, 47 secondsof Altech and took over management of what was just called the pro division then and it was only seven or eight million dollars of annual sales but it
2:562 minutes, 56 secondshad this huge potential. So uh he brought me out of engineering and added
3:023 minutes, 2 secondssome other people and by 1983 we were actually made our own company as as a JBL professional.
3:103 minutes, 10 secondsDid you have a marketing background at all? I started at Syracuse University.
3:153 minutes, 15 secondsUh I started in a physics department and thought I was going to be a physicist or some kind of technical.
3:213 minutes, 21 secondsUm where did you go wrong? But I you know it was it was early ‘7s and you know I was I was I loved music and I was
3:293 minutes, 29 secondsfollowing the bands and Well, you were one of the first ponytails at the company. That’s true. That Yeah, that’s that’s true.
3:353 minutes, 35 secondsYou definitely you be and and and that’s one of the things I think is interesting is that the company was kind of um sty well it was a technical company and
3:453 minutes, 45 secondsand you know JBL was more of like it was like Intel inside. It was it wasn’t it it wasn’t known as its own thing. It was
3:523 minutes, 52 secondsbasically known within the industry of people who made stuff. Yep.
3:563 minutes, 56 secondsAnd I think you were one of the people who kind of brought it out and, you know, introducing portable PAs and stuff like that and really bringing it out to be its own entity.
4:064 minutes, 6 secondsThat was one of my uh my big calling cards. I did a number of hi-fi speakers when I first joined the company, L40,
4:134 minutes, 13 secondsL50, L220, you know, uh just hi-fi stuff. But there were these languishing product requests, particularly one for
4:214 minutes, 21 secondsfor musician speaker systems, and I picked that up and created the Cabaret series, which first launched in 1979.
4:294 minutes, 29 secondsAnd that was, you know, arguably one of the first lines of of portable PA for musicians. you know, taking the the JBL
4:384 minutes, 38 secondstransducers that everybody respected and handled lots of power and worked well and putting them in a a box that was,
4:454 minutes, 45 secondsyou know, perhaps a little bit overdesigned, but really performed very very well.
4:504 minutes, 50 secondsI thought it was great. You know, people embraced it. Yeah. You you see the difference in the timeline. I mean there’s a timeline out there in the front of the booth and you really see
4:584 minutes, 58 secondsthe difference of when you came into this because really at that point it it became more I would say B TOC versus B2B you know it
5:075 minutes, 7 secondswas much more of customer consumerf facing thing where you know you really were talking about like who’s using our product you know
5:155 minutes, 15 secondsand what are they using it for and what problems are they having using it and I you know I’ve got lots of stories about you know working with
5:235 minutes, 23 secondsmanufacturers ing uh bringing uh ideas back from customers and talking to the engineers about them. you know what know when I wasn’t an engineer anymore but I
5:325 minutes, 32 secondswas the liaison back and forth and answer your question when I went to Syracuse University uh I uh immediately
5:405 minutes, 40 secondsjoined the college radio station and they had a very active concert board and a a great little club called Jabberwocki and I you know the the third week that
5:495 minutes, 49 secondsMahavishna Orchestra was together they came up and play played our club for two nights and I did a a remote through a
5:555 minutes, 55 secondslittle sure uh mixer and and uh And though those those tapes are online on on
6:036 minutes, 3 secondsYouTube and you know we did dozens and dozens of of name acts that way and that’s how I learned to do PA
6:126 minutes, 12 secondsuh was was doing that the kind of PA at the club and around the campus with the the products that that the concert that the student fee funded.
6:236 minutes, 23 secondsRight. Right. What was available in the during at that part during that time? Yeah.
6:286 minutes, 28 secondsVery very early days in faders early ‘7s. No, no, there was big knobs. Knobs big like knobs. Yeah. You know, you mentioned something there that makes me
6:366 minutes, 36 secondsthink, you know, we also have to credit the times because those were times when a lot of new music was coming out when the music
6:436 minutes, 43 secondsindustry and the live sound industry were all going through so many changes and such big evolutions and you guys were really kind of at the forefront of a lot of that. Well, uh, you know,
6:546 minutes, 54 secondsthat’s, uh, I I got a degree at Syracuse, but, it ended up being a a a bachelor of science degree in the arts
7:027 minutes, 2 secondsand sciences school because I took all these courses. I took aology, I took electronic music, I, you know, I started with my physics and engineering classes,
7:107 minutes, 10 secondsbut I took all this stuff, anything to do with sound. I thought I was going to be a recording engineer course. um and graduated and in 7475 there was a
7:207 minutes, 20 secondsrecession and there wasn’t any work for recording engineers. So I went on the road with a band and then used that band PA to do you know lots of one-off
7:297 minutes, 29 secondsconcert gigs with Muddy Waters and Gary Burton and and Orleans and you know all different kinds of bands doing one-offs
7:377 minutes, 37 secondsat colleges and and little venues and a lot of different genres too obviously.
7:417 minutes, 41 secondsYeah. And that you know that again that wonderful variety.
