The Early Years
The Lansing Manufacturing Company
The Rise of the Motion Pictures Sound Business
The Altec Lancing Corporation
The Formation of James B. Lansing Sound, Incorporated
The Last Thirty-Two Years
Lansing's Personal Style
JBL Company Milestones
 
THE ALTEC LANSING CORPORATIONS
With the new stability offered by the merger, Lansing was at last free to pursue his work without financial worry. During
these years, he perfected many of the processes that have become standard in loudspeaker manufacturing around the
world, including high-speed winding of flat wire voice coils on metal mandrels and hydraulic forming of high-frequency
aluminum diaphragms. We should take note of two very famous systems that Lansing perfected in these years with Altec.
The 604 coaxial loudspeaker of 1943 was a very successful combination of a small multicellular horn mounted concentrically
with a 15-inch woofer. Working with John Hilliard, Lansing developed the A-4 theater system, a large two-way system standing
about 8 feet high, which made use, for the first time in theater systems, of a low-frequency enclosure that was not open in the
rear. The combination of horn loading through the mid-bass region and porting in the low-frequency range gave the system a
level of low-frequency performance in the theater that had been unknown before. The high frequency section made use of a
traditional high-frequency annular slit phasing plug driver with a three-inch voice coil, the model 288.The low-frequency transducer
in the A-4 theater system was the model 515 loudspeaker, a fifteen-inch loudspeaker with a three-inch voice coil. It was the first
low-frequency transducer to make use of flat wire. These early systems used field coil structures for attaining high flux levels in
the transducers, since the permanent magnet materials of the day were not strong enough to provide the necessary field strength
for these systems.

During the war years the Altec Lansing Corporation worked on a magnetic airborne detector, an airborne submarine detection
system of extreme sensitivity. George Carrington was quick to note that the high energy magnetic material, Alnico V, used in
this device would have great application after the war in loudspeaker designs. During the war years, Lansing's energies and
talents were channeled solely into transducer and systems engineering.

In 1941, when the Altec Service Corporation bought the assets, goodwill and trade names of the Lansing Manufacturing Company,
Lansing agreed that he would not go into business for himself for a period of at least five years. While there were continuing
disagreements between Lansing and Carrington, Lansing did honor this commitment and in 1946, five years after the acquisition,
he left Altec Lansing to form a new company. Everyone at Altec Lansing wished him well; they had known that he would eventually
leave after the five-year commitment had been met