AEA
THE AEA STORY
In 1976, we began servicing ribbon microphones, and by 1998 we were manufacturing 100% of the parts for the RCA 44. We decided to release our version of the 44 and thus was born AEA Ribbon Mics.
Since the creation of the R44C, AEA has expanded into designing and building new ribbon microphones, each with a unique application and function, using the same RCA traditions. Over the years, AEA has advanced ribbon technology, using new materials and updated manufacturing techniques. We now make a whole line of ribbon mics that each give musicians a unique sonic signature.
Every microphone in the AEA line has been developed to fill the needs and solve problems of engineers and musicians alike. Before ever putting a microphone up to a test rig, we always listen to it first. A microphone may measure well, but it doesn’t mean it sounds good. At AEA, we make sure that every microphone sounds good and fits musically right in your mic locker. As Duke Ellington famously said, “If it sounds good, it is good.”
Since the creation of the R44C, AEA has expanded into designing and building new ribbon microphones, each with a unique application and function, using the same RCA traditions. Over the years, AEA has advanced ribbon technology, using new materials and updated manufacturing techniques. We now make a whole line of ribbon mics that each give musicians a unique sonic signature.
Every microphone in the AEA line has been developed to fill the needs and solve problems of engineers and musicians alike. Before ever putting a microphone up to a test rig, we always listen to it first. A microphone may measure well, but it doesn’t mean it sounds good. At AEA, we make sure that every microphone sounds good and fits musically right in your mic locker. As Duke Ellington famously said, “If it sounds good, it is good.”
HANDCRAFTED IN PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.
CONTINUING A LEGACY
After ribbon microphones were first invented by Telefunken in Germany in the early 1920s, Dr. Harry F. Olson of RCA in Camden, New Jersey, began developing ribbon mics using field coils and permanent magnets. RCA’s first ribbon microphone was manufactured in 1931, impacting both the audio recording and broadcast industries in the United States and the world.
A year later, the first of the RCA 44 series ribbon microphones was released. The 44 quickly gained a reputation as the most musical sounding microphone ever made. Today, RCA 44s are still treasured and are sold at prices many times their original cost. After General Electric bought RCA, they shut down RCA’s microphone division. In 1976, Dick Knoppow, then AEA’s chief engineer, urged AEA to take over the servicing of RCA’s ribbon mics, since there were thousands of orphaned mics around the world.
Wes Dooley, AEA’s founder, and Knoppow visited Jon Sank, RCA’s chief engineer, who taught them RCA’s technique for installing and tensioning their ribbons. Sank also gave them a large stack of new-old-stock ribbon material and a ribbon corrugater that’s still used at AEA. AEA began servicing RCA ribbon microphones and replicating and machining RCA replacement parts, so they could fix microphones with various broken parts, which the company still does to this day.
AEA
RPQ500$0