7:447 minutes, 44 secondsYeah. But just like uh well when id started out uh and went to college, you know, I thought I was going to be a musician. I was still taking organ lessons.
7:537 minutes, 53 secondsWe were all going to be rock stars. And you know,
7:567 minutes, 56 secondsit’s very important to follow your passion, but it’s also very important to to understand your limitations,
8:048 minutes, 4 secondsunderstand if you’re just really not,
8:078 minutes, 7 secondsyou know, good enough to make it as a musician, which is the, you know, the most competitive. And I so I I set my
8:158 minutes, 15 secondssights on I can work with musicians. I can use my technical skills and work with musicians. And that uh that led me
8:248 minutes, 24 secondsto to this this technical path. And I took so I took this year off and I but after after a year I said I’m tired of
8:338 minutes, 33 secondsplugging in cannon cables and and you know lifting heavy objects for a living and went back to graduate school and got into a couple different programs and
8:418 minutes, 41 secondswent to Georgia Tech that had a a acoustical engineering program.
8:458 minutes, 45 secondsUhhuh. So I I I filled in some of the engineering that I hadn’t done uh and
8:528 minutes, 52 secondsgot a master’s degree in electrical engineering with this special acoustical engineering certificate. So when I then
9:019 minutes, 1 secondwas looking for jobs, I got job offers from Panasonic and Altech and JBL. And another key decision I made was these
9:109 minutes, 10 secondsguys want me to do do electronics. And there’s lots of guys doing electronics,
9:149 minutes, 14 secondsbut JBL wants me to do speakers. And there aren’t that many people doing speakers. And I think that’d be really neat to do speakers. So in 1976, I joined JBL as a transducer engineer.
9:269 minutes, 26 secondsNow, when you were looking at speaker technology,
9:319 minutes, 31 secondswhere’s the marketing part of that come in? I Where did you start to realize that, you know, this is not just designing a product. This is really like
9:399 minutes, 39 secondslooking at the end user and marketing to the end user and all of that.
9:429 minutes, 42 secondsWell, you know, I came to JBL, I was working in engineering, but I was, you know, talking across to the the professional division at the time
9:519 minutes, 51 secondsand I realized they weren’t really taking advantage of all the opportunities that there were there.
9:579 minutes, 57 secondsThey were just sort of taking orders for,
9:599 minutes, 59 secondsyou know, the same speakers that Lancing had made 20 years earlier, 30 years earlier. And that was frustrating to me.
10:0710 minutes, 7 secondsSo I, you know, I extricated this product request for this cabaret series stuff. I also was the guy that that cut
10:1510 minutes, 15 secondsthe ports in the uh in the uh Perkins bins, the 4550 and 4560. So they were cuz they had come across and somebody
10:2410 minutes, 24 secondswas afraid that they were going to bottom out the woofers. So they didn’t even port the double 15 box. And and the single 15 box was the the the the
10:3310 minutes, 33 seconds4560 Perkins bin, which is, you know, is to this day is handbuilt by a million people and and an industry standard, but
10:4010 minutes, 40 secondswe made it a cutout across the top that the to put in one of the little radio horns and it became the J7 to compete
10:4710 minutes, 47 secondswith the Altech A7 voice for the theater.
10:5010 minutes, 50 secondsUm, so I did I did little projects like that that were floating around and I said, I want to do this more and I want to talk to the customers more. So when
10:5810 minutes, 58 secondsthis man Ron Means came over from University Division of Altech, uh he was looking to to restart the the pro
11:0611 minutes, 6 secondsdivision and I raised my hand and I was application engineer for a year or two and and then we grew the business
11:1411 minutes, 14 secondstremendously and and it became, you know, I became a product manager and then by by 83 uh they actually made us
11:2211 minutes, 22 secondsour own sub company within the the Harmon Empire and And because we were you know we we doubled tripled
11:3011 minutes, 30 secondsquadrupled the volume just by paying attention to the customers. One thing means brought across uh was the vertical
11:3711 minutes, 37 secondsmarket approach is focusing on the individual disciplines.
11:4211 minutes, 42 secondsGood point because JBL would you know JBL had all these wonderful transducers that everybody wanted but it it’s how do you interface them
11:5011 minutes, 50 secondsfor the cinema business? you know, we were making studio monitors. Yeah. And selling those handover fist as a because
11:5811 minutes, 58 secondsthe studio business hadn’t collapsed yet.
12:0012 minutesWell, and and now the studio business also that’s a unique thing because you know again you had to adapt those speakers for right and and not only for
12:0912 minutes, 9 secondsthe studio market but then there were individual needs within each studio because every studio owner,
12:1512 minutes, 15 secondsyou know, every studio owner was pnikity about that, you know. Um I worked at uh I worked at Cherokee for several years
12:2212 minutes, 22 secondsand you know the Robs were one of my first uh and they wanted custom design. I mean you know and I know they weren’t the
12:3012 minutes, 30 secondsonly ones you know and and so you know just think and that was my forte was interfacing talking to the the engineers and the
12:3812 minutes, 38 secondsstudio owners. Um uh one of my uh big uh areas of interest because my background in PA was the tour sound companies. You know, we called them our racing teams.
