55 Years of Electroacoustic History The rise of ESB began in the late '60s, with loudspeaker models of craft and style, but with excellent build and sound quality. Quickly they established themselves in a market overwhelmingly dominated by American brands such as Acoustic Research and JBL. The first hurdle was to sell a product in an Italian market that was so in love with foreign brands. The first home loudspeaker built by ESB founder Vincenzo Biasella (at the time, ESB did not yet exist) was the 240L. This impressive speaker, with nine drivers including a 45 cm diameter woofer, was co-designed with an architect who had designed Biasella’s house. The resulting speaker sounded so beautiful that others who heard it ordered their own sets. These speakers were superb with Jazz, exceeding the sound quality of famous American brands, but they also sounded excellent with classical music. Vincenzo Biasella realized he would have to build a lot of speakers. He wrote “ESB” on the back of his speakers at the connection terminals. Thus was born the ESB brand. Thanks to the dedication of Vincenzo Biasella (then the "Boss", but also the engineer) and the contribution of engineer Ferrer, ESB took a major step in advancing the art of loudspeaker design. With the purchase of a set of Bruel & Kjaer tools (which at that time cost more than a house), and the building of an anechoic chamber, ESB reached, within a few years, an industrial dimension. It was the peak of the Italian post-war industrial boom, and everything was booming. It was in these years (the 1970's) that ESB built what has become a legend, and began the conquest of a market that had been dominated almost exclusively by American and British speakers. ESB had broken the wall of foreign domination. Other Italian audio manufacturers such as RCF (Sonus Faber), and many more were soon born. This was the beginning of the Italian age of Hi-Fi. First were speakers, then came Italian amplifiers and other audio electronics. During those years, ESB became a prominent advertiser in audio magazines (Sound and Stereoplay being the first, with Audiovision, AudioReview and Discoteca arriving later). It was through these publications that ESB became acquainted with audio engineer Renato Giussani, who often collaborated with these magazines. Giussani would join the ESB engineering staff at the end of 1979, assuming the role of chief engineer, alongside the founder, Vincenzo Biasella. Together, they would develop the 7 Series, which built on the philosophy that had already generated the UMA (Unità Medio Alti) aimed at optimizing the listening point… something no one had focused on before then.

The Driving Force. Since 1974. ZAPCO is dedicated to the pursuit of audio fidelity. Our prime objectives are to design and manufacture audio products of unsurpassed quality, to provide unparalleled support and service for these products and to conduct business in a manner that will enhance the quality of life for all involved. Zapco was there at the start of car audio scene. In fact one might say Zapco started the car sound scene, with the first true high fidelity car amplifier in 1974. It all started several years earlier with a man who worked sound systems for concerts and who wanted a better amplifier for his automobile travels around the country to different concert venues. The problem of car stereo those days was Noise. He took a simple, straightforward amplifier design that would give him the sound he wanted and he solved the noise problems by removing the power supply from the amplifier. By mounting the power supply in its own chassis, he was able to give the amplifier section a clean, noise free source of high voltage AC current to amplify the music. The result was an odd looking but extremely good sounding three piece car stereo amplifier. After building amplifiers by request for a few years, in his family’s barn in California farm country, he and some friends decided to take the Zapco amps to the world, and the first Zapco Model 150 was born.

Almost four decades ago, in 1975, Mr. Meir Mordechai founded Morel, inspired by his love of music and motivated by a dream – to create a loudspeaker that would capture the magic in music in the most natural way. His life-long quest resulted in successive generations of speakers and audio drivers that consistently set new standards for superb sound quality. The Morel brand has become an annual recipient of “Best of” awards for home and mobile sound reproduction. Each Morel product is assembled by hand and extensively tested – undergoing seven different quality tests – to ensure that it meets the highest standards.

Italia HiFi/PHD/ATI has been innovating speaker and amplifier designs for more than 40 years. You may find them in vehicles such as Ferrari, Mercedes AMG, and Riva Yachts. Their Italy-based factory has set many historic firsts such as the first to produce a Neodymium tweeter, the first to produce a driver that uses a composite/carbon cone, and the first to combine aluminum and natural fibers into a cone. Using their grand history of cutting-edge technology, they have produced the new Italia HiFi line, now available in the USA.

Audison, founded in 1979, is home to a rich history of innovations such as the first brand to design and manufacturer a dedicated monoblock bass amplifier, and the first to create a 5 channel amplifier. Fast forward to today, Audison offers state of the art products such as the latest Forza generation of DSP solutions, SR amplifiers, and Thesis speakers.

Considered by many as the “Genesis” of high-end car audio, through the years, Audiomobile has always been recognized as a brand synonymous with creating cutting-edge, advanced technology car audio products. Many of these technologies were adapted from Professional Sound reinforcement (Concert PA) loudspeaker products. This is no mere coincidence. From the first true, high-performance power amplifiers, high-voltage preamplifier the famous SP 300, to asymmetrical active crossovers, for bi-amp systems with subwoofers, as well as many of the fundamental concepts and terminology now taken for granted, including the 6-channel (front / rear / sub) architecture, as well as the ‘amp rack’ concept, Audiomobile literally and figuratively “wrote the book” on bringing these technologies to the mobile audio system realm.

A subsidiary of Electromedia, Hertz Audio was started in 1998 with the goal of creating high-efficiency speakers that handle extreme amounts of SPL. Over the years, the brand has diversified with the release of the Energy, High Energy, and Mille series. From the different series came an assortment of high-quality amplifiers, subwoofers, and digital sound processors. Many of the products are hand-made at the Hertz facility in Italy. The flagship Mille series has secured awards from the toughest critics around the world.

Kenwood/JVC is known for its reputation of bringing advanced new products to the vehicle electronics market. Kenwood/JVC created the first anti-theft car cassette deck that could be slid out of the dash, the first radio with an automatic broadcast sensor system, and the first polypropylene speaker cones. Today, they offer a wide variety of highly advanced car and marine products such as touchscreen radios, amplifiers, speakers, and even DSP solutions.

Since 1971, Sony has created products that have shaped the car audio industry. From the auto-reverse cassette player, towards the development of the in-car CD player, Sony has proven their innovation time after time again. In 1991, Sony released the famous "Holy Grail" Mobile ES line which took the industry by surprise. Now, Sony continues to innovate through the release of their modern high-end offerings such as the revolutionary RSX-GS9 audiophile-grade radio.