whirlwind / U.S. Audio

The U.S. Audio brand of electronics was first established as a separate company in 1987.

One of U.S. Audio's first custom projects was the design and construction of a large group of custom line splitters for the network broadcasts of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Through this event, U.S. Audio garnered a reputation for being able to complete a complex, quality project and bring it in on time. Consequently, other broadcasters began approaching U.S. Audio to design and build specialty mixers, splitters, amps, etc. on a custom basis.

The research and development done on these specialty products led to the establishment of standard products designed to fill a particular need in the broadcast and pro studio market. The MIX-44 matrix mixer, MIX-6 professional stereo mixer and the PressPower and PressMite active press-mult feeds are examples of standard products which began as specialty products designed to fill a niche.

A good example of this evolution occurred around 1995.

Whirlwind was approached at a trade show by a broadcast sound technician who had a "wish list" for the features he'd like to see in a specialty product for broadcasting golf tournaments. It was necessary in his application to send mic signals (like those generated from a tee microphone, fairway parabolic mic, etc.) long distances to the control truck. This would require a high quality microphone preamp to convert the microphone to line level and avoid signal degradation over the long cable run. It also needed to be battery operated for portability.

Also on his list was that the device have a built in headphone monitor that could be used to listen to the mic signal and in addition, accept an external auxiliary line input. That way, the control truck could feed directions, cues, etc. back to the microphone operator.

This device would also have to generate phantom power for condenser mics and be small and portable.

The resulting product, the MD-1 mic/line driver, was released in 1996. It is a rugged, well thought out device and it immediately started to sell well to its intended market. However, as is usually the case, people are finding many more alternate uses for this box.

It has become very popular with those that wish to use high quality condenser mics in portable "Direct to DAT" recordings for music, documentaries, nature sound recordings, etc.

TV camera personnel also use it to convert handheld mics to line signal for direct feed to camera audio inputs.

Today, the U.S. Audio division of Whirlwind produces dozens of specialty audio electronic devices, among them are; mixers, press feed boxes, distribution amplifiers and headphone monitors.