M&K Closes Shop after 34 Years

Loudspeaker and subwoofer manufacturer M&K (Miller & Kreisel) has closed shop as of Thurs., Feb. 22, according to the company's Web site. On the site, co-founder and CEO Ken Kreisel (pictured) invites people to contact him directly regarding his decision to close the M&K factory in Chatsworth, Calif.

M&K was founded 34 years ago by Kreisel and Jonas Miller of Jonas Miller Sounds, a high-end Beverly Hills retailer where Kreisel had worked parttime.

Kreisel credits M&K for introducing "first world's modern day satellite-subwoofer speaker system" in 1976, according to a bio of the CEO. Today, the bio continues, "virtually all home theater systems are based on this satellite-subwoofer design."

According to the bio, M&K was "a pioneer in direct-to-disc and digital recordings, and in 1982 M&K's RealTime Records division became the first U.S. record company to release compact discs (CDs)."

In 2001, M&K doubled its factory size to 66,000 square feet and went from one to two production lines, each with its own individual acoustic testing and listening room, according to the company.