The Harman/Kardon story is the life story of Sidney Harman. The future talented businessman and engineer was born in 1918 in Montreal and grew up in New York. As a teenager, he collected periodicals that were still relevant, attracted local distributors to sell them for 5 cents, and then shared the proceeds with them.
Sidney Harman also had another passion – science. While studying at New York University, he majored in physics. After graduating from university, he began working in the engineering department of David Bogen’s company, which produced speaker systems for the mass-market. Engineering manager Bernard Kardon and Sydney Harman quickly hit it off.
Company founder Sydney Harman
For a short time, Sydney Harman moved into the sales department, where he discovered the importance of paying close attention to customers. He not only identified people’s consumer preferences, but also tried to satisfy their needs, constantly offering more and more innovative technologies. The company’s CEO was a conservative and did not recognize the innovations introduced by Harman, so in 1953 Sidney Harman and Bernard Cardon left Bogen’s company in order to start their own business. Harman/Kardon is born. The fledgling Harman/Kardon company began in 1954 with innovative models such as the Festival D1000, the world’s first high-frequency receiver that combined a tuner and an amplifier. “The Festival D1000 was a huge success with young people who loved music and saw that their favorite pastime was now impossible without this device,” recalls Sydney Harman in his biography.
Harman/Kardon Festival D1000
In 1956, Bernard Cardon retired from business, and Sidney Harman, having bought out his shares, continued to work as the head of the company alone. Ups and downs. Harman/Kardon continued to produce popular and affordable models. In the late 50s, Harman/Kardon equipment was more technologically advanced in the consumer audio market than all other audio equipment of that time (currently, Harman/Kardon equipment from those years are pearls in the collections of audiophiles). In the early 1960s, Sydney Harman was a very happy and successful man. In 1962, Harman/Kardon and the Jerrold Corporation, a cable television company, announced a merger, and Harman had been in trouble ever since. The head of Jerrold Corporation, Milton Shapp, began to interfere with Harman’s work. After a series of arguments, Shepp bought out most of Harman’s shares, and although the latter now had a large sum of money, he could not control the company that bore his name. He suddenly found himself with absolutely nothing to do. Despite the fact that he was absent from the market for a long time, Harman did not completely disappear. Sidney Harman invested part of the money received from the sale of shares in Jervis Corporation, a practically autonomous subsidiary of Harman/Kardon, which he needed in order to return Harman/Kardon. He also acquired other powerful audio companies, notably the JBL brand, and eventually renamed the entire group of companies Harman International Industries.
Harman/Kardon Citation
All these years he never stopped looking for new sounds, engineering ideas and advanced technologies. In the late 60s, the company began cooperation with a young, dynamically developing company that was engaged in reducing sound noise – Dolby Laboratories. In the 1970s, Harman/Kardon became not only a leader in audio equipment, but also a very profitable brand. Sidney Harman attributed the firm’s success to its new management model. In addition to encouraging the end customer, the owner of Harman/Kardon began to encourage his managers, in his words, “to respect the people who work for you, you need to treat them as your most promising and important resource.” He knew that amplifier and loudspeaker engineers could come up with many innovative ideas for the production process. This approach certainly worked: in the mid-70s, Harman/Kardon became a leader in the American audio market. Farewell and return. In 1976, Jimmy Carter – the candidate supported by Sidney Harman – became President of the United States. Following his appointment to this post, he made a business proposal to Harman to join the House of Ministers as Undersecretary of Commerce. To enter government, Harman had to leave all other positions and sell the companies he owned, which he did in 1976. The new owner of Harman International Industries was Beatrice Foods, who acquired the company for $100 million.
Harman/Kardon AVR 7000
And yet he did not get Harman/Kardon back: in the late 70s, Beatrice sold it to a Japanese company. Five years passed before Harman was able to return the company and merge it with Harman International. As it turned out later, Beatrice did not have sufficient experience and did not know how to manage the audio business. Sidney Harman saw that his brainchild had lost its previous position (by 1980 the company had lost approximately 40% of its assets) and hurried to return the company. By the time Carter’s reign came to an end, Harman had resigned his position and purchased Harman International Industries from Beatrice Foods for $55 million. Back to success. The return of the company to Harman did not at all mean its unconditional success in the market. In the 1990s, Sydney Harman was repeatedly faced with big problems regarding the lack of new technological solutions and ideas. The audio world was now talking more about CDs, players and other emerging audio equipment than about tape recorders and receivers. Sydney Harman took action: in 1999, he introduced the CDR 2 to the market, the world’s first audio/video recorder, which made it possible to record more songs without losing quality sound. Then the company developed the Harman Kardon SoundSticks computer speakers, a synthesis of science and art so attractive and original that the Museum of Modern Art in New York accepted them as an exhibit. The millennium marked the release of the first A/V receiver, the AVR 7000, with built-in Logic 7, VMAx and HDCD technologies.
Harman/Kardon CDR 2
End of career. Sydney Harman In May 2007, Sydney Harman approached his 88th birthday. He realized that he could not continue to run a huge company with the same vigor, and in 2007 he hired Dinesh Paliwal as CEO of Harman International Industries. These major changes did not in any way affect the quality of the products: for example, in 2007, the Harman/Kardon DMC 1000 received the award for the best media center. In 2008, the prestigious Electronic House magazine noted the AVR 354 receiver as the best in its class. This model with improved functionality and an even more elegant design appeared on the market under the name AVR 355. The company also develops multi-channel systems installed on the best cars of the world’s leading automakers. Today, owners of Audi, Mercedes Benz, BMW and Porsche cars can enjoy the best sound from Harman in the interiors of their cars. 2001 picked up the innovative baton – Harman/Kardon patented EzSet technology, which allows you to automatically adjust home theater settings based on the individual characteristics of the room. In 2003, the company celebrated its 50th anniversary!
Harman/Kardon MS 7000
In 2016, the South Korean giant Samsung acquired one of the largest and premium suppliers of automotive equipment, Harman International Industries, better known for its audio department Harman Kardon. The deal is worth $8 billion and is the largest for Samsung in the company’s history. The acquisition makes Samsung a much more prominent player in the networking and auto automation business, which is currently dominated by companies like Google, Apple and automakers like Tesla, GM and Volvo. Harman CEO Dinesh Paliwal notes that the technologies Samsung is working on are ideal for integrating his company’s automated products. What does the word “development” mean within the Harman/Kardon framework? More innovations, more attention to the needs of the client and his tastes, more technical innovations – these are the principles on which Sidney Harman built the company. These same principles still guide Harman/Kardon today!
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