AKG (company)


AKG Acoustics is an acoustics engineering and manufacturing company. It was founded in 1947 by Dr. Rudolf Görike and Ernest Plass in Vienna, Austria. It is a part of Harman International Industries, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics.
The products currently marketed under the AKG brand mostly consist of microphones, headphones, wireless audio systems and related accessories for professional and consumer markets.

History

The company was founded in Vienna, Austria in 1947 by two Viennese: physicist Dr. Rudolf Görike and engineer Ernst Pless.
Originally, its main business was to provide technical equipment for cinemas: loudspeakers, film projectors and light meters. The business slowly expanded and AKG started selling car horns, door intercoms, carbon microphone capsules for telephones, headsets and cushion speakers. The first AKG microphone was used by radio stations, theaters, jazz clubs and cabarets.
About this time, the company developed its first patents, the moving coil technology and the principle of mass load membranes, allowing its products to have extended frequency ranges.
With the creation of the D12 microphone in 1953, AKG achieved international fame, setting the standard for voice transmissions. Being the world's first dynamic cardioid microphone, it possessed excellent sonic qualities for that time, making its way into radio stations and recording studios from across the world. The product was improved through subsequent upgrades, spanning the famous C414 and C12 microphones.
End of the 70es and in the 80s Magnetic cartridges were produced, in 1982 for example the P 25.
In 1984, AKG became a public company, listed on the Vienna stock exchange. As a blue chip company, it was one of the most traded stocks.
The company was acquired by the American company Harman International Industries in 1994. By this time, AKG's United States subsidiary had been established. AKG Acoustics USA, still headquartered in the San Fernando Valley, also houses regional offices for Crown Audio, another Harman Industries subsidiary.
In 2010, the company received the prestigious Technical Grammy award.
In 2016 it was announced that the AKG Vienna facilities would be shut down in 2017, with a transfer of brand headquarters to California, USA.
Most current AKG-branded products are made in Harman's overseas production facilities.

Timeline

Among its professional products especially noteworthy is the first C 12 and its successors and alternate versions, which include the Telefunken Ela M 250 and M 251, the C 24 stereo microphone, the C 412, and over a dozen different models which have carried the designation "C 414" in various forms. Those microphones are equipped with the famous designed by AKG's engineer Konrad Wolf. The CK12 was a milestone in transducer technology and the first to offer constant frequency response and sensitivity for all polar patterns.
AKG microphones have been used for shooting Hans Hass's movie Adventures in the Red Sea and were installed on the MIR space station. They are also mentioned by Dan Brown in his novels The Da Vinci Code and Deception Point.
Some microphone models include:
AKG also manufactures a range of high-specification headphones.
The K50 model, introduced in 1959 were the world's first supra-aural and open-back headphones.
The K1000 was the flagship model, but is no longer being produced. It was a unique fully open headphone.
The current flagship model for the AKG headphone line-up is the K812.
The K702 features a removable cord and is black, the K701 is white. The Q701 also has a detachable cable and comes in three color variants: white, black, and a lime green. All three models are still in production. The K701s have been largely used by professional musicians and technicians in recording studios.
Many top recording studios use AKG K240 headphones as a solution for best general use for both monitor and playback. They received particular notoriety from their prominent display in Eddie Murphy's 1985 music video for "Party All the Time".
Another notable, yet short-lived model was the K280 Parabolic – a multi-driver headphone which focused compression waves to a central point in the earcup.
As well as studio headphones, AKG also manufactures a range of Hi-Fi headphones and earphones for domestic use. One notable use includes Samsung, their parent company, using AKG to tune their headphones that come equipped with Samsung's most-recent flagship devices, starting with the Galaxy S8 and S8+, the stereo speakers as of the Galaxy S9, S9+, S10E, S10+, Note 9, and the Note 10.
In 2017, the Y50 model was awarded Product of the Year for on-ear headphones by What Hi-Fi? magazine.