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Altavoz

American music distributor

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ17078839
Source-derived summary

Altavoz, Inc. (Spanish: Loudspeaker) is an American music distributor founded in 1994 which serves independent entertainers, covering a variety of musical genres. A year after the company was founded, it was purchased by investor Nelson Jacobsen and relaunched in Rockville, Maryland.

History

Nelson Jacobsen established Altavoz.com after its acquisition. The website offered downloads of digital sound files (.wav) and fifteen-second introductions to music streams.

By 1999, Altavoz had rolled out merchandise in big box stores such Best Buy and independent retailers nationwide. Their offerings expanded to vinyl records, books and more. By the time of the dot-com crash, Altavoz continued to provide stock to thousands of independent and big box stores and was receiving 1.2 million hits a day on the official website.

In 2011, Jacobsen took a new leadership role in the company as its CEO. In 2013, Altavoz began online presentations for distribution deals exporting US-made music. Part of the incorporation of the company included the non-profit "Help Earth Foundation." On September 25, 2015, Max Media Group, Inc.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Altavoz” is american music distributor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Altavoz, American and music, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1994, 1999, 2011, 2013—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1994. For this dossier, Altavoz, American and music is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american music distributor” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17078839. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 1999, 2011 and 2013.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Altavoz”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Altavoz primary sources, Altavoz archive and Altavoz research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Altavoz”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Altavoz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.