pro-audio
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The Company That Turned Its Dad's Studio Gear Into a Billion Knobs of Software
Bill Putnam Sr. helped invent the modern recording studio. Fifty years later his sons rebuilt the company in his name - and turned his glowing tubes into code that runs on a million laptops.
The Nativity Play That Turned Into a Lighting Company
It began in a basement with a nativity musical nobody was supposed to sell. Two decades later, the Vaque family builds the LED house lights hanging over your church stage - and their salespeople make nothing on the sale.
Shure Built the Microphone Presidents, Popes, and Podcasters All Reach For
A one-room radio-parts shop in 1925 Chicago turned into the microphone every roadie trusts and every meeting room quietly runs on. Here is how Shure spent a century refusing to go public - or to make a fragile mic.
The Camera Store That Closes for Shabbat and Still Outsells Everyone
One store. Zero franchises. 400,000 products flying overhead on ceiling conveyor belts - and a checkout button that switches off every Friday at sundown. Here is how a Hasidic-owned camera shop became the gear counter for the entire creative internet.
FlatPanel Audio’s Bet: The Best Speaker for a Bad Room Isn’t a Speaker-Shaped Speaker
A 10-person California audio company is asking integrators to replace the cone, trust a vibrating carbon-fiber panel, and let difficult rooms keep their glass, stone and style. The payoff is fewer boxes, wider coverage and a very different installation playbook.
The $399 Mixer That Refused to Break: How Mackie Armored Pro Audio and Sold It to the Bedroom
A former Boeing engineer built a mixer he could drop off a table, priced it for people who play bars for beer money, and turned durability into a business model. Here is how Mackie kept selling ruggedness while the audience moved from the stage to the bedroom.
The Kentucky Town That's Been Hiding Inside Your Amp for 60 Years
For six decades a factory in a Kentucky town of 2,500 has been building the speakers inside your amplifier - and letting other brands take the credit.
The Company That Taught a Reed Organ to Play the 1980s
A broken schoolhouse organ in 1887 became the world's largest instrument maker. How Yamaha turned tuning forks, FM chips and player pianos into a 3-billion-dollar sound empire.
The 18th Street Camera Shop That Refused to Become a Website
A Holocaust survivor opened a camera counter on 34th Street in 1974. Fifty years later his shop is a rental house, a photo lab, a B2B supplier and a YouTube school - and it still keeps the lights on at one address in the Flatiron District.
The Speaker Company That Names Its Line Arrays After the Moons of Jupiter
A small crew in Walnut, California ships line arrays, subwoofers and weatherproof PA gear straight to the DJs and churches who use them - and names the product series after planetary moons.
The Family That Took Its Earphones Apart So Beyonce Could Hear Herself
How a Portland sound engineer's spare-bedroom experiment - taking a pair of earphones apart to build a custom set for his wife - became the in-ear monitor brand touring artists and studio producers trust in more than 90 countries.