Peace protests, acid rock, Jack Kerouac, the Vietnam War and a death at a Rolling Stones concert were just a few things that changed California, USA in the late 1960s. During this time of chaos and change came the birth of Costa Mesa, California’s QSC.

Barry Andrews and Pat Quilter met at a highway rest-stop in 1968. Little did they know that this chance encounter would lead to a 40-year career of developing power amps, loudspeakers and networked audio solutions.

During the early years QSC’s founders, Quilter and the Andrews brothers (Barry and John) had great ideas, but were not excited by the idea of actually having to build something. However, the fear of having to get a real job was one of the driving factors in the development of the first QSC products – that and the vision to make innovative products for the musicians in the area.

“QSC entered business with the idea of bringing more value and capability to the hands of the ordinary working musician – this was my personal ambition,” explains Quilter, QSC’s chairman and director of power R&D (yup, that’s what it says on his business card).

“I had seen my brother and his friends struggle to buy what seemed like very expensive products in music stores, and I thought that there ought to be a way to make something good for less money. We pursued that for years, but of course the company has become bigger and bigger with generally more high-end customers.”

With four decades under its belt, QSC has seen the business make a full circle, with competing companies going from operating as single brand, to full system suppliers to specialist suppliers and then back to the first one again.

“In 1968 it was expected that if you were an installer or a
retailer and you dealt with a firm, you were almost certainly going to get everything you needed from that one company to do your work,” Quilter comments.

“Now, since systems have become so complex, it is once again important to the customer that they will be able to get what they need from a single supplier so that everything can be integrated: software problems solved, networking resolved and with one source of support.”

With that said, the company now offers everything from touring to installs to cinemas, but never abandoned its retail roots, remaining a strong player in the sector due to its original motivation.

“It gives us a high revenue product base that requires us to do the best possible engineering and bring that fundamentally added value to what is, frankly, a very challenging, competitive market. Every time we have taken that head on, addressed those problems and solved them, it has helped launch the company one more step further along the way of having more tools to play with,” says Quilter.

The company has continued that ethos with the recent release of the portable GX Series amplifiers, designed for professional entertainers on a limited budget.

“The GX series are designed to meet the lowest price competition head on, not through mere cheapening of manufacturing, but by way of improving the efficiency of design, reducing raw material requirements and smarter engineering: the most nimble and high-quality manufacturing all put together at a price that can compete with everybody,” states Quilter.

“As of now, we think that the GX3 and the GX5 cover the market, and of course we have plenty of amps that are larger, but those operate in a market space where there isn’t a lot of competition, so their relative pricing is quite competitive. It was the entry-level part of the market that we started to get drilled in on by some of these other guys, so we came back with very targeted amplifiers aimed at what the entry-level musicians and DJs need. We made it just right; not too much, and not too little.”

Based on the present length of Pat Quilter’s ponytail, and the calm, relaxed posture of the Andrews brothers, it is not surprising that the company has been associated with an anti-corporate attitude. However, the company is heavily focused on teamwork, having a healthy work environment and challenging themselves and their employees at every step of the way.

“It is true that because we are our own masters that we can focus on long-term results and long-term investments. Lord knows we have had some bad investments along the way that would not have looked very good if were having to answer to Wall Street, but we learned from our mistakes, reinvested in a wiser way and we were finally able to get some value out of those efforts,” states Quilter.

“I don’t think we are a non-corporate company at all,” adds QSC’s chief executive officer John Andrews. “I think we are enlightened. What we try to do is find the best aspects of the companies we have studied and take the best practices. I would say we are an example of a good company. We have high expectations of people, we have processes and we believe in organisational health. If you look at these they are pretty classic, good corporate practices.”

“It was 1968 when we started the company,” Quilter says, “and there was a very strong element of this is California, we live in a beautiful climate, we live in a smart area, there is a lot of entertainment and high technology and we just thought why shouldn’t we be able to have a great company and build great product without having to wear a three-piece suit to work?”

Although the owners of QSC joke that they may not be alive to see its 80-year anniversary, the long-term plan for QSC is to offer the industry some real solutions. They feel that over the last two decades there have been very advanced developments that either don’t work, or are hard to get working.

“Some of the new technology can be very frustrating to people, and we aim to fix that. We have a mastery of amplifiers, we are getting very good in speakers and we have made long, patient investments in digital technology, of which a major new program is going to emerge that is going to be a whole new generation of digital and networking products for the industry,” says Quilter.

QSC is developing an arsenal of products that are aimed at revolutionising what the pro audio industry can do for facilities large and small, while taking complete responsibility for the results, fixing the problems and always having a place for its customers to turn to when in need.
www.qscaudio.com