Altec Lansing is, without doubt, one of the oldest and most respect names in commercial audio.

The Altec Lansing Corporation was born out of the Western Electric Company, (the R&D arm of the Bell Telephone Company), and the "loudspeaking telephone'. In 1941, and renamed the All Technical Services Corporation (Altec), the firm purchasing the assets of the Lansing Manufacturing Company, with a certain James B Lansing joining as chief engineer. Lansing left soon after to form JBL, leaving his surname behind with a company that for over forty years would become synonymous with professional and consumer audio. However from the mid-eighties, the story becomes at the very least confused and at the most disastrous.

By 1984, the consumer division had been sold off to the former Sparkomatic Corporation who, under the Altec name focused primarily on multimedia products, and in 1985, the company's remaining assets were purchased by Gulton Industries, the then owners of Electro-Voice.

By 1986 Mark IV Industries had taken over the fold, with Altec firstly being merged with EV and then sold along with the other Mark IV brands to Greenwich Street Capital Partners in 1997.

A year later Mark IV merged with Telex Communications and by April 2000 Telex had closed the pro division and sold off the remaining trade name rights to Altec Lansing Technologies.

The new company was formed on Feb 1 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Altec Lansing Technologies, who purchased the name, trade marks and goodwill for $13.5m from Telex Corp in 2000.

Headed by well known ex Altec and Telex figures Dave Merrey and John Sexton, the new division also includes industry stalwarts such as consultant Ed Angell, director of business development Duke Dukoff and Steve Epchurch.

Five years on from the closure of the Oaklahoma City plant they got to start with a clean sheet of paper and with no embedded corporate culture. Their emphasis was on the fixed installation market and on relationship selling. It's what they do best.'