Linear Acoustic was founded in 2001 by Tim Carroll who had previously worked for Dolby Labs since 1995, and was jointly responsible for research and development of their digital broadcast 5.1 channel surround products.
When Linear Acoustic was established, Tim was the technical systems designer based in his garage in New Jersey and Leif Claesson brought his algorithmic expertise to the table from California. The first Linear Acoustic product to see the light of day was the OCTiMAX 5.1 audio processor, which attracted a lot of interest at the SMPTE convention in Pasadena. One such interested party was Steve Smith from Liberty Corporation who was looking for digital products that would give him the same hands-off control that he had with analogue. Liberty became their first customer.
The company soon outgrew the garage and moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania where there was a proliferation of highly qualified suppliers and engineers. With the onset of digital television came myriad problems involving loudness and digital audio control. Linear Acoustic turned their attentions to solving these problems at every stage of the digital audio chain and soon developed a product range that made digital broadcast sound work as it should.
In 2008 Linear Acoustic joined the Telos Alliance, made up of Telos, Omnia and Axia – all with an impressive pedigree in broadcast engineering.
In 2010 Linear Acoustic won a Technical Emmy® award for “The Pioneering Development of an Audio/Metadata Processor for Conforming Audio to the ATSC Standard” – a fitting acknowledgement for all the hard work.
Linear Acoustic continue to break the boundaries and pioneer the advancement of digital broadcast audio control products throughout the world. For more information on how Linear Acoustic technology could help your broadcasts, please contact us.