12:4812 minutes, 48 secondsYeah. Dave Shadone and I have had a lot of conversations about my work with my name come up just a little. Yeah.
12:5412 minutes, 54 secondsHe used he used to call me the RCA dog of of JBL.
12:5812 minutes, 58 secondsWell, and and that’s what I mean. You know, the fact that you understood early on not only that we have these different vertical markets, but that each of them needs their own special touch. Yep.
13:0913 minutes, 9 secondsThat’s a marketing thing. And yet, you know, it’s a communication thing.
13:1413 minutes, 14 secondsIt is. And you have to be able to translate that. That’s the point that that I think I’m trying to make is that you you have to be able to talk to each of these people and and understand the voice that you’re speaking to them in,
13:2513 minutes, 25 secondsright? Because they they really are, you know,
13:2813 minutes, 28 secondsthey all want the same thing, but they all want something different.
13:3013 minutes, 30 secondsYep. They want to differentiate themselves. Yeah,
13:3313 minutes, 33 secondscuz I mean for instance the PA guys, you know, one one guy would use the the uh the K120 12 in with the aluminum dome
13:4213 minutes, 42 secondsfor his mid-range in his PA. And somebody else said, “No, I can’t have that.” And so we had a different transducer called the 2202 that had some different characteristics. So it had to be designed in a little bit differently,
13:5113 minutes, 51 secondsbut that was also the same 12-in frame and and motor structure, but uh with with different characteristics. So, so
13:5913 minutes, 59 secondsin each of those cases there JBL was and and JBL was also able to provide specific modified uh transducers. You
14:0814 minutes, 8 secondsknow, if you’re if if you’re Ricky Far at Electrotte and you’re going to buy 400 loudspeakers at once, yeah, we’ll
14:1514 minutes, 15 secondswind your 4 in a 4 ohm coil instead of an 8 ohm coil or whatever. So that but again my knowledge and my entree into
14:2414 minutes, 24 secondsboth engineering and uh manufacturing about what’s doable, what’s a what’s a pain and what’s really going to be
14:3114 minutes, 31 secondsdifficult to do and and and choosing those things and directing uh so that everybody gets something on their own.
14:3914 minutes, 39 secondsAnd then the same thing as you point out on the studio side, you know, somebody wants a lens, somebody wants some other kind of a horn, you know, and and they can each provide a different solution.
14:5014 minutes, 50 secondsAnd it has to be interfaced though, you know, is it going to be in a Tom Hidley set or is it going to be out front on a stand or what what how how is it going
14:5814 minutes, 58 secondsto be used in your room? Uh and so that was all fascinating. And also uh as the 80s went on, we we took over the cinema
15:0715 minutes, 7 secondsbusiness from from Altech. Altech, you know, had all sorts of management and financial problems and they were not
15:1515 minutes, 15 secondssupporting the customers and they just thought it was a birthright that everybody’s going to buy a voice of the theater for their dubbing rooms or for whatever. And
15:2215 minutes, 22 secondsfor the longest time it was because for the longest time it was.
15:2615 minutes, 26 secondsBut, you know, the the 40s turned into the 50s and 60s and 70s and by the 80s they you know, the Altech stuff was breaking. It was not reliable anymore.
15:3715 minutes, 37 secondsAnd movies were different, too. The way they were making movies was different,
15:4015 minutes, 40 secondsyou know, and and that’s when you started to get into the early days of of quote unquote immersive.
15:4615 minutes, 46 secondsAB: Absolutely. No, no. Well, it’s it started in uh in the 80s uh with the the transition from the voice of the theater
15:5515 minutes, 55 secondsto uh the constant director horn that Don Keiel did with with a guy named Fanter Murray who did the compression
16:0216 minutes, 2 secondsdriver with still a 4-in diaphragm compression driver, but it had a diamond surround that controlled the high frequency energy. And then uh when I was
16:1116 minutes, 11 secondsstill at engineering, I developed a a 15-inch transducer called a 2225 that was a very very low distortion 15. And
16:2016 minutes, 20 secondsbut now this was in a direct radiator ported box. No longer the the horn-loaded box cuz the hornloaded box was uneven. It was more efficient. But when you had multiund watt amplifiers,
16:3016 minutes, 30 secondsyou didn’t need to have that efficiency like you did when you know the 60 watt amplifier was the biggest thing that was available. And again horses for courses
16:3916 minutes, 39 secondsessentially you know you have different you have completely different use case at that point you know.
16:4416 minutes, 44 secondsYep. Absolutely. So, and uh so that that evolved through the 80s was the the
16:5016 minutes, 50 secondssystem the nomenclature was 4675 was a big biraial horn 215s direct radiator.
