Mission

To be the leading and most trusted provider of high quality professional audio systems worldwide.

Values

Our values are the bedrock of our brand and guide us in our thinking and in our actions

• Quality: Quality is essential in everything we make and everything we do. Consistent and pervasive quality sets us apart and increases our value to others. Constantly striving to improve our quality not only builds our business but helps us grow as individuals. Excellence is a sign of respect for our customers, our suppliers and ourselves.


• Service: Service is about meeting the real needs of our customers. Along with quality it sets us apart and provides value to others. Anticipate the needs of others and help them to be successful. Let care for others guide your decisions and efforts.


• Commitment: Commitment is standing behind our word. It is doing the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do. Go the distance to ensure that a promise made or implied is a promise kept.


• Integrity: Integrity is the foundation of trust. Act with honesty and fairness towards everyone. Treat others as you would have them treat you. Always make decisions based on the long term best interest of all parties.


• Teamwork: Teams can achieve far more than individuals. Harness the power of people through effective teamwork within QSC, and throughout the customer chain.


• Work Hard/Have Fun: Joy and hard work go hand in hand. Nothing of lasting merit can be achieved without hard work but hard work cannot be sustained without enjoying the work. Our goals and standards make hard work essential. At the same time make sure to have fun all along the way.

Company History

As any pro-audio veteran will tell you, many of the industry's major players began life as small "mom and pop" operations, run out of garages, basements and spare bedrooms. Steeped in the anti-corporate ethos of the '60s and '70s, these were businesses born of the visions of young entrepreneurs typically short on experience but rich in dreams, drive, and a desire to do things differently.

As the industry and its technology have evolved, many of those early ventures have fallen by the wayside. Some of them imploded, fueled by naive management, personality crises, or simply a failure to evolve. Some grew so large and unwieldy that their only hope for survival was to be bought out by the corporate culture they'd long resisted. Over the years, only a handful have managed to not simply exist, but flourish.

The story of QSC Audio is one of professional audio's most inspiring tales. From its humble beginnings crafting handmade guitar amps from a one-room shop in Orange County, California, QSC has grown to become the industry's undisputed leader in power amps, loudspeakers, and complete networked audio solutions

The Early Years

The story began one day in 1968, when Barry Andrews' motorcycle broke down in an industrial park in Costa Mesa, California. While waiting for a friend to pick him up, Barry struck up a conversation with a guy working in a nearby garage, Pat Quilter.

Pat Quilter told Barry about his fledgling business, designing and building various types of amplifiers. In the heyday of Hendrix, Cream and acid rock, Pat's best opportunities seemed to lie with the growing market of local guitar and bass players, and Barry's experience in building speaker cabinets looked to be a natural fit. Working out of a cramped 800-square-foot shop, the two men joined forces, determined to change the world with products like the Quilter Sound Thing and the Duck Amp.

Operating on a shoestring budget, the company's beginnings were a typical saga of youthful optimism and negative cash flow. Securing minimal funding, they hired a small staff and set out to build their amps and spread the word. Managing to strategically place their amps at prominent clubs on Sunset Strip, they won praise (but little else) from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Cream, The Doors and other bands of the day.

Sadly, the company's debt grew faster than their reputation, and when the money ran out they found themselves back at square one. "Those were definitely the days when we didn't know when we drove up if there would be a sheriff's padlock on the door," recalls Barry. Pat adds, "but even through those dark days, the thought of having to go out and get a 'real' job motivated us to work even harder."

A deal was struck with a Berkeley music shop to trade amps for guitars, resulting in a fairly unique promotional campaign - buy an amp, get a guitar for free. In the front half of their tiny shop, they would sell directly to musicians, drawn primarily by word of mouth. "It was a bit of crazy cycle," Pat remembers. "We'd get the word out, and people would come in to check out our amps. We'd be busy selling, so we wouldn't have time to make any product. Then we'd run out of amps and have to close the doors for a few days while we made more."

Just as the company was beginning to make a bit of money, they suffered yet another setback. "Someone cut a hole in the roof one night, came in and stole all our finished goods," Barry relates. "To add insult to injury, they went through our stock of guitar strings and, instead of just taking the whole carton, they picked out only the good ones, leaving the gauges no one wanted."

But even in the face of adversity, the partners stuck to what they knew was right. The values of hard work, honesty and integrity would become the bedrock of their company. "We had a negative net worth for several years running, and didn't know how we were going to pay the bills, but we made sure we never burned anyone," Pat asserts. "We've always really believed nice guys finish first."

