If you bought computer audio hardware a few decades ago, you may remember coming across products from Altec Lansing. That you probably haven’t thought of that name in some time doesn’t surprise us, the company has not fared well in recent years and has changed hands multiple times. [The Last Shift] tells the company’s history in a video you can watch below.
James Lansing started Lansing Manufacturing, offering high-end speakers for the fledgling “talkie” movie industry. It had some success, but the depression put them on shaky footing. Meanwhile, a company named All Technical Service Company, or Altec, was a large organization that serviced Western Electric movie theater equipment. Flush with cash, they merged with Lansing Manufacturing to form Altec Lansing. With a large infrastructure and Lansing’s engineering, they became a significant supplier to the military during World War II.
After the war, the company produced a landmark theater speaker system that became the gold standard in theater audio. However, Lansing didn’t like the big company environment and left to found a company that bore his full name, James B. Lansing, which you may know as JBL.
Altec Lansing continued to grow. However, a series of mergers and sales starting in 1969 caused the Altec Lansing company to decline. By the 1990s, Altec Lansing was making cheap PC speakers. A far cry from the gold-standard massive speakers made by the company during its heyday.
We love the history of technology and the people that drove them. Bing Crosby, for example. Or the lesser-known heroes like Edwin Armstrong.
If my memory serves me right, Dell computers used to ship with Altec Lansing speakers. My mom still uses a compact iPod dock made by them. My elderly parents take it with them when travelling for vacations. They love to rent a house in nature and go to a different one each time. They bring it with them to have their own music there. They prefer that over a Bluetooth speaker. It’s pretty decent quality audio for it’s size and age.
Yep! I have the 2.1 set, still blasting after what, 30 years?
And we revere the CEOs and MDs that run companies into the ground.
Some of us associate the names Altec Lansing and Labtec with the demodulated GSM noise
my legendary 1999 Cambridge Soundworks pc speaker + subwoofer died, and when i went searching for a replacement, i stumbled onto the roughly equivalent legendary Altec Lansing product from the same era (used for an even better price than new back then). Gave me a nice warm feeling and i almost bought it until i saw that the same seller also was getting rid of the same Cambride Soundworks unit i was replacing. The 1990s were a great decade to be a consumer. sigh
I have two of those Cambridge Soundworks systems. The subwoofer died on one, but I still use two of the little cube speakers in conjunction with an external 2.1 amp and a little sub I built for fun. The other lives in my garage.
Excellent design, great sound for what it is.
I won a set of Altec Lansing 2.1 speakers in a Quake 2 tournemant back in the 90s, still have them hooked up to my PC at work.
Did have to replace some caps in the PSU at some point, apart from that they still work and sound great.
I bought a set of Altec Lansing Series 100 speakers with a subwoofer with the first PC I built in 2002, and they still work perfectly in 2026. Where do I buy a suitable replacement when they eventually break?
Pfff. My ‘computer speakers’ consist of optical out to a Yamaha RX-V385 set up for 100W x 4, to two pairs (just 2-channel) of maxi-bookshelf cabinets (0.5cu ft) each with a kevlar Hi-Vi L6-4R & Tymphany BC25SC06 fabric dome tweet. These speakers are amazing.
(there is also a single 15″ sub with a dedicated 230W amp but I turn it on so rarely I wouldn’t miss it if it was gone)
Yawn.
I have a soft spot for Altec Lansing. As a young boy I recall hearing hifi at relatives and friends homes. Each experience left a file in my head that remained. When older and able to pursue the sound I remember in the 70’s, I would journey to NYC to see what I could find. Still have most including a few pair of legendary AltecLansing 604 studio monitors. There it was,that sound I remembered!
I’d watch the video but as soon as I see fake spots and “scratches” on historical film or video I stop right there. Lets put skips, hiss, and pops in all of our sounds as well. Use a crystal or carbon mic as well. Cut pieces out where the projectionist stopped the film and the lamp burned a hole in the film. Do we do this with print as well? That seems all that is left with the giant toilet sucking down all that is left. That seems to be the point of this article. Progress be dammed. I remember hearing about this in high school electronics from a great teacher more than half a century ago.
All of the computer speakers were not made by the original Altec Lansing. Altec went into bankruptcy and sold rights to their name for home and computer to Sparkomatic. They made low end automotive audio before getting the naming rights. (Ex Altec Lansing engineer before the bankruptcy).
Sparkomatic took the Altec Lansing name. Since then:
On October 18, 2012, The Infinity Group bought Altec Lansing for $17.5 million at auction thus saving the company from bankruptcy…Infinity Group is a private equity fund backed by China Development Bank and Clal Industries…Infinity is headquartered in Tel Aviv with offices in Beijing, Changzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Harbin, Hong Kong, Hongze, Jining, New York, Nanjing, Ningbo, Shanghai, Shijiazhuang, Suzhou, Suqian, Tianjin, Xiamen and Yangzhou.
I still have them as my main desktop speakers. I am an old school, I guess.
Nah. If you were old school, you’d be talking about speakers that we used to power our Hi-Fi systems versus PC speakers. But kudos to you for recognizing the quality at that stage of the planet.
Aren’t they the forklift truck guys?
I’ve just gone on a google dive to work out whether there’s any link… I’m still not sure.
My dad has spent most of his professional life as a forklift engineer and his company was a partner with “Lansing Linde” when I was a child, I expect I could still put my hand on one of the toy trucks he brought home for my brother and me.
I’ve learnt that “the Lansing company in Michigan” sent a representative to England in 1920 to setup a local office and when that Lansing parent company stopped manufacturing in 1930 the English branch started manufacturing. Whether the parent company is the one that then branched into speaker manufacture… I don’t know.
Huh. I thought JBL stood for “Just Bloody Loud”. Every day’s a school day!
I missed this article the first time around but thank you that was interesting. I had a couple of friends in school that ended up working at Altec and JBL (I feel like I should put the exclamation point there haha). It was cool because years later, all of us ended up working together on a collaborative venture of some of the companies of the day and got to do a nice victory lap project together :) Good times :)
Altec truly made some incredible speakers back in the day. I have a pair of Model 19s, based on their “Voice of the Theater” line from the 60s. Some of the most iconic Hifi speakers ever.