16:5816 minutes, 58 secondsUm and uh that became the industry standard by 75 I’m sorry by 8586
17:0517 minutes, 5 secondsthe Motion Picture Academy actually changed over from the old Alteex behind the screen at the Goldwin Theater. the the Academy Reference Theater changed
17:1317 minutes, 13 secondsover to the to the uh to the JBL systems and a lot of that had to do with John Urgl who was a you know a a real
17:2117 minutes, 21 secondsthere’s a name a real seminal name fabulous uh classical recording engineer and a uh a real prince of audio in terms
17:3017 minutes, 30 secondsof past AES president and he and I worked together intimately. He actually joined as a consultant in 76 when I first joined JBL. And over the years,
17:4217 minutes, 42 secondsyou know, so I would work with him, but over the years later in the 80s, he he uh he he worked for me as a consultant,
17:5017 minutes, 50 secondsbut we were we were very great colleagues obviously and we uh we you know published a number of AES papers together and did a lot of
17:5817 minutes, 58 secondseducational endeavors and that uh he he really taught me and taught other
18:0518 minutes, 5 secondspeople and led the the charge in this changeover in the cinema business. And then by the ‘9s, it went from two-way to three-way, you know, it it I was just going to ask you about that.
18:1618 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. When when all of the biamping and trimping started to come into into play,
18:2118 minutes, 21 secondsdid how did that change the way you configured things?
18:2318 minutes, 23 secondsWell, you you had to say, well, what what are the problems? What do we what do people want? And there were lots of challenges because a lot of people, you
18:3118 minutes, 31 secondsknow, even go going to the big by radio horn at two-way. Uh, but then moving on and wanting to go into three-way, a a
18:4018 minutes, 40 secondslot of the the the dubbing houses and the in the studios said, “This is too clean. I’m used to that grit in the mid-range, you know, that’s where
18:4818 minutes, 48 secondseverything that’s that’s where I get my intelligibility.” So, it it had to be sort of massaged and evolved for them to say, “Well, you know, that’s true. It is
18:5618 minutes, 56 secondsdistortion.” So, you know, can we get it to be to be forward and clear without distortion? And so, you know, again, a
19:0619 minutes, 6 secondslot of this was subjective things that you really again have to talk to the mixers, talk to the to the the the
19:1319 minutes, 13 secondspeople running the the the studios and what what is it that’s going to solve their problem or evolve to get a better
19:2219 minutes, 22 secondssolution from what they’re used to doing? And that that’s keeping them, you know, it’s in some ways holding them back, but it’s, you know, you got to
19:3119 minutes, 31 secondsdeliver a product. So, how we how are we gonna make this work? And those were those were fascinating uh engagements and discussions and we were just very
19:3919 minutes, 39 secondsvery consistent. Uh the uh myself as vice president of marketing which was also in charge of product development, a guy named Ken Lopez who was the vice
19:4819 minutes, 48 secondspresident of sales all through the 80s and into the early 90s. uh and and uh we would go personally down to to Deluxe
19:5719 minutes, 57 secondsLabs and the Warers and to to the different studios and and interface with them and provide them a JBL solution.
20:0420 minutes, 4 secondsAnd that’s that is how the cinema thing took over. But all all through the same 1980s period was the the growth of the the installation business. You know,
20:1420 minutes, 14 secondseverything from big stadiums to little speakers for restaurants and retail.
20:1820 minutes, 18 secondsYeah. in in ‘ 86 we first did the little uh control one the little oval box uh four and a half inch two-way. Yeah.
20:2620 minutes, 26 secondsAnd you know I remember those and there was a quasi religious fervor about you know all the JBL supporters said you can’t do a cheap speaker from JBL.
20:3420 minutes, 34 secondsWell no if it’s good quality and good performance if it’s value and you know and that ended up being a huge huge
20:4220 minutes, 42 secondssuccess. I think control series is still probably the largest single uh product group at at JBL Professional
20:5020 minutes, 50 secondsand we uh uh by using that that concept and expanding it and a guy named Rick Camelet was the product manager, you
20:5820 minutes, 58 secondsknow, who just retired from JBL. He, you know, he we we expanded it to to onwall
21:0521 minutes, 5 secondssurface mount speakers to more of the smaller boxes but in different sizes to pendant speakers. pendant speakers, the ceiling mount speakers,
21:1421 minutes, 14 secondsall that stuff. And that, you know, that became a huge portion of the business,
21:1921 minutes, 19 secondsbut we also invested, we actually bought Stan Miller’s uh shop in Carne,
21:2421 minutes, 24 secondsNebraska, and turned that into our custom shop. So, we would then interface with the consultants who were doing these big stadium systems, and they needed special configurations, again,
21:3521 minutes, 35 secondslike you were talking about with the studios. Well, here it is for the installation business. And we have special configurations of the uh the the
21:4421 minutes, 44 secondsloudspeaker systems that you know are are whether they’re they’re big central arrays or distributed arrays or or just
21:5321 minutes, 53 secondsdistributed loudspeakers in in zones all that you know and that was all developed with WJHW Jack writes and and Ron Baker
22:0122 minutes, 1 secondand his team and and you know so many other names that I could drop of of Craig Jans distributed audio that’s another thing that really kind of changed change the
22:1022 minutes, 10 secondsgame a whole lot because all of a sudden you don’t have to be projecting from one place. You’re more thinking about how can I maintain consistency over these
22:1822 minutes, 18 secondsdifferent zones so you don’t have dead zones and stuff like that, you know?
