There are two ways that most people first hear the Audio-Technica name: either in association with Technics turntables or via a pushy friend or YouTuber enlightening them about the M50x headphones. Audio-Technica got its start back in the 1960s as a maker of phonograph cartridges — the company’s logo is an abstraction of the needle shape touching a record — and has always thought of itself as the provider of pro audio equipment, which over the years has included an unheralded role as the supplier of microphones for US presidential debates.
