Lexicon (company)
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Lexicon is an American company that engineers, manufactures, and markets audio equipment as a brand of
Harman International Industries Harman International Industries, commonly known as Harman (stylized in all-uppercase as HARMAN), is an American audio electronics company. Since 2017, the company has been an independent subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. Headquartered in Stam ...
. The company was founded in 1971 with headquarters in
Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, th ...
, and offices in
Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
. It was acquired by Harman in 1993. Lexicon traces its history to the 1969 founding of American Data Sciences by MIT professor Dr. Francis F. Lee and engineer Chuck Bagnaschi, developers of digital audio devices for medical heart monitoring. The company is widely known for the design and development of the multi-speaker audio system for the
Rolls-Royce Phantom Rolls-Royce has used the Phantom name on full-sized luxury cars over the past century: *Rolls-Royce Phantom I, 1925–1931 *Rolls-Royce Phantom II, 1929–1936 *Rolls-Royce Phantom III, 1936–1939 *Rolls-Royce Phantom IV, 1950&ndash ...
, as well as the
Hyundai Genesis The Hyundai Genesis ( ko, 현대 제네시스) is an executive four-door, five passenger, rear or all-wheel-drive full-size luxury sedan manufactured and marketed by Hyundai. The Hyundai Genesis debuted in 2008 until Genesis spun off as a separa ...
,
Hyundai Equus The Hyundai Equus () is a full-size, front-engine, rear-drive, four-door, five passenger luxury sedan manufactured and marketed by Hyundai from 1999 to 2016. The name ''" equus"'' is the Latin word for "horse". In 2009, Hyundai released the sec ...
, and the Kia K900.


Professional audio equipment


Digital delay systems

Lexicon is sometimes credited as the inventor of commercial
digital delay A digital delay line is a discrete element in digital filter theory, which allows a signal to be delayed by a number of samples. If the delay is an integer multiple of samples, digital delay lines are often implemented as circular buffers. This me ...
products. The first product to market was the popular Gotham Delta T-101 delay in 1971, followed by the Delta T-102, the first product to bear the Lexicon name, in 1972.


Reverb and effects

Lexicon is considered "the godfather of digital reverb", as one of the early players on the reverb/reverberation market. The company was among the first to produce commercially available digital reverb equipment, beginning in 1979 with the Model ''224''. Also released in 1979 was the Prime Time, one of the first digital delay units designed explicitly to provide effects. In 1986, Lexicon released the ''480L'', a successor of the 224XL. The PCM series was introduced as a smaller, more economical option particularly in live situations where the 224XL was too cumbersome for a rack rider. First in the series was the PCM-60 (1984), followed a few years later by the Lexicon PCM-70, the latter adding multi-effects from the 224X and a digital screen interface. The MRC, an early MIDI control surface, was released in the late 1980s to provide remote control of the PCM-70, LXP series processors, and other MIDI devices.
David Gilmour David Jon Gilmour ( ; born 6 March 1946) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and member of the rock band Pink Floyd. He joined as guitarist and co-lead vocalist in 1967, shortly before the departure of founding member Syd Barrett. P ...
from
Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
used a Lexicon PCM-70 to store the circular delay sounds in songs such as "
Shine On You Crazy Diamond "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a nine-part Pink Floyd composition written by David Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright. It appeared on Pink Floyd's 1975 concept album ''Wish You Were Here''. The song is written about and dedicated to Syd ...
" and "
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
" in 1994's
The Division Bell Tour The Division Bell Tour was the final concert tour by the English rock band Pink Floyd. It was performed in 1994 to support their album ''The Division Bell'', which was released two days before the tour's start date. Following the tour's conclus ...
. In the 1990s, Lexicon continued the PCM series with two new units, the PCM-80 reverb/multi-effects unit and PCM-90 digital reverb. The NuVerb, one of the first add-on DSP cards, was released in 1993 as a plug-in card for NuBus-based Macintosh computers. This card was repurposed and released in 1997 as the Model ''300'', another iconic reverb/multi-effect unit. Lexicon continued the PCM series in the 2000s with new mid-level units including the PCM-96 and PCM-96 Surround, standalone reverb units that easily integrate into
digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic device or application software used for Sound recording and reproduction, recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software pro ...
(DAWs). Also from the 1990s comes the consumer-level LXP series including the LXP-1, LXP-5, LXP-15, and the LXP-15II, and later the affordable MPX1. A new low-priced reverb series, the MX series, was introduced in the 2000s, with the Lexicon MX200 as the entrance model.