22:2222 minutes, 22 secondsAbsolutely. And that’s that’s where that went. Uh and and through this all we were still following through with studio monitors. By the 80s, it became the by radio monitors with the the butt cheeks,
22:3522 minutes, 35 secondswhich you know, which that was JBL’s countering to Bill Putnham doing the the 813, taking the the Altech coax and
22:4422 minutes, 44 secondsputting a good network to it. Uh Dean uh Dean,
22:4822 minutes, 48 secondswhat was your relationship with Bill Putnham? I mean, you guys were were kind of for like friendly competitors for the longest time.
22:5322 minutes, 53 secondsWell, until 82 or 83, whenever it was that that Bill decided I need to get out. I’m I’m a little have some health issues and whatever and he sold it to Sydney.
23:0223 minutes, 2 secondsYeah.
23:0223 minutes, 2 secondsAnd you know and I was again in charge of marketing and product development when you all founded we had to interface URI
23:1123 minutes, 11 secondswith JBL and there were some cultural things because they had what I’m wondering always been their their own masters and now they were sort of
23:1823 minutes, 18 secondsvery different different company cultures I think.
23:2123 minutes, 21 secondsAbsolutely. But but we worked through that, you know, and we did a lot of great product and Brad Plunkett, the chief engineer, you know, finally
23:3023 minutes, 30 secondsreluctantly because he didn’t want to compete with his his associates around the LA area, finally did a line of amplifiers, the 6200 amplifiers, and
23:3823 minutes, 38 secondsthey were they were those were amazing,
23:4023 minutes, 40 secondsfully complimentary, you know, very very high quality.
23:4423 minutes, 44 secondsUm, and you know, and and many many other things. So that that you know that that for me you know overall I’m just
23:5223 minutes, 52 secondsI’m I’m kind of parading through the different vertical markets but for me it was the variety. It was the v variety of interest where I could take
24:0024 minutesthat in many cases that same compression driver or even that same woofer or a variant of that same woofer and put it
24:0724 minutes, 7 secondsin a different Yeah. a different system configuration that solved the specific problem uh for
24:1424 minutes, 14 secondsthe you know the for contracting install for studio for you know many different types of custom
24:2224 minutes, 22 secondsapplications. So it was just a joy for me to be able to could kind of jump around from area to area and learn
24:3124 minutes, 31 secondsenough to know that I was really solving problems but also you know creating and expanding markets for JBL professional.
24:4024 minutes, 40 secondsNow another thing that really I think impacted the development of all this was as we moved to digitally. you were
24:4724 minutes, 47 secondstalking earlier about distortion and and about, you know, I mean, I think when we were all on 2-in tape,
24:5324 minutes, 53 secondsthere was a certain blurring and blending that was actually part of the audio process, right? And as things started moving to digital, of course,
25:0325 minutes, 3 secondsyou know, we won’t we won’t talk about the early days of digital when everybody went that sounds like breaking glass,
25:0825 minutes, 8 secondsyou know, but as well and even the scientists didn’t really understand about aliasing filters and group delay and And so everybody had
25:1825 minutes, 18 secondseven Sonia and Phillips and you know even the leaders had to recognize and they had to to listen to the Bob Clear
25:2625 minutes, 26 secondsMountains and the Bruce Jacksons. Oh, I remember the first, you know, when we had one of the first uh the the 24 track digital, the Sony,
25:3325 minutes, 33 secondsthey they brought it into Cherokee and and literally within 24 hours D said,
25:3625 minutes, 36 seconds”Get that thing out of here. It’s going to the alley.” you know and so I mean there was that evolution but at the same time you guys had to evolve the
25:4525 minutes, 45 secondsdevelopment of your loudspeaker systems to to accommodate that change as well and really you know work through the idea of
25:5425 minutes, 54 secondsokay now I could I mean what it comes down to is oh my god I can hear everything. Yeah.
25:5925 minutes, 59 secondsYou know and how does that how does that change has been lifted?
26:0226 minutes, 2 secondsYeah. Yeah. I mean that that must have been a radical change for you guys in that sense too.
26:0626 minutes, 6 secondsYeah. It was an education, you know, it but again, if you’re paying attention,
26:1226 minutes, 12 secondsif you’re not just sitting back and well, I’ll just take orders for whatever we’re selling and you know if you want
26:1826 minutes, 18 secondsto evolve uh that you’ve got to have people that pay attention. one of the vertical market, you know, philosophies,
26:2626 minutes, 26 secondsyou know, it it took us many years, but to have, you know, uh starting with just two guys and each guy had three vertical
26:3426 minutes, 34 secondsmarkets that, you know, that were similar enough that they could address each of them. And as as years go went on, we had more vertical market managers
26:4226 minutes, 42 secondsand product managers that that could specialize and and the business flourished. you know, we we ma made and
26:5126 minutes, 51 secondssold a lot of speakers enough to fund increasing staff and and uh uh supporting the investigations to to to to move the development along.