Getting Serious

The two partners soon began to realize there was more to this business of running a business than just making a good product and hoping the world would discover it. "We wanted to make a name for ourselves, but we were pretty clueless as far as running a company went," Barry remarks. "We had to invent a lot of it from scratch as we went along." The company incorporated as QSC Audio Products, LLC Pat concentrated on designing and building the amplifiers, Barry took charge of sales and marketing, and Barry's brother John, who had recently obtained his business degree from USC, was brought in to handle the finances.

This clear division of responsibility immediately began to reap other advantages. The three partners found they had not only a mutual respect for each others' areas of expertise, but a mutual humility and ability to admit their own shortcomings. While perhaps inexperienced at running a business, they knew enough to know they had a lot to learn. There was a willingness to struggle with the basics, and many late nights were spent consciously reviewing not only their decisions, but the decision-making process itself. "We knew there was a lot we simply didn't know," Pat explains. "Rather than try to delude ourselves, we recognized that in order to grow, we had to learn what it takes to be a successful company. It was about more than just making our products better - though that was a major emphasis - it was about improving ourselves and our focus."

It is this absence of hubris, this humility and quiet pride, that has governed the company from its inception, and still exists today.

The 70's - A Decade of Change

By the early '70s, the guitar amp market was being dominated by a few prominent companies. Names like Marshall, Ampeg, Vox and Kustom were becoming the undisputed leaders in the field. The emergence of progressive rock, led by bands like Yes, King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, saw the synthesizer begin to overtake the guitar as the instrument of choice.

At the same time, a new market was beginning to emerge. A young company called Tapco released their first small mixer, and the Japanese manufacturer Teac introduced a "semi-pro" four-track tape recorder. Though no one could foresee the profound and long-ranging effect these early products would eventually have, their immediate effect was not lost on the partners. "Through all the musical trends, the one thing that remained relatively constant was the power amp, and the one thing we knew really well was power amp technology," Barry remarks. "It began to make sense to us that we should play to our strengths, and concentrate on what we did best. We decided to become the world's largest amp company - which was pretty ambitious, considering we'd never even made a profit up until then."

"It began to become clear we'd reached a fork in the road," Pat recalls." We had to decide whether we wanted to be retailers or manufacturers. It was a big leap of faith, since direct-retail sales offered a much higher profit margin, but after much soul searching we decided it made more sense to focus on what we did best, which was power amp technology, and try to increase our output volume."

A number of OEM deals followed, working together with companies like Mitchell, Furman, Alembic, and the very first AC-powered Pignose amp. While these products hardly set the industry ablaze, they were enough to keep the doors open and motivate the partners to new heights. The steady stream of orders honed their chops as manufacturers, increasing their efficiency and fine-tuning their business savvy. "It was about that time we started working with manufacturer's reps," recalls Barry. "We didn't even know what a rep was before then. We'd never even gone to any trade shows." And so a trailer was attached to the back of Barry's 1970 El Dorado, and the company made their trade show debut at the 1977 NAMM show. The industry was in flux, with new startups emerging and jockeying for brand recognition. Names like Community and JBL were becoming known as loudspeaker specialists, and companies like Tapco became identified with mixers. QSC had found their niche. "Everyone began to become specialists, and we became known as amp specialists," Pat recounts. "The industry was developing and diversifying, and all these companies - speaker manufacturers, amp manufacturers, mixer manufacturers - fed off each others' energies, coming together in separate camps to create a holistic system. Everyone had a different part in the band, so to speak, and we had found our instrument."

Another product of the partners' '60s ethic was an understanding of the value of integrity. "We saw early on that our credibility would be judged by our products' reliability," Pat relates. "If we didn't build it right, we'd have to fix it later. More importantly, we had to face our customers, so we knew we had to treat them right and create a dependable product."

It was this understanding of the need for reliability that drove Pat to design some of the company's more innovative technologies, including the AC Coupled circuit topology that earned the company their first patent in 1978, and is still the basis of their core technology.

Big dreams had begun to become reality. The little amp company that had begun the '70s with little more than aspirations and debt had, by the end of the decade, reached a turning point. QSC had established themselves as a rising star in the industry, with several patents to their name, a growing line of highly acclaimed products, and a reputation for quality and attention to detail. As if to confirm the significance of the past ten years' work, 1979 marked the first year the company broke $1million in sales. QSC was primed and ready to move forward.

