held company industry audio electronics founded california 1968 founders patrick quilter barry andrews john andrews headquarters costa mesa california united states key people joe pham ceo jatan shah evp & coo products audio amplifiers loudspeakers and digital signal processing number of employees 366 1 website qsc audio global website qsc llc is an american manufacturer and globally recognized leader in the design and engineering of high performance audio products including power amplifiers loudspeakers digital mixers digital signal processors dsp and the q sys networked audio video and control platform . qsc solutions are used by professional installed portable production corporate and cinema customers worldwide . contents 1 history 2 expansion 3 recognition 4 quilter labs 5 references 6 external links history edit the company was founded in 1968 by patrick howe quilter who serves as chairman of the board of directors . quilter was at the time an engineering student with a keen interest in electronics and music . with many musician friends and acquaintances seeking him out to make guitar amps he left school to start his company with the financial backing of family and friends . 2 at first the company was a storefront operation in costa mesa california a combination of manufacturing and retail operations under one roof . the amplifiers were built in the back and sold out front . the first employees were mostly friends helping out . citation needed the early guitar amplifiers bore names like the duck amp and the quilter sound thing along with the model 455 and 500 amplifiers . 3 the company adopted the name quilter sound company which was eventually shortened to the initials qsc and was know as qsc audio products inc. for many years . the company was officially renamed qsc llc in 2015 . expansion edit this section needs additional citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . may 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message after some years the professional power amplifier portion of the business overtook the production of guitar amplifiers . meanwhile qsc developed more conventional sales channels in retail music and pro audio stores and also started working with export distributors . beginning in the early 1980s pat quilter pursued his interest in more electrically efficient methods of power amplification by refining class g and later class h technology as an extension of class ab primarily for higher power models . in the early 1990s qsc diversified from power amplifiers by starting development of network audio systems for remote control and monitoring of amplifier systems . qsc called its system qscontrol pronounced q s control . the company was one of the first licensees of the medialink networking technology developed by the lone wolf corp. for professional audio systems . medialink however did not prove robust enough for professional audio users so by the mid 1990s qsc abandoned it in favor of ethernet based networking which was becoming more affordable and ubiquitous . at about the same time qsc licensed cobranet technology from peak audio to develop products that would distribute multiple channels of audio signals in the digital domain over common fast ethernet media . in the late 1990s qsc started a loudspeaker research and development group within its engineering department . within a couple years qsc offered loudspeaker systems for sale and is today a major supplier of loudspeaker systems in the professional audio industry . recognition edit the orange county register listed qsc as one of the top work places in the county in 2010 2011 2012 2014 and 2015 . 4 qsc was ranked 7th out of 20 midsize companies ; a total of 85 companies were listed . 5 quilter labs edit patrick quilter retired from qsc in 2011 and then founded another venture quilter labs selling portable high power guitar amplifiers using solidstate class d technology . 6 7 references edit qsc llc . topworkplaces.com . retrieved 2016 06 01 . reckard e. scott may 15 2011 . designer patrick quilter is up to his ears in audio products . los angeles times . retrieved may 16 2011 . company history . qsc . archived from the original on december 14 2011 . retrieved 2011 12 16 . top work places qsc . orange county register . retrieved december 10 2015 . 85 top o.c. companies named for 2012 . orange county register . december 3 2012 . meeker ward july 2013 . quilter laboratories . vintage guitar . pp. 92 96 . mickadeit frank jan 2 2011 . mad scientist returns to lab . orange county register . retrieved october 29 2011 . external links edit official website pat quilter namm oral history interview 2015 john andrews namm oral history interview 2015 barry andrews namm oral history interview 2015 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title qsc audio products & oldid 742970074 categories audio amplifier manufacturerscompanies based in costa mesa californiacompanies established in 1968audio equipment manufacturersloudspeaker manufacturersprivately held companies based in californiahidden categories all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from may 2016articles needing additional references from may 2016all articles needing additional references navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 6 october 2016 at 23 50 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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