international pictures or international crown . crown international industry audio electronics founded 1947 as international radio and electronics corporation founder clarence c. moore headquarters elkhart indiana united states products power amplifiers microphones preamplifiers compact audio mixers audio networking products parent harman international industries website http www.crownaudio.com crown international or crown audio is a manufacturer of audio electronics and is a subsidiary of harman international industries . today the company is known primarily for its power amplifiers but has also manufactured microphones a line of commercial audio products as well as digital audio networking products . contents 1 history 2 product timeline 3 references 4 external links history edit international radio and electronics corporation irec was established in 1947 by clarence c. moore an elkhart indiana minister . the company started out building rugged open reel tape recorders for use by missionaries in far off parts of the world . 1 a converted chicken coop served as the first manufacturing facility . 1 in the 1960s the company s name was changed to crown international as suggested by moore s wife and co founder ruby as she felt the name international radio and electronics corporation was too long and because the emblem on many of their tape recorders was a crown . in 1975 the company s name was changed to crown international inc. as voted by the stockholders . 1 a fire destroyed 60 % of the crown facility on thanksgiving day 1971 and rendered much of the remaining building severely damaged . us 1 million of uninsured assets were lost . the plant was rebuilt and d 60 amplifier production was brought back on line within six weeks . 2 in march 2000 crown international was acquired by harman international as their primary supplier of audio power amplifiers . 1 the radio frequency broadcast division was subsequently repurchased by descendants of clarence moore who restructured the division in order to continue the manufacture of broadcast transmitters and rf amplifiers using moore s original firm name international radio & electronics corporation . 3 following crown international s acquisition by harman international additional offices were set up in northridge los angeles california where akg acoustics another harman international company maintains its north american headquarters . product timeline edit in 1947 clarence and ruby moore began by modifying existing makes and models of tape recorders to make them more rugged . 2 in 1949 moore obtained a groundbreaking patent the first tape recorder with a built in power amplifier for public address duties which was introduced in 1950 . 1 in 1953 crown added a line of compact loudspeakers as accessories to the reel to reel tape recorders . 2 the crown dc300 introduced in 1967 helped define the era of modern power amplifiers 4 in 1959 crown began making standalone tube power amplifiers . by 1963 solid state electronics development allowed crown to produce a more robust tape recorder and in 1964 their first solid state power amplifier the low profile sa 20 20 . 2 in 1967 the dc300 was introduced as the first ab b circuitry amplifier with 150 watts per channel at eight ohms . the dc300 proved very popular with sound reinforcement system owners and moved crown into a leadership position in terms of power amplifier sales worldwide . 2 as well the dc300 was seen as a breakthrough product by commercial sound system contractors seeking to power their constant voltage speaker systems without the frequency response limitations and power losses associated with output power transformers which had previously been required . 5 in november 2007 after 40 years of service the crown dc300 was inducted into the tec awards tecnology hall of fame in new york on the opening day of the audio engineering society s 123rd convention . george peterson executive editor of mix magazine said of the dc300 that it was a classic that really ushered in and defined the era of the modern power amplifier . 4 in 1971 the grounded bridge amplifier design was invented by crown allowing greater output power without increasing amplifier size 6 and also gave lower distortion less thermal stress and greater reliability . 2 the first grounded bridge product released by crown was the m600 amplifier 1974 primarily employed for commercial sound installations including constant voltage loudspeaker systems . 7 crown received a patent for the invention in 1974 . 8 after proving itself in the field the topology was used to design the microtech mt 1000 in 1984 . 6 further development of the grounded bridge yielded the macrotech line which set a new standard for touring sound reinforcement in 1992 with the ma 5000vz . 2 in 1976 crown patented the synergistic equalizer 9 releasing the stereo eq 2 graphic equalizer which used a combination of shelving filters and eleven active frequency adjustment faders per channel . the faders were connected to constant bandwidth variable q 1 2 octave filters placed on octave centers but with adjustable frequency knobs to shift the center frequency for greater flexibility . 10 a limited number of units were sold to audiophiles and audio researchers . by 1977 all of crown s tape recorder products had been phased out . 2 in 1979 crown introduced the psa 2 & sa 2 power amplifiers with analog computer control of transistor performance to maximize output characteristics . 2 the fm 1 stereo radio tuner was praised at the consumer electronics show . 2 in 1981 the fm 2 with digital tuning was released . 2 a line of pressure zone microphones pzm was introduced by crown in 1980 2 culminating in the pzm 30 series in 1990 . 11 other microphones introduced by crown included the pcc 166 directional boundary microphone in 1986 the tiny glm series and the patented differoid cm300 in 1987 . the sass stereo microphone was patented in 1989 . garth brooks was the first performer to wear the crown cm311 headset microphone in 1993 . the cm700 studio condenser was introduced in 1995 . 2 references edit a b c d e crown audio . history a b c d e f g h i j k l m crown audio timeline audio annals . crown international a b crown audio . press release . crown dc 300 enters tecnology hall of fame crown audio . guide to constant voltage systems a b crown audio . grounded bridge crown audio . legacy products . m600 instruction manual u.s. patent 3 808 545 u.s. patent 3 750 044 crown audio . legacy products . eq 2 crown audio . pzm 30r pzm 30f pressure zone microphone external links edit official website namm national association of music merchants oral history interview with clyde moore april 16 2012 v t e harman international industries subsidiaries akg acoustics c1000 amx crown international dbx professional products digitech digitech whammy harman kardon infinity systems jbl jbl paragon lexicon mark levinson audio systems martin professional soundcraft studer symphony teleca people david e. blackmer graham blyth phil dudderidge sidney harman james bullough lansing francis f. lee mark levinson retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title crown international & oldid 741407924 categories harman international industriesaudio amplifier manufacturersaudio equipment manufacturerscompanies established in 1947electronics companies of the united statesmanufacturing companies based in indianaelkhart indianacompanies based in elkhart county indiana1947 establishments in indiana 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 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