From Strength to Strength

During the '80s other new markets began to emerge. The concert and installed sound markets, formerly dominated by Altec and a handful of other systems manufacturers, were changing as the technology behind sound systems evolved. A new breed of audio designers were creating entire systems based around integrating choice components from different manufacturers. The opportunity to expand into those markets was clear.

"Prior to that time, we were probably considered more of a low-end amp manufacturer," Pat reflects, "so we decided to make a statement and create a very high-end amplifier that would appeal to the concert sound market." Adding to the challenge, the disco boom was going bust at around that time, and the market had become flooded with used high-end amps. The partners realized they had to build an amp that could appeal to the emerging installer market on both a practical as well as a performance level. Thus the Series Three was born. It represented a significant technical advance for the company, combining such innovative features as convection cooling, step-linear output circuitry and removable channel modules into a low-profile package. But while Series Three gained acceptance and praise from high-end audio professionals, clearly this market had its limits. The partners realized their next product would need to compete in both performance and price. This led to the Series One, which incorporated the performance quality of the Series Three into an affordable, fan-cooled package. "We put the knobs on the back, mainly because it was cost-efficient," Pat explains, "but customers loved it because it kept their settings from being tampered with in the rack." They also recognized the value of multiple inputs, an industry first. "We kept seeing installers making 'pigtails' - adapters with XLR connectors, phone connectors, and bare wires - to work with the various inputs on different amp manufacturers' products. So we decided to put them all on, to make life easier for everyone." Again, the partners were watching, listening and learning, paying attention to their customers. The hunger for knowledge and pursuit of a higher standard continued to be a driving force.

The Movie Business

The developing cinema industry was a sleeping giant for the company. As the 1980s began, the movie industry had begun to awaken to the impact of audio on the audience's movie going experience. "The people from Dolby Labs approached us around 1981," Barry recalls. "They wanted to move into rack mounting amps, and we went into an OEM deal with them."

Thanks to Dolby's high-powered push into cinema, QSC's products found their way into movie theaters across the nation. It didn't take long for Dolby's customers to discover who was manufacturing those great sounding amps, and before long the company was being contacted directly. Again, the partners' ethics prevailed. "We had a deal with Dolby," Pat explains. "Rather than start selling directly to customers, we went to Dolby and asked permission."

The humble quest for knowledge also continued. As Barry explains, "we knew this was a very different environment, and we needed to learn the ground rules." The company joined the various cinema associations, slowly growing their recognition within the industry. "All along, we never made any big announcements or anything, and eventually we became so strong a presence that Dolby went from putting their name on our amps, to leaving the QSC name on it and offering it in their catalog - the Dolby processor with QSC amp. It became a de facto endorsement from Dolby."

Throughout the '80s, the company quietly built up the cinema side of the business. "None of the other amp manufacturers really understood the significance of the cinema market, and we never beat our chests about it," Barry recalls. "We were the only low-cost THX-approved amp for quite some time." Through the multiplex revolution, through Star Wars, through stereo, digital and surround, QSC gracefully and quietly rode each wave, fueling the company's growth into an industry powerhouse.

Breakthrough Technologies

Building on their reputation for innovation, the company's fervor to develop newer and better power amp technologies continued unabated. The 1988 debut of the EX Series introduced the industry to QSC's "open architecture" design philosophy, a technological and cooperative breakthrough that allowed the leading-edge fiber optic and digital computer control systems of other manufacturers to all interface and work together. Add to this the EX Series' unique design elements, such as its Thermal Management System, internal Peak Limiting, and a full range of powers up to 1600 Watts per channel.

The PowerLight Series, released in 1994, once again raised the bar. Incorporating QSC's patented PowerLight high-speed switching supply technology, the PowerLight virtually eliminated the need for a heavy power transformer, heralding a new era of lightweight, compact and super-efficient amplifier technology. With QSC's innovative PFC (Power Factor Correction) technology, which lowers AC current draw by as much as 40%, the company moved from strength to strength. The evolution of the DCA series firmly cemented QSC's name as the leader in cinema sound, while the highly acclaimed PowerLight 2, PLX and RMX lines brought a well-deserved reputation in touring and installed sound.