27:0227 minutes, 2 secondsNo kidding. Well, and I mean I I think it’s interesting also that over this period of time, I mean there have always been there’s always been other
27:1027 minutes, 10 secondscompanies, especially in the live sound arena, who have, you know, come up and been the big dog for a while and then,
27:1527 minutes, 15 secondsyou know, and and yet I think whereas maybe you guys haven’t always had the numbers in that sense, you’ve always
27:2227 minutes, 22 secondsbeen you’ve always had the numbers in the sense of of the breadth of market being omniresent in every market, you know. Well, again,
27:3127 minutes, 31 secondsit’s it’s a it’s a fundamental uh tenant of JBL, back to Lancing himself, to to
27:3827 minutes, 38 secondsdo innovation, to to use the latest uh diaphragm material, to use the latest magnet material, to say, “Well, at
27:4627 minutes, 46 secondsAltech, I use 3-in voice coils. Let’s do 4in voice coils at at JBL.” And that
27:5327 minutes, 53 secondsphilosophy has has followed through, you know, all of the last 80 years. You
28:0028 minutesknow, 2026, JBL will be be 80 years old when Lancing Lancing left Altech and started JBL in 1946.
28:0928 minutes, 9 secondsAnd uh the the uh the standard of of pushing the envelope of searching things out. I mean, in the in the 80s, it was titanium, you know,
28:2128 minutes, 21 secondsfinding out that, you know, for years we’d been using aluminum foil and and pressure forming it in in dyes and tools
28:2928 minutes, 29 secondsand and all of a sudden we found out that, you know, down the road in Burbag,
28:3328 minutes, 33 secondsLockheed was making titanium foil in two or three mil uh uh thickness. Yeah, that was a big change.
28:4128 minutes, 41 secondsThat was a big change. and it both for the big compression drivers uh for the PA systems and the big monitors and just
28:4828 minutes, 48 secondsmaking little 1-in dome tweeters uh out of the out of the titanium.
28:5228 minutes, 52 secondsAll of a sudden, you didn’t have poked in.
28:5428 minutes, 54 secondsWell, yeah. Well, and you know, it was always a big problem, you know, in the especially in the growth of the the uh rock and roll PA business in the 70s
29:0229 minutes, 2 secondsthat people would turn it up until the diaphragm hit the phasing plug and that’s all she wrote, you know, and titanium could, you know, not that it’s
29:1129 minutes, 11 secondsthe right thing to do, but it could handle some of that. So, the reliability factor was was was very good. Well, you know, I know from the studios that I
29:1929 minutes, 19 secondsworked at that we we regularly changed out cones even when they didn’t need it because we knew that they were going to Yeah. There was going to, you know, they were getting a lot of abuse.
29:2929 minutes, 29 secondsMhm.
29:2929 minutes, 29 secondsAnd you know, I think that was I I think to a certain extent that was kind of your proving ground was, you know, the the concert industry and the studio
29:3729 minutes, 37 secondsindustry. Absolutely. That’s where we those are the racing teams pumping the out of it. And we find out what breaks and why it breaks
29:4429 minutes, 44 secondsand you know provide solutions and uh Yep. And that but again you had to have
29:5029 minutes, 50 secondsuh marketing and product people uh and even the salespeople had to be communicative. Yes. Yes.
29:5829 minutes, 58 secondsThat was you know at at Syracuse I I was actually I took a lot of courses in the the New House school. Um, I my my
30:0630 minutes, 6 secondspart-time work in the the first couple years of college was actually uh building uh and designing the new radio
30:1230 minutes, 12 secondsstation studios and the the ATRA studio at the the new new house uh uh facility that that was funded by Sam New House at Syracuse. Oh yeah,
30:2330 minutes, 23 secondsbig stuff man. Oh, a nice a nice a nice ne and ax MM1000 and and I got to spec
30:3130 minutes, 31 secondsthis this this young sophomore guy cuz the you know the audio services they didn’t know any better and I proved to
30:3830 minutes, 38 secondsthem you know that I knew what the right stuff was and that was a it was a joy to do and and then I got I got paid to to
30:4530 minutes, 45 secondswire it up and install it. myself uh but taking courses at the New House School
30:5230 minutes, 52 secondsin communications philosophy and uh understanding that that’s that’s the basis by which I could later on at JBL
31:0231 minutes, 2 secondsin the 80s I could be a VP of marketing even though I wasn’t a schooled marketing uh you know didn’t have a degree in marketing but I I I knew uh
31:1131 minutes, 11 secondscustomer interface yeah you want to if you can communicate if you can listen and not just assume
31:1831 minutes, 18 secondsyou know what’s going on, you can uh you can really uh uh you can really succeed.
31:2431 minutes, 24 secondsAnd we we built JBL Professional into a huge machine over the course of the 80s and and into the 90s and uh you know did so did so many different uh areas.
31:3531 minutes, 35 secondsBecause I mean the Eon was a revolution,
31:3731 minutes, 37 secondsyou know, that the that that molded powered speaker integration. Um you know, you go into
31:4431 minutes, 44 secondsthe the the the 2000s and you’ve got Vertech, the line array. You know, we were kind of the second generation after L acoustics with the VOS.
