MK History

Founded in 1974, MK Sound is the only manu­facturer with over three decades of experi­ence in designing and manufacturing subwoofers and other high-end loudspeakers, as well as extensive audiophile recording ex­perience.
The original vision of company founders Ken Kreisel, Dr. Lester Field, and D. Jonas Miller is realized in today’s extensive line of innovative speaker prod­ucts at the leading edge of technology, advancing the state-of­the-art in both the recording and reproduction of music and film sound for more than 35 years.
Anticipating home theater by more than a de­cade, MK is recognized as the pioneer in the design concept of Powered Subwoofers and Sat­ellite speakers, now copied by virtually every speaker manufacturer in their own surround systems.
Ongoing research continues to provide signifi­cant improvements to the MK line, with innova­tions such as the Phase-Focused crossover, Head­room Maximizer circuit, and Push-Pull Dual Driver subwoofers.
In 1974, the brand-new company combined interest in live music recording and loudspeaker design ex­perience with the research and acoustics back­ground of Dr. Field, who retired as Chief Scientist and vice president of research at Hughes Aircraft Company, after being a full professor at both Caltech and Stanford Universities and prior work at Bell Telephone Research Laboratories after ob­taining his Ph.D. at Stanford.
By combining creativity, critical listening and experience in live sound re­cording with scientific methodology and experience, MK’s foundation was set.
In 1973, Walter Becker of Steely Dan asked Kreisel for a studio reference subwoofer and moni­toring system for the Pretzel Logic mixdown ses­sions. MK’s speaker business was born with the balanced dual-driver subwoofer designed for the sessions. MK RealTime’s acclaimed direct-to­ disc recordings soon followed.
By the end of the ‘70s, MK led the way again, being among the first to make commercial recordings digitally, using an MK-modified Sony 16-bit digi­tal recorder. In fact, MK was the first U.S. com­pany to release Compact Discs!
With experience in Home Theater dat­ing back to Hollywood screening room design and installation in the ’70s, MK has long been at the leading edge of music and film sound technology.
This is why MK was among the very first com­panies to join Lucasfilm in the Home THX program, and why MK speakers are considered to be the best at reproducing both music and film soundtracks. Numerous awards and number one rankings in product reviews and shootouts document this fact.
And in 1997, MK finally made its formal entry into the world of professional audio, even though MK has been at home in recording studios from day one. See “MK In The Professional Sound World” for the details on this exciting part of MK history.

MK In The Professional Audio World

Here’s a trivia question. Who were MK’s first customers? None other than Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, who in 1973 ordered a custom designed monitoring system for the Pretzel Logic mixdown sessions.
Shortly thereafter, the first MK Satellite­Subwoofer system was designed (and used by a number of prominent recording engineers) as a portable reference recording monitor system. For over 35 years, sound professionals have been using MK in both their studio and home systems.
In the early ‘90s, pro use of MK speakers really heated up, led by Dolby Labs. During the devel­opment of the Dolby Digital discrete 5.1 channel surround system, several of Dolby’s key technical people heard the MK 5000THX system at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Ranch, during the HDTV Grand Alliance listening tests.
This led to Dolby acquiring a 5000 system, which they used as their reference speaker for the development of Dolby Digital. Dolby’s San Francisco labs and listening rooms have used MK since then, and the 150 system has become a fixture in Dolby’s Los Angeles and New York reference rooms.
MK speakers were also used for all of the in­dustry demonstrations of Dolby Digital prior to the introduction of actual processors by individual manu­facturers. The FCC Advanced Television Stan­dards Committee (High Definition TV) uses MK in their laboratory and in a system that they use in overseas presentations to demonstrate the supe­riority of the American HD standard to countries that have not yet selected an HDTV standard.
And Dolby is not the only multichannel advocate using MK. Multi-channel music pioneer DTS employed multiple MK systems for their groundbreaking re-mixes. In fact, if there’s one thing that Dolby, DTS, and THX can agree upon, it is that they all use MK speakers!
The Hollywood postproduction community has embraced the MK system as the 5.1 channel standard. As more professionals have an oppor­tunity to hear it, the number of studios installing it increases. Well over 100 professional recording and master­ing studio rooms in the music, film, and video fields are using MK systems as their reference.
Pro audio’s EQ magazine reviewed the MPS sys­tem, and the reviewer loved it, concluding “For a professional surround sound system, I think the MK MPS-150THX is the one to beat.” After using MK for the score of the blockbuster Armageddon, composer Trevor Rabin commented “the bottom line is MK’s MPS line of 5.1 monitors and powered subwoofers are the best speakers I’ve ever heard.”