Manufacturing as an Art Form

The next big transition took place in the early '90s, as demand for the company's products threatened to outpace supply. In now-familiar tradition, the partners were consistently planning for the next phase of the company's success. Realizing again that there was always more to learn, expert manufacturing consultants were brought in to offer feedback.

"At that point it was suggested we needed to make a decision to increase our manufacturing capabilities or outsource," John remembers. After some discussion, the partners agreed it was time to expand. As Barry explains, "we realized we would never fully optimize our product designs if we didn't manufacture them ourselves. We had to intimately understand the cost and the process." Adds Pat, "there were quality considerations as well. Some of our designs required fairly sophisticated hand tuning that would take longer to explain than to do ourselves."

The logical step was to build a new manufacturing facility, and in 1993 a property in nearby Costa Mesa was procured. Needless to say, the move was not without some trepidation. "It was a scary leap, to be sure," Barry recalls. "But we knew it was the right move. We commissioned a task force, using internal and external teamwork to design the new factory." The result was a modern state-of-the-art 55,000 square foot facility capable of manufacturing over 500 units per day.

Their faith was confirmed that year with a 40% increase in sales. As Pat recalls, the move to the new factory was momentous on a number of levels. "This was the first time we had really planned and built the entire facility from scratch. Everything in it was new; prior to that it was all the product of legacy. Our earlier plant had been assembled a piece at a time - we'd put in a roller conveyer one year, a soldering station another year - as the need arose and budgets allowed. Barry had had the same desk for over 20 years, purchased at a second hand store in the 60's for $25. This was in many ways a new beginning."

The new factory offered a tremendous morale boost as well. "It raised our standards as a company, and everyone could feel it," John observes. Aside from simply pride, though, the new facility further raised the company's profile in the industry. Soon after moving into the new building, a deal was struck with JBL to create a line of private label amps for the company.

The manufacturing process continued to be refined, and as capacity grew so did the company's sales. In 1998, ground was broken for a new 81,000 square foot facility adjacent to the existing building.

Looking Forward

The inception of the digital age represented new challenges and new opportunities. The very fundamentals upon which the science of audio was built had changed, and the common thread connecting mixer, amp and speaker - the analog wire - was no longer the standard it once was. The growing complexities resulting from these new technologies inspired a sea of change within the audio industry, with many companies consolidating to provide compatibility within their systems.

Once again, QSC's strategy was to watch, listen and learn. As early as the mid 1980s, the company had begun to explore these nascent technologies and, at Barry's urging, invested in long-term research and development of DSP and networking technology. As Pat tells it, "we recognized that, while the technology wasn't quite there yet, ultimately networks were the future of sound systems." The results of this research surfaced in the mid-1990s with the debut of QSControl, integrating remote monitoring, control and processing of amplification systems into a computer-based network. QSControl has quickly become an industry standard, found in some of the world's largest and most complex audio installations, including Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, Japan's famed Anzu Hall and the world's tallest buildings, the Petronas Towers in Malaysia.

Another breakthrough in advanced systems technology was the debut of QSC's RAVE (Routing Audio Via Ethernet) signal routing devices in 1998. Offering up to 64 channels of digital audio over a standard Ethernet network, RAVE's open system architecture has found its way into countless applications including the renowned Sydney Opera House and the massive Salt Lake City campus of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

Forging deeper into complete systems integration, in 1999 QSC began their R&D foray into loudspeaker technology, spending several years meticulously refining their designs before debuting their ACE series speakers in 2001. Fueled by the immediate acceptance of the ACE series, the company moved aggressively forward to build on this success, rapidly establishing QSC as a leader in loudspeaker technology as well. By 2005, QSC had indisputably arrived at the forefront of yet another phase of its evolution. From relatively modest beginnings, their loudspeaker line has evolved into one of the most wide-ranging, fastest growing and successful in the industry, and a new 42,000-square-foot facility was opened to house the growing division. From the ISIS WideLine, fast becoming the line array of choice among major touring companies worldwide, to the DCS Digital Cinema Series of two-way and three-way master quality systems; from the powerful yet compact AcousticDesign models to the versatile ModularDesign series in both self-powered and passive models, QSC has created a new standard in loudspeaker design. In just a few short years, the QSC logo has become as respected on the proscenium as it is in the rack.