31:5331 minutes, 53 secondsThat’s a that’s an industry standard at this point.
31:5531 minutes, 55 secondsVer you know, had a lot of a lot of wonderful technical innovations.
32:0032 minuteseverything from the rigging to the uh radiation boundary integrator to to inter interface the the mids and the
32:0632 minutes, 6 secondshighs and and then uh you know one of my personal points of pride is is uh the
32:1432 minutes, 14 secondsthe VRX the little constant curvature line array that we came out with in I think 2007 that we first came out with that and that that was just you know it
32:2232 minutes, 22 secondswas it’s still to this day one of the top selling product areas because it’s so flexible. You can you can use one as
32:3032 minutes, 30 secondsa foot light speaker, you know, but you you can also use a whole you can use a couple of them on a pole on a subwoofer or you can make a make a
32:3732 minutes, 37 secondsfull array and it’s you know it’s it that versatility, you know, and you you look around the industry now uh 20 years later and you know everybody
32:4632 minutes, 46 secondshas has followed through on it and and it’s it’s very very successful and I’m I’m pleased that that could be one of the JBL things that I contributed that
32:5532 minutes, 55 secondsJBL le led the industry in. Well, I think another thing that I I don’t know that you may may or may not have been
33:0233 minutes, 2 secondspersonally responsible for, but I know that you played a big hand in was bringing in people who were actually on the front lines. You know, the people
33:1033 minutes, 10 secondswho because I mean, who’s going to know better what you need than actually bringing in as a consultant somebody who’s out there on the road, you know,
33:1833 minutes, 18 secondsor who’s in the studio, you know, those are the people who are going to tell you their real pain points. You know, you can design stuff by engineers forever,
33:2633 minutes, 26 secondsbut until you actually talk to the people on the front lines and have them, you know, not just talk to them once,
33:3233 minutes, 32 secondsbut really have a relationship going with those people. And that I think is a,
33:3733 minutes, 37 secondsyou know, you talk about being schooled in marketing as far as I’m concerned.
33:4133 minutes, 41 secondsThat’s way more important than having marketing, a marketing degree is understanding who you’re talking to and who’s using your stuff. Y
33:4833 minutes, 48 secondsbecause they’re going to tell you, I think really what they want. And then it’s up to you to communicate to the engineers, okay, here’s here’s what we need to do. How do we do this? Right.
33:5833 minutes, 58 secondsYou’re you’re the translator in a way, you know?
34:0134 minutes, 1 secondYeah. Another one of the big projects I did was in the um in the late 90s, I um organized the uh these audio engineering
34:1134 minutes, 11 secondsconferences. Y where we’d bring in all our contractors,
34:1534 minutes, 15 secondsbut also the the tour sound chief engineers and a lot a lot of the consultants. And we had a number of the
34:2234 minutes, 22 secondsconsultants would be some of the speakers at the these uh two or two and a half day conferences. Yeah. And uh
34:2934 minutes, 29 secondsthey would uh through that learn, you know, we would have contact with them
34:3634 minutes, 36 secondsand we would continue that contact and and develop the uh the the the support so that they wanted to talk to us and
34:4534 minutes, 45 secondshave us build something in our custom shop or or find out, you know, what what did they need for their their next project. And that’s then again the same
34:5334 minutes, 53 secondsthing with the tour sound guys which was my particular uh highest interest and specialty. Uhhuh.
34:5934 minutes, 59 secondsSo it was um the uh another thing I did in the late 90s was we were the first to
35:0635 minutes, 6 secondsuh to launch the smart program. Sam Burko’s smart program. That’s right. I forgot about that.
35:1135 minutes, 11 secondsIt was the first year it was a JBL JBL. Yep. Yep. He’s a very very good personal friend and a wonderful uh designer and engineer.
35:2235 minutes, 22 secondsuh an acoustician and yeah and just a hell of a nice guy. I love a character. He definitely is. But you
35:2935 minutes, 29 secondsknow, again, this is a this is a situation where you’ve got people who are out there on the front lines talking to the people who really can give you
35:3735 minutes, 37 secondsthe feedback. And the other thing about it is you’re talking about the touring sound industry. They got to know that no matter where they are in the world, they can pick up a phone and they can say,
35:4735 minutes, 47 seconds”Help.” I can tell you about uh uh middle of the night calls from onour from Albert Lechesi from auto analyst.
35:5535 minutes, 55 secondsWell, our boxes just got rained on and they’ve lost half the 18s and how can you get me, you know, replacements and
36:0236 minutes, 2 secondsand you know many other stories like that from Claire and and other of the tour all the guys at CLA and all the I mean
36:1036 minutes, 10 secondssound image and you know every single company Maryland sound every legendary company has been through working with you guys and that’s
36:1936 minutes, 19 secondsthat’s a personal point of pride with me because I you know I always wanted to work for Claire or work one of those guys. And
36:2536 minutes, 25 secondsand I got an even better position by um actually the you know I recognized early
36:3236 minutes, 32 secondson that that uh you know I said I I I went to JBL because they wanted me to do speakers. But then as I uh as that
36:4136 minutes, 41 secondsrelationship grew and I grew in in the company, I realized that that uh interfacing with these customers was
36:5036 minutes, 50 secondsreally the the key to their success and the company growth and success.