HD recording

Lexicon was a pioneer in the hard disk recording market, introducing the Opus system in 1988. This system feature 8 channels of disk I/O along with an integrated 12 channel digital mixer. In the following years, Opus was upgraded with EQ and
console automation In music recording, mix automation allows the mixing console to remember the audio engineer's adjustment of faders during the post-production editing process. A timecode is necessary for the synchronization of automation. Modern mixing console ...
. In the mid 1990s, ''Lexicon Studio'' and ''Core2'' audio interfaces were introduced. They were notable in that they could be expanded with a Lexicon reverb daughterboard that was then accessible to the recording software.


Electroacoustic enhancement

In 1988, Lexicon developed
LARES Lares ( , ; archaic , singular ''Lar'') were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these. Lares ...
, an electronic processing system intended to give performance spaces a tailored acoustic experience. LARES uses microphones to pick up the sound, central processing units to apply time-variant anti-feedback, delay and reverberation algorithms, and banks of loudspeakers to bring the enhanced audio signal back into the performance space. LARES Associates split away from Lexicon in 1995. Lexicon continues to benefit from its initial LARES research and development with the company offering a scaled-down and simplified microprocessor controller, the MC-12, intended for auditory enhancement within home and professional listening spaces. The system is called Lexicon LIVE.


Home theater equipment

Lexicon's first foray into home theater equipment was with its surround processor, the ''CP-1''. Later, a ''CP-2'' was released, followed by the ''CP-3'' and the ''CP-3+''. The CP-3/CP-3+ were the first of its home theater products to be
THX THX Ltd. is an American company that develops the eponymous high fidelity audio/visual reproduction standards for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, gaming consoles, car audio systems, and video games. Founded ...
certified. With the arrival of
Dolby Digital Dolby Digital, originally synonymous with Dolby AC-3, is the name for what has now become a family of audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. Formerly named Dolby Stereo Digital until 1995, the audio compression is lossy ...
, the CP line had to be discontinued. It was replaced with the DC line, namely the ''DC-1''
996 Year 996 ( CMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Japan * February - Chotoku Incident: Fujiwara no Korechika and Takaie shoot an arrow at Retired Em ...
and the ''DC-2''. It was at this point that the company introduced its revolutionary surround processing algorithm ''Logic 7''. Logic 7 was notable for generating a convincing soundfield from seven loudspeakers when presented with either a
stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...
or 5.1 input. After a while, Lexicon added the ''MC-1'' to its lineup of the DC-1 and DC-2, and the MC-1 became its new flagship. A few years later, Lexicon introduced the ''MC-12'' and the ''MC-12b''. The MC-12b was in all respects identical to the MC-12 except that it had balanced outputs in addition to the standard unbalanced ones. Shortly after this, Lexicon filled in the lower end of its product line by providing an MC-8 and an MC-4. They also produced a receiver, the ''RV-8''. As of this writing (8/2016), its current flagship is the MC-14. Conspicuously absent from this model is the room correction offered by its recent predecessors such as the MC-12. In addition to surround processors, Lexicon also sells the LX and CX multi-channel home theater amplifiers and the RT-20 DVD player. Its discontinued NT line of amplifiers were rebadged Bryston amplifiers.


Lexicon BD-30/THX certification controversy

In 2010, an
Audioholics Audioholics is an audio/video (A/V) and home theater technology review site and Internet forum. The website publishes detailed technical reviews of commercial audio, video and other electronics equipment. Product of the Year Awards is Audioholics ...
.com review revealed that the chassis and internal components of Lexicon's BD-30 Blu-ray player (retail price $3500) was identical to that of the Oppo BDP-83 (retail price $500); audiovisual testing indicated no changes were made in performance either.Lexicon BD-30 Blu-ray Player (Oppo BDP-83 Clone) Review.
/ref>
/ref> Furthermore, it appears that this player was given THX certification (the first Blu-ray player with this distinction), despite failing fundamental THX tests. Currently, evidence of its certification has largely disappeared from the THX website after this was revealed.THX, Lexicon Official Response Regarding BD Player Certification.
/ref>


References


External links


Lexicon websiteLexicon professional audio site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lexicon (Company) Music equipment manufacturers Electronics companies established in 1971 Companies based in New York (state) Harman International 1971 establishments in Massachusetts 1993 mergers and acquisitions