The Non-Corporation

"Imported from Southern California" was one of QSC's early, tongue-in-cheek marketing mantras, and it's clear there has always been something distinctive about the company. "We came together as 60's California hippies who really wanted to do something different," Pat recalls. Even today, many of those 60's values still form the foundation of QSC's business ethics. A visit to the company's corporate offices provides an interesting study in contrasts - the sleek and modern environment could easily play host to three-piece suits, but is populated instead by T-shirts and cut-offs. As Barry puts it, "we're far more concerned with people's substance than with their fashion sense."

John agrees. "Other companies think if you make your employees dress in suits, you get results. We figure if they're dressed in shorts and T-shirts, then the respect they get is earned and genuine."

It is this focus on substance over style that has enabled the company to assemble a talent pool of creative minds that is unrivaled anywhere in the industry. "Part of what makes a strong brand is truly the caliber and quantity of really good people in the organization," Pat asserts. "The collective horsepower of any single department in this organization outstrips that of most entire companies,"

Spend some time at the company and it's clear this pride extends to every individual in the organization. There is an openness and an exchange of ideas in this company that is rare for a corporation of its size, where even non-management staff members are recognized for their talents, and their contributions are encouraged and rewarded.

Unlike many of their contemporaries, QSC has never been dominated by a single strong personality. Continuity and even-handedness has always triumphed over chest-beating and flashy marketing. "We've always been very demanding of ourselves," Barry observes. "In some companies you can hide away in your cubbyhole, but not here. We apply a very high standard to our products, our people, our service, even our customers."

The distribution of the decision-making process that began with Pat, Barry and John has evolved to become central to the company's core principles of operation. "There's a certain intellectual integrity that prevails throughout QSC's management," Barry observes. "When you're managing good people, you don't need to do their jobs for them. The value of their contribution to the process is clear, and is respected. We're all ruthlessly honest with each other - we allow the facts to lead where they may, and we accept decisions based on the reality of those facts. Occasionally it may take longer to make decisions, but the result is always positive. The best ideas always win."

QSC Turns 40
Audio Giant Celebrates Four Decades

by Kevin Lally

This article first appeared in the July 2008 edition of Film Journal International magazine. (reprinted with permission)

Measured decibel for decibel, the 40-year history of QSC Audio Products, LLC, is the story of the country's ultimate "garage band." Launched out of a small 800-square-foot shop in Costa Mesa, California, QSC has grown from a humble manufacturer of amplifiers for area rock musicians to one of the most innovative and respected professional audio companies in the world.

QSC's current leadership position is all the more impressive once you learn about its less than- auspicious origins. Engineering whiz Pat Quilter had founded a new company called Quilter Sound Things, which designed and built amplifiers and stage sound equipment. By sheer chance, Quilter found a partner for his fledgling business when Barry Andrews' motorcycle broke down nearby and he sought out a friend who worked for Quilter. "I stopped by to hitch a ride and ended up with a career," Andrews recalls. "An interesting side note is that the friend I got a ride with went on to law school and has been our attorney all these years."

Andrews applied his own skill in building speaker cabinets to Quilter's technical savvy, and soon the newly renamed QSC was getting its amps into popular music clubs on the Sunset Strip. The company also forged a deal with a Berkeley music shop to trade amps for guitars, resulting in a "Buy an amp, get a free guitar" promotion. At times, QSC couldn't keep up with the demand for its product.

But finances in those early years were tight. "My most painful memories were of going to work and not knowing if the sheriff's padlock would be on the door," Andrews admits. "But it didn't happen, we struggled on and made every debt good."

The lowest point for the company came the day the inventory disappeared. Quilter remembers Andrews asking, "Pat, did you by any chance take all our stuff home with you?" "No." "Well, it's all missing—there's a big hole in the roof." Quilter elaborates, "This was back when we were still hand-making products and selling them out the front of our shop. We had just finally gotten a decent showroom inventory of half-a-dozen units and somebody cleaned us out."

Around that time, Barry's younger brother John starting helping out part-time, while still in high school. He went on to study finance at the University of Southern California, with an eye toward a career in real estate. But he wound up joining QSC full-time in 1972, rising to chief financial officer.

"By that time, we had stabilized things at QSC, we had a growth plan, and it seemed there were opportunities, so I decided I was going to give it five years," John Andrews recalls. "My father gave my brother a hard time for recruiting me, because he had spent fairly good money to send me to USC and did not foresee that the investment would end up in this struggling amplifier company."

