2-15-2017, Mobile Electronics -- If you walked the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center at CES last month, chances are pretty good that you passed MTX Audio. Even if you didn’t see them, you probably heard them.
Now managed by John Ivey, president of Mitek, the company is forging new directions, diversifying its properties and adding new products.
“I grew up in this industry,” Ivey said. “We lived in the factory when I was a kid. I went to Iasca events when I was a child. I grew up in this industry going to all the shows and knowing all the people. Even through college, I worked at Mitek.”
John’s father, Loyd, who founded the company and still serves as CEO, is considered a pioneer in the industry. He maintains the vision, leadership and dedication of the company and was honored by the Consumer Technology Association in 2013 for his 16 years of service at the time on CTA Executive Boards.
These days, the family-owned business offers high-performance car, marine, home and street audio products to customers in over 80 countries around the world.
“While every CES grows in attendance, and I’m a big fan of CES—I’m on the CTA Automotive Board and the Board of Industry Leaders—there were not as many car audio dealers that attended the show as there used to be,” said the younger Ivey.
Prior to the show, Ivey said he had considered displaying some of the other products that Mitek makes to get more traffic to the booth. “We could have showed some more of the commercial audio goods,” he said. “We make a VOIP speaker that is powered over the Ethernet. I thought about adding those things into our booth to draw more people, but I wanted to stay true to North Hall—what North Hall is really supposed to be. So we haven’t done anything like that as of yet.”
Not Just Subs
When most people think of MTX, what first comes to mind is, “Oh, yeah, they’re the company that makes subwoofers.” (Thunder9500, RFL, Jackhammer). “We do that, but we do a lot more,” Ivey said, who has been running the commercial side of things for the last six years. “MTX is really where our company was founded, then grew. That has allowed us to invest in other companies and expand our portfolio. Now we have everything from ear buds to the largest audio systems in the world."
For instance, the largest division of Mitek is Atlas IED which Ivey estimates to be 10 times larger than MTX. “It’s a neat division and it allows us to gain exposure to the technology that is coming—future technology,” he said.
Basically, what the company does is digital audio transport. “Our system runs 80 percent of the world’s international airports,” Ivey said. “You have probably heard a woman who works for us and she is the voice of all the airports. So the voice you hear at JFK is that same voice you will hear in Orlando or Vegas, or Hong Kong. It’s the same voice at each airport. When the gate agent picks up the microphone and speaks—‘Delta flight 213 boarding out of gate C12’—that audio is turned into digital information and it is streamed to a massive server. We just completed the World Trade Center building in New York City, and not only did we do that building for the city, we do all the audio for the New York City subway stations.”
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