KLH Audio is an American

audio electronics Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of sound ...

company based in

Noblesville, Indiana Noblesville is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Indiana, United States, a part of the north Indianapolis suburbs along the White River. The population was 51,969 at the 2010 census making it the state's 14th largest city/town ...

. Originally founded in 1957 as KLH Research and Development Corporation in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

, the company takes its name from the initials of its founders: Henry Kloss, Malcolm S. Low, and

Josef Anton Hofmann Josef Anton Hofmann (July 22, 1924 – November 12, 2010) was a London-born American audio engineer and speaker-system designer. He is known for Hofmann’s Iron Law, and was a son of pianist Josef Hofmann. Biography Hofmann was born in London ...

History

The original aim of the company was to design and produce

loudspeaker A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or ...

s in

speaker enclosure A loudspeaker enclosure or loudspeaker cabinet is an enclosure (often rectangular box-shaped) in which speaker drivers (e.g., loudspeakers and tweeters) and associated electronic hardware, such as crossover circuits and, in some cases, power ...

s. KLH had sales of $17 million, employed over 500 people and sold over 30,000 speakers a year before it was sold to Singer Corporation in 1964. In 1970, KLH became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Electro Audio Dynamics (EAD) of

Great Neck, New York Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, and Russell Gardens, and a number of unincorpo ...

. EAD moved KLH's headquarters to

Canoga Park, Los Angeles Canoga Park is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. Before the Mexican–American War, the district was part of a rancho, and after the American victory it was converted into wheat farms and t ...

, in 1980. Japanese conglomerate

Kyocera is a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power generating systems, telecommunic ...

acquired KLH in 1982, and production was shifted overseas. Kyocera later decided to stop manufacturing audio products, and sought a buyer for the KLH brand. In 1989, KLH was acquired by Wald Sound of

Sun Valley, Los Angeles Sun Valley is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California in the San Fernando Valley region. The neighborhood is known for its overall youthful population and moderate racial diversity. There are three recreation centers in Sun Valley, one of which ...

. In 2003,

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professiona ...

filed a lawsuit against KLH (then Lavcon, Inc., trading as KLH Audio Systems) asserting

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...

of a Sony home theater system. In January 2017, Kelley Global Brands bought the company and renamed it to KLH Audio. The company makes premium high-end speakers.

References

External links

* Loudspeaker manufacturers Electronics companies established in 1957 1957 establishments in Massachusetts Audio equipment manufacturers of the United States Privately held companies based in Indiana {{US-manufacturing-company-stub