Ken Kreisel is a well-known American recording engineer and pioneer of cinema sound in the land of motion picture production. Personally I had never heard of the man but names such as Star Wars, Pearl Harbor, Lord of the Rings and the video game Call of Duty did ring a bell.
Already as a child Ken Kreisel was carrier of the audiophile virus and start with Jonas Miller the firm M&K, specialized in subwoofers. In the beginning of the 1970′ s the first steps had been set in the studio world. Also the concept of the combination satellite speaker and subwoofer, hereby the sub can be placed hidden because long sound waves can not be placed accurately by the ear, is a M&K product of 1976. By the contacts in the studio world, both music but especially motion picture, M&K was destined to play a pioneering role in the Home Theatre concept.
An other breakthrough is in 1989 with the introduction of the Push-Pull principle, whereby 2 speaker cones are used, where one of the cones is built-inn backwards in the otherwise closed cabinet ( with the magnet to the outside) and pole reversed connected. Of course the cupboard it optically adjusted so that this outside sticking magnet is not visible. This system has a number of specific advantages whose main plus is that the harmonic distortion of one driver is offset by the opposite movements of the other cone. Another bonus is that both the efficiency and the power handling doubles. For the ear it comes down to : more power while yet all details preserved. The ideal recipe for the movie-loving audiophile. A drawback of this speaker setup is that the required speaker volume can be quite huge.
Also full speaker systems were built and, especially professionally, deployed. For that reason Absolute Sound granted in 2001 M&K a special price. Followed by successes with use of speakersystems still M&K in films like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and The Incredibles.
After a period of inactivity in 2007 Ken Kreisel now starts a new company that builds on the earlier products. In 2011, the company “Ken Kreisel Sound and Design” is established and is also built the third reincarnation of the DXD-12012, with had been launched in January 2012.