But CEO Barry Andrews had faith. "I can remember writing a position paper in the mid-to late '70s proposing a plan to become the world's number-one producer of professional power amps. Considering our success, it now seems like a reasonable plan—unless you knew that at the time I wrote it we were doing $185,000 in sales, employed 2.5 people and had lost money for eight years in a row! Thank goodness we were all so naïve and determined. If we'd known better, we'd have never tried, much less succeeded." The partners decided to put their main focus on manufacturing rather than direct retail, and earned their first patent in 1978, for Quilter's AC Coupled circuit technology. By 1979, QSC topped $1 million in sales for the first time.

The next few years brought several major breakthroughs. John Andrews recollects, "We were struggling building tinbox wonders, as Pat called them. And we made a bet on a very advanced line of amplifiers, which for us was a huge technological statement. There was a worry that the market associated us with cheap, honest, somewhat reliable products, but pretty plain stuff. And we were going to take a step forward with a line that was very high-powered for the time, with all the pro features that were as good as anything out there. When we delivered that product line, Series Three, it was met with pretty good success. It wasn't a high-volume line, but it really added to our credibility. It was about that time that I realized we had the ability to really grow this thing a lot larger."

In 1981, QSC began its foray into a market of special interest to FJI readers: cinemas. Dolby Labs, then making an aggressive move into theatres, struck an OEM deal with QSC to put QSC amplifiers in Dolby racks. The amps were so well-regarded that Dolby ultimately stopped putting their own name on the amps and gave full credit to QSC. "Later, when they got out of the racking business, they helped us to continue serving their customers," Barry Andrews recalls. "Dolby has stood as an example of high quality, service and professionalism. It's a relationship we've deeply appreciated and respected for decades."

Barry affirms that "cinema continues to play a very pivotal role . In addition to being a large market segment, it also provides us a unique opportunity to combine and leverage all of our technologies."

Notes François Godfrey, director of cinema sales, "One of the key features that we offer to the cinema industry is that we're a small enough company to value the cinema business, and we're a large enough company to react to its needs. For larger companies, the total dollar amount or part of their portfolio that's brought by cinema gets slivered down pretty small. At QSC, what cinema brings to the overall bottom line is still quite large, so it makes us a more valuable partner to our customers."

QSC's wave of innovations grew more dynamic with the 1988 debut of the EX series, which introduced an "open architecture" design philosophy, permitting the fiber-optic and digital computer control systems of other manufacturers to interface and function together. The PowerLight Series (1994) utilized high-speed switching supply technology to virtually eliminate the need of a bulky power transformer and pave the way for compact and lightweight amplifier technology.

In 1993, the company made the momentous decision to build a new 55,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. "It's still a relatively small business compared to others," John Andrews notes, "and we were under cost pressure like everyone else. So we had to figure out a way to serve the different needs of the market. Over the years, we developed the concept of a platform that could be used to spin out a variety of models. It was a concept that required a new approach to design, and also required a new factory to be able to pull it off cost-effectively. It was a huge bet... In retrospect, it's one of the smartest things we did." An adjacent 81,000-square-foot plant followed in 1998.

The digital era brought its own challenges, and QSC was ready. The mid-1990s saw QSControl, a computer-based network integrating remote monitoring, control and processing of amplification systems, which can be found in high-profile locations like Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino and Japan's Anzu Hall.

QSC's RAVE (Routing Audio Via Ethernet) signal-routing devices followed in 1998, providing up to 64 channels of digital audio over a standard Ethernet network; the technology has such famed customers as the Sydney Opera House and the Salt Lake City campus of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

In 2001, QSC made its landmark debut in the loudspeaker business with its ACE series. Barry Andrews explains the move: "Initially, the trend towards powered speakers in portable systems seemed to threaten our core business. But as we looked deeper, we realized there was a huge gap in the market for true systems suppliers. We got off to a rocky start, but we learned and kept investing. Today the second-largest part of our business and by far the fastest-growing product category. We're already a top-ten global supplier and moving up quickly. However, it is complete systems that we are focused on, because that is where we can deliver the highest overall performance and value. The vast majority of our speaker sales are part of a QSC system." In 2005, QSC opened a 42,000-square-foot facility for its burgeoning loudspeaker division.

Founder Pat Quilter reflects on the evolution of his company: "For decades, we prospered by keeping a tight focus on power amps. I think of that period of the '70s, '80s and much of the '90s as the era of specialists. You had companies focused on speakers, amplifiers, consoles, recording systems and so forth, and those products generally played pretty well together because we had simple standard analog interfaces. But as digital products began to become a major factor, software compatibility with various versions of Windows and other complex issues rose up. We're seeing a return to single-brand systems that can do the whole job, which is kind of how it was in the '50s."

