Company Profile and History

Audio Box began with a single programmer working on a piece of personal use software in December 1996. The function of the software was to play dance music from computer instead of a CD or MiniDisc player. At that time, development tools for high quality audio playback were not available, so every function had to be developed with custom code.

The Microsoft ActiveMovie architecture was an option but it was not robust enough, fast enough, or flexible enough to be the foundation for a professional grade audio-on-demand software system. Also, the DirectSound API was problematic for reasons of its own. Both of these technologies have been extended by Microsoft, but they still lack the necessary functionality to be the audio core of a professional grade audio system. Other mediocore development kits existed as well, but none of them lived up to the necessary specifications.

By mid-1997, a completely custom ActiveX control was running music reliably and efficiently. Audio Box, Inc. was founded and a team of experienced programmers started to work together on a collaborative effort to push the Audio Box core technologies into the future.

Before the end of 1997, the AMPS system had taken shape as a complete program. An "easy-to-use" interface was finalized, and the "behind-the-scenes" development continued. Designed for expansion, it allows input from potentially any compression format. Internal processing uses a proprietary 32-bit audio core that allows for the highest possible quality level of audio output, even after digital processing. Finally, output is accomplished by clipping the signal to 16-bit and sending it to a DirectSound compatible sound device. Ironically, the audio core has longer legs than win32 operating systems can handle!

In 1998 Audio Box continued to create the tools and feature enhancements necessary not only to keep the AMPS system on the cutting edge of technology, but also to forge ahead into exciting new directions. As an authorized developer for Creative Labs, Audio Box developed custom code for native support of the Sound Blaster LIVE! Card. Seeking easy access to the best available compression technology, a Cool Edit filter for QDesign MPEG was authored. Portions of the ActiveX audio control were re-coded and released as DWS2X, which is a custom control for programmers to write their own high quality audio programs. The list goes on…

After pioneering features and functions for audio-on-demand software, it is interesting to see other companies that clone our technology, or possibly develop it in parallel, and then claim to have "unique" features. This can be misleading to the uninformed, but a little research always sheds light on the facts.

What is most important, in our opinion, is the advancement of computer audio technology in general. When 64-bit audio is the norm, Audio Box will still be there. To us, "Taking computer audio to the next level" not only means pushing the envelope today, but it implies the commitment to chasing the dream of the perfect audio engine tomorrow.

There are no "help wizards" for programming audio tools. The Audio Box development team represents a group of programmers that spend months writing and testing source code for custom audio applications. The experience and talent represented by this group took years to create, and can now only continue to grow over time.