JL Audio was founded in 1975 by two partners, Lucio Proni (CEO & Chairman of JL Audio) and James Birch. The company's first products consisted of home speaker systems and home speaker "kits" back in the days when hair was long and flair-leg jeans were going out of style. This business turned out to be quite lucrative for the two partners, so in the late 1970's as the car audio revolution began to take shape, they decided to invest their profits and start their own retail store in Hollywood, Florida. In 1977 the partners formed a new company called Speaker Warehouse (SW). Its primary focus was on speaker repair, raw drivers, crossover parts and complete speaker systems. During this time, JL Audio continued to operate independently from SW while several of the current employees of JL Audio, including Manville worked with Lucio at the latter company.
SW was a very pioneering audio shop in that the company began experimenting with component speakers and subwoofer cabinets in cars well before these practices became common. Basically it was the mission of adapting home or pro audio speakers that the store was already working with which led to modifying the speakers as the adaptation and development in the car audio environment began to grow. In the early '80's JL Audio jumped into the car audio market with a series of enclosures called PowerWedges. These were compact, enclosed full-range speaker systems that became quite popular in the Florida market.
Then around 1988 a company called G&S Redline introduced some West Coast flavor to the competition arena. Manville recalls the G&S competition vehicle as very clean with a well crafted installation; it had the JL Audio crew a bit nervous with all the flashiness. Very showman like for the G&S company, but this was the company that was also endorsing the West Coast original gangster rap star ICE-T (now an actor with notable TV and movie guest appearances ) complete with an ad campaign. But the question is, where is G&S today? Undaunted, SW began qualifying for sound events and garnered four First Places, as well as the ultimate "Best of Show" award with cars using JL Audio subwoofers. That was the turning point for the company. Soon everyone was asking for their product.
November of 1989 at the Finals, JL Audio with their straightforward installation and emphasis on sound quality was ready to do battle with the "California style". In fact, they walked away with seven 1st place trophies. The victories were all the result of planning. That is, during the design and product execution process. Success is the product of that. On the other side of the business, if you will, JL Audio took care of matters by equipping its dealers with very comprehensive and thorough "reference manuels" complete with charts and suggestions. This has helped change the industry while establishing JL Audio as an engineering-driven company. They were covering all the bases, as it were.
Over the next few years the taxing responsibility of running a growing business began to wear on Lucio's shoulders. In 1996 Andy Oxenhorn joined the team as president so Lucio could get back to his passion for the technical aspects of the company. With his background training as a formal architectural engineer, he had a design perspective unlike most electrical engineers. Lucio understood structure and load and this helped set the stage for the design process of the W7. The "less is more" design philosophy started with developing a better surround for the cone of the speaker and went through an evolutionary design process from there. Thus, you have the "floating cone." Of course, knowing the technical aspects of building speakers is one thing; the other aspect that is as essential is the listening. That is something Lucio is quite passionate about, music.