Quilter sees a tremendous upside to the "artful combinations of products" now available from a single brand. "Our latest combinations of digital processing, amplifier technology and speakers let us offer incredibly high-output compact speakers with sound quality you could never get in the small form factor before due to the inherent acoustic limitations, which we could offset through proper electronic processing. We've raised that concept to the trademark power with 'intrinsic correction,' which addresses the intrinsic limitations of the drivers and offers the designer a clean sheet of paper on which to put together complete systems of speakers to get the coverage they want."

It's been a long road to that "single-brand" status, but Quilter views the company's incremental growth as a key factor in its longevity. "A lot of enterprises in this business are very visionand even ego-driven. Some mover or shaker says, 'I want the biggest, loudest thing you can make,' and they cook something up and everybody says, 'Gee, I want one too.' And the next thing you know, they have a high-profile, performance driven brand. Those kinds of companies often have problems when they want to expand their volume—they have to go from a craft-shop orientation to a production-based orientation. As price competition enters into the equation, you have to know how to get the maximum value out of each and every part of your system.

"A company that starts in the trenches as we did tends to know a lot more about that end of things," Quilter continues. "We see ourselves much like some of the Japanese car companies— we came in with small, humble products and continued to improve and develop them and gradually worked our way up the food chain, if you will, to where we have world-class products that still have that sense of high value, careful design, manufacturability and reparability, just general all-around practicality."

One of the key members of the QSC team for the past two decades is Barry Ferrell, who joined the company 18 years ago as an applications engineer in the sales department after working for Mid States Theatres, National Amusements and projector manufacturer Strong International. Today, he is senior director of product strategy and president of the International Cinema Technology Association.

"QSC was in the midst of a tremendous growth curve when I came onboard," Ferrell recalls. "We were about an eighth of the size we are now."

Ferrell's three years at Strong International, helping to build thousands of projection and sound systems, came in handy at his new employer. "In the course of building all those systems," he says, "I rapidly came to the conclusion that there had to be a better way than the way sound systems were then being built, in such a piecework fashion. When I came to QSC, I was able to implement that. With the QSC DCM, a very successful product, we were the first to really integrate the digital crossovers with the theatre monitor panel and a simplified, easy-wiring system that we call dataports. Now all of our competition has copied that wiring scheme. We pretty much changed the way that cinema sound racks are put together."

Ferrell spent the latter part of the '90s as cinema market manager, then segued into product strategy for the entire company, which encompasses customers as varied as convention centers, stadiums, arenas, churches, hotels, live concert tours and music instrument retail centers. The QSC veteran reveals that he'll be increasing his involvement with the cinema market in coming months, and expresses great enthusiasm for the aural potential of digital cinema.

"With the advent of digital cinema," Ferrell notes, "we now have, literally, the ability to completely and 100% reproduce the experience you would get in the dubbing stage where the movie is recorded. There is no bottleneck left. Digital sound on film, DTS or SDDS or Dolby Digital, whatever format you're talking about—no offense intended, but the fact they made it work at all is nothing short of a miracle. Those are compressed audio formats. They take the total amount of digital content that is recorded at the dub stage and they must compress it in a way that has the least amount of sonically objectionable artifacts and get this huge amount of data crammed into this little pipeline of little digital optical spots on the film. In the course of this compression, you lose some of the fidelity and dynamic range and clarity. It's way better than analog sound on film, but it's not that pristine experience you would get if you listened to the full master recording that was output from the mixing console in the dub stage.

"Now, with d-cinema, that exact digital file can be delivered in the theatre, with no loss of clarity, no loss of frequency response or dynamic range. It is a pristine digital copy of the original. Combined with the advances in power amplifiers and loudspeakers and transducers, the experience in the theatre has never been better than what you can get with d-cinema from an audio point of view."

Still, Ferrell has some cautionary words for the movie exhibitor. "What theatres need to do is realize the incredible quality that is available from d-cinema in terms of audio, and they have to upgrade the rest of the chain. You have to have better sound systems, and better architecture in terms of the acoustics and the isolation between theatres."

