Crown’s history traces back to an Elkhart, Indiana minister named Clarence C. Moore (1904-1979). A longtime radio enthusiast, he founded International Radio and Electronics Corporation (IREC) in 1947 and converted a former chicken coop into the budding manufacturer’s first production facility. The company’s early reputation was built on a family of open-reel tape recorders designed to operate reliably when used by missionaries in remote, often-primitive regions of the world. After modifying and distributing several existing models (Magnecord, Recordio, Pentron and Crestwood) for the first couple of years, Moore obtained a patent in 1949 for a groundbreaking invention: the world’s first tape recorder with a built-in power amplifier (15W).
Eventually, Moore’s wife and co-founder, Ruby suggested that ‘International Radio and Electronics Corporation’ was too long a name for the company. Since IREC had by this point produced vacuum tube tape recorders branded ‘Royal’ and ‘Imperial’, in addition to the fact that the emblem on those products was a fancy crown, she felt that the company should simply be called Crown. Her husband agreed, and, in the sixties, the company’s name was changed to ‘Crown International, a division of International Radio and Electronics Corporation’. Finally, in 1975, the stockholders voted to change the name of the corporation to Crown International, Inc.
Over the years, state-of-the-art innovations have made Crown one of the most successful manufacturers in the marketplace. The nineties found Crown leading the way in the development of computer-controlled audio systems. Crown’s patented IQ System, the world’s first significant computer-controlled audio system, had been introduced in 1987, and, by 1990, was the most widely used system in the world. Fuelled by unprecedented sales and a multi-million dollar manufacturing expansion, Crown, in 1997, added another new milestone in audio technology with the introduction of the K2 amplifier featuring Balanced Current Amplifier circuitry offering innovative thermal and energy efficiencies.
With the company’s acquisition by Harman International in March of 2000, this millennium has already found Crown continuing to engineer forward-thinking solutions such as the new CTs Series amplifier line, IQ-PIP-USP2/CN CobraNet DSP module, IQ-USM 810 processor/mixer and CE 4000 amplifier. Today, 55 years after Clarence Moore founded the company, Crown has more than 500 employees and over 1600 dealers worldwide - at its helm sits President Blake Augsburger. Crown International Senior VP of R&D Gerald Stanley, who originally joined the company in 1964 as a tape recorder line technician and amplifier design engineer, comments on Crown’s ‘secret’ for success over the years. "In an era of cookbook designs and buggy software, it would seem that the most basic lessons of history have been forgotten," he says. "Crown’s recipe is simple: design, build and service each product as if you were the customer. This approach not only drives the product to excellence, it drives the people to be the best that they can be."
Full story in the August issue of L&SI.
(Ruth Rossington)
