Who Makes Your Car's Audio System? We Visited One Of The Industry's Biggest Players

Harman International dominates in-car audio, owning brands like Bowers & Wilkins, Infinity, Mark Levinson, Lexicon, Polk, AKG, Harman/Kardon, JBL, and more, and accounts for nearly half of global auto-audio systems. A visit to Harman’s Northridge campus, JBL’s main hub, reveals a sprawling operation that blends consumer and professional audio know-how. JBL remains a distinct R&D nucleus within Harman, contributing to automotive development with legacies in concert-grade loudspeakers and studio monitoring. The article emphasizes automotive audio’s engineering complexity, noting the tight cost, weight, and durability constraints and quoting a JBL insider: automotive audio is ‘the hardest part of the business.’