36:5536 minutes, 55 secondsIt actually enabled you to expand into areas you might not have even considered.
36:5936 minutes, 59 secondsAbsolutely. What do they say? It’s it’s not just the doors that open for you,
37:0337 minutes, 3 secondsit’s the doors that close and reroute you. You know, it’s really true. So what do you see as um I mean here we are in
37:1037 minutes, 10 seconds2026 audio has changed dramatically the industry has changed dramatically. Quovadus.
37:1837 minutes, 18 secondsYeah. Well um I I can give you a bit of a timeline to think about is you know Lancing in the 30s was part of the team
37:2637 minutes, 26 secondsthat developed the first cinema loudspeaker standard which was the the sheer system. uh and uh the shearer uh
37:3737 minutes, 37 secondsthis the shear horn system with a a multi-ell with a Lancing compression driver in the back of it and and uh the
37:4537 minutes, 45 secondsearly ported horns uh with the uh uh Lancing 15-in drivers in the back of
37:5237 minutes, 52 secondsthem that that became and was given an Academy Award in 36 for being the the cinema standard solving the some of the
38:0038 minutesproblems between the uh with with the time offset with the the earlier uh speakers that were used
38:0738 minutes, 7 secondsfor cinema. And then so you look at Lancing then he spents 5 years at Altech and does the 604 and does you know the
38:1638 minutes, 16 secondsthe voice of the theater there with with John Hillyard and that you know those are very very successful products industry standards but 46 he breaks out
38:2538 minutes, 25 secondsfrom that and he starts JBL and what does he do? He uses Alco magnets. He uses 4-in voice coils. He, you know,
38:3338 minutes, 33 secondsuses a a a very shallow curve linear cone to have the control of the the energy all the way up to to at least
38:4138 minutes, 41 secondsfive or six kHz. Th those that kind of next generation stuff, right? Well, what happens after that is is now it has to
38:4938 minutes, 49 secondsbe evolved into studio monitors and that’s Bart Locanty and Ed May doing the JBL 4320s and and the original 4310 and
38:5938 minutes, 59 seconds11 the bookshelf, you know, the the top of console monitors that that that were the right place at the right time and
39:0639 minutes, 6 secondstook over the industry when when uh uh pro recording was just exploding at
39:1339 minutes, 13 secondsat big facilities. Yeah. And so you integrate the transducers into a system.
39:2039 minutes, 20 secondsWell, now you move into the 80s and now you want to integrate those those systems with passive or bia active
39:2839 minutes, 28 secondscrossovers. So there’s a progression of is it just transducers? Is it transducers and boxes? Is it transducers
39:3539 minutes, 35 secondsand boxes with networks? Is it associated electronics? Now we’re in the era of of the electronics amplification
39:4439 minutes, 44 secondsand processing is all integrated into the entire system. Exactly. JBL was a big step with that at the low end with the the Eon in in 1995.
39:5339 minutes, 53 secondsOh yeah. But uh you know the this you know now it’s it’s everything from the very topend installation in tour sound
40:0040 minutessystems down to the musicistant musician systems like like the the uh PRX900 that that JBL is currently uh presenting.
40:1040 minutes, 10 secondsUh so the you see the progression as things become more and more integrated.
40:1740 minutes, 17 secondsYeah. and smaller yes smaller lighter that don’t forget JBL was one of the first to use the neodymium magnets on on woofers
40:2540 minutes, 25 secondsand compression drivers and and it’s very expensive but very lightweight very very small size and now it’s a standard everywhere you
40:3340 minutes, 33 secondsknow that’s I mean people even know how to say neodymium now but again very good but uh again that
40:4140 minutes, 41 secondsthat evolution uh now is what uh It allows the evolution and allows the
40:5040 minutes, 50 secondsintegration of the the systems into the into the next generation.
40:5540 minutes, 55 secondsUhhuh. Well, you guys have continued to break ground. I I know you’re still Yeah. I I know that you are officially retired.
41:0241 minutes, 2 secondsYeah. I’m not at JBL anymore, but I’m still associated with the company because I’m so proud of the you know, I I was there more than half the 80 years.
41:1041 minutes, 10 secondsYeah, I know. And and I mean, you know,
41:1241 minutes, 12 secondsI run the AESLA chapter and and you know, we we do events and you’re always tuning into the events. You’re always still in touch with stuff, you know, and
41:2041 minutes, 20 secondsI like to stay in touch even though I live up in far north California and I’m a recluse, but I I like I like the people and I like the relationships.
41:2941 minutes, 29 secondsYeah. And you still stay tuned into what’s going on and I think that’s fantastic, man. I mean, it’s a life well-lived, right?
41:3641 minutes, 36 secondsYep. Well, it’s um I hope it continues.
41:3941 minutes, 39 secondsWe all do, right? Mark Ander, thank you so much for being my guest. A pleasure.
41:4941 minutes, 49 secondsHey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.