Our History

Our foundation is built on decades of "bleeding-edge" audio innovation, led by a career of solving the most difficult problems in analog signal processing. From the early days of lacquer mastering to the invention of the mobile power booster, we have always prioritized musicality over margins.

1. The Era of Direct Mastering

The journey began on Rek-O-Kut and Prestomastering lathes. Cutting records is a battle against physics—managing the "bird’s nest" of the lacquer chip and optimizing stylus geometry. This era instilled a deep understanding of the mechanical nature of sound and the importance of residual heat in creating a perfect groove.

2. High-Speed "Spock’s Brain" Engineering

Before the 1972 copyright shifts, we designed and hand-built one of the industry's first high-speed discrete 8-track recorders.

The Tech:

 Utilizing early 

Bell Labs FETs

and custom 

Servo-driven motors

 to maintain constant tape tension.

The Innovation:

 Operating with a 

300 kHz bias

 to allow for 4x and 8x speed duplication without harmonic interference, mastering directly from vinyl to create the highest-fidelity 8-tracks on the market.

3. Founding the Mobile Audio Revolution

As the market shifted to the car, we secured foundational patents that defined the "Power Booster" era. As a partner at AudioKinetics Corp, we developed the first mobile stereo amplified graphic EQ and power boosters.

Active Filter Design:

 Moving away from bulky inductors to precision gyrator-based active filters.

The "Soft-Clip" Trade Secret:

 While competitors produced harsh, square-wave distortion, our units utilized 

input coupling transformers.

 This created a natural magnetic saturation—a "rounded" clip that provided the warm, musical character of a high-end tube amplifier in a mobile environment.

Star-Grounding Precision:

 Pioneered the "direct-to-battery" grounding technique that remains the industry standard for eliminating alternator whine and ground-loop interference.

Our Philosophy:

 We don't just build circuits; we manage the behavior of electrons to ensure that even at the limit, the result is always music.

Key Milestones & Patents

First Mobile Power Booster:

 Solved the 12V voltage-swing limitation to deliver true high-fidelity power to car speakers.

First Amplified Graphic EQ:

 Integrated precision tone shaping with high-headroom amplification.

High-Speed Duplication Pioneer:

Engineered custom discrete signal paths that outperformed industrial-scale manufacturing.

From the mechanical precision of lacquer mastering to the complex electronics of active filters and star-grounding, Harrison Laboratory has spent a lifetime defining the boundaries of high-fidelity audio. Our patents changed how the world listened to music on the move, and our engineering standards set a benchmark for the industry. We continue to design with the same obsessive attention to signal integrity, thermal management, and musical character that sparked our very first innovation. We don't just build audio equipment—we engineer the benchmark.