TAPCO

Tapco is a brand name for sound reinforcement products including audio mixers, speakers, and amplifiers.

The original Tapco, which stood for "Technical Audio Products COmpany", was founded in 1969 by Greg Mackie and Martin Schneider. Their original product line were guitar amps and PA speakers. They recognized that there were no mixers available with a feature set aimed at the performing musician. The first mixer product, the model 6000 and its variants was successful enough to establish the company and provide revenue for growth. In time, the company produced a line of audio mixers and power amplifiers for sound reinforcement and (later) recording.

In 1979, Tapco was purchased by Electro-Voice who slowly phased out the Tapco name and blended the Tapco products into their own product line. The factory space in Redmond, Washington remained active, producing electronic products for EV until perhaps 1989, when the lease ran out. The entire industrial park was razed and high rise office buildings constructed. Microsoft is the current occupant.

Around 1979, Greg Mackie started a company that made an equalizer for home stereo speakers. That company was AudioControl. It was home stereo because of a non-compete clause in the sale agreement between EV and Tapco. Eventually AudioControl manufactured a line of equalizers for home stereo, and branched out into autosound (car stereo), home theater, and measurement. The company is still in business today (2011).

Subsequently, Greg Mackie went on to found Mackie, with an initial product line similar to the Tapco company that he had founded previously.

In 2003, Mackie purchased the rights to the Tapco name from Electro-Voice, resurrected the Tapco name and applied it to a line of budget mixers, speakers, amplifiers, and other audio equipment. All of the products were American designs manufactured in China. According to their website, Tapco now stands for "Total Audio Production COmpany."

By early 2011, "Tapco by Mackie" production and marketing of amplifiers, speakers, mixers and audio interfaces had ended, and the website had closed. A note on the official Mackie website under "discontinued products" refers to the entire Tapco line as "effectively discontinued."

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