Cinema sales director François Godfrey offers another perspective. "The digital-cinema rollout is really still focused on picture, so we are always challenged to show what the rollout will look like from an audio standpoint. They're getting rid of the operator in most digital-cinema booths, so there's no one there to monitor the audio anymore, and there's no equipment to monitor it. For ten years now, we've been selling an amplifier, the DCA series, and combined with our new product platform, the QSControl.net Basis series, you can get all of those amplifiers onto a network. So the investment for the future has already been made by exhibitors. It puts us in a powerful position.

"In North America, we've had upwards to 85% market share at times. Worldwide, we've had about 65% market share in amplifiers, with a high percentage of those being DCA amplifiers. So we're in the process of re-promoting a product that's been around for a while, because the network infrastructure can be taken advantage of now. For cinema, we can control the entire B chain and provide QSC quality all the way through."

All five executives interviewed for this anniversary salute take tremendous pride in their company and the caliber of people it attracts. "We've got this really talented collection of people on the technology and manufacturing side," John Andrews declares. "What's most gratifying to me is how strong our bench is. We feel we have the capability to grow the company much larger than any of us envisioned when we started." That "bench" includes people like VP of research and development Mark Engebretson, former VP of R&D for JBL Professional and Paramount Pictures and a Motion Picture Academy Scientific and Engineering Award winner for his loudspeaker innovations; and cinema specialists like Danny Pickett, formerly of Fox, THX and AMC Theatres, and Sam Hynds, formerly of Cinemeccanica U.S.

As for the "Q" in QSC, Pat Quilter, Godfrey says, "Pat is the rock, the foundation. His integrity in his product is instilled throughout the company." In Ferrell's view, "Pat is the embodiment of the word genius. He truly understands technology and the user interface, and appreciates what the end user and the technician go through when installing and using equipment."

"Pat is clearly the engineer," Barry Andrews notes. "His products are the foundation of the company. But many people don't realize that he's also had a huge impact on our corporate values. He has an intellectual honesty and integrity that, by example, created an environment where truth and the right answer is more important than perceived power or politics. In turn, this culture continues to attract an inordinate number of highly talented people."

At the same time, Quilter had the humility to recognize that there were areas of the business that didn't particularly interest him and required another viewpoint. "Left to my own devices," he admits, "I'm a Model T kind of guy and probably would have been happy to be a small provider of relatively simple products. Barry always had a strong vision of taking design chops and applying them at a higher level of performance and service to the market. Bringing him into the company was a key part of our development." "Pat needed someone to bring a business focus to QSC," Ferrell observes, "and that was in the form of John Andrews, and the sales and marketing and product visionary of the company was Barry Andrews. The three of them together led QSC through its earliest years. If it wasn't for John's business sense, Barry's love of product and Pat's fanatical attention to engineering detail, QSC may have been another of those small companies to not make the transition to a larger, more diverse company."

Barry Andrews also praises his younger brother: "John has been our operational and financial foundation. He's the one who enabled a couple of dreamers to flourish. Without him, I'm sure we'd still be struggling. The three of us seem to be very good counterbalances."

As for QSC today, "Our roles are evolving into mentors and helpers," Barry Andrews states. "It is exciting to see new people carrying on and building upon the work of others." Andrews calls his employees "one of the largest and most talented engineering teams in the history of pro audio. We attracted and motivated them by funding them and asking them to create the next generation of groundbreaking audio systems. As they say in show biz, you ain't seen nothing yet!"

Along with its technological innovations, QSC is renowned for its casual, convivial work environment. Says Quilter, "We take our jobs seriously but we come to work in shorts... why do you have to wear a suit to be a professional? You can be casual and skilled and hard-working."

Barry Andrews describes QSC's corporate style as "relaxed professionalism where substance matters more than style. A learning organization that is also fun. A place of rigorous intellectual honesty and hard work, where people take their work seriously but not themselves. Work hard, have fun. To me, the pursuit of quality in all things is intrinsically rewarding. To have fun in the process is essential—play is the source of creativity and joy makes life worth living."

Of all his achievements over the course of four decades, Barry Andrews says, "The accomplishment I'm proudest of is helping create an environment and culture that attracts and retains really bright, hard-working and loyal people. A company where real people answer the phone and genuinely take care of customers like they are friends. And, finally, a place that is full of genuinely nice people. Pat, John and I have always believed that nice people can finish first. It has been rewarding to prove it."

QSC Audio Products, LLC is a leading manufacturer of power amplifiers, loudspeakers, signal processing, digital signal transport, and computer control systems for professional audio markets worldwide.