Heil Sound
American audio equipment manufacturer
Heil Sound Communications, Inc is an American manufacturer of professional audio equipment based in Fairview Heights, Illinois. The company was founded by Bob Heil in 1966, and is well known for inventions in live sound, the Heil Talk Box and a variety of high-quality microphones and headsets for use in commercial and amateur radio. Heil Sound is also the only manufacturer to be invited to exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Heil Sound was founded in 1966 by inventor, organist, and amateur radio aficionado Bob Heil.
Sound system design
Starting in 1966 Bob Heil came back to his hometown of Marissa, Illinois and opened Ye Olde Music Shop, one of the country's first pro audio stores where he also sold Hammond organs. He would also fix the organs on stage before a performance for the musicians. Noticing that some PA systems were small, and some did not produce full-range sound and some could not project into a large crowd, Bob Heil started creating very large PA systems. Heil Sound began managing the sound in several venues around St. Louis, from auditoriums to bowling alleys.
The company experienced its first breakthrough on February 2, 1970, when Bob Heil and his sound team successfully created a new and innovative sound system for The Grateful Dead at the Fox Theater in St.
The public source identifies “Heil Sound” as american audio equipment manufacturer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Heil, Sound and American.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5699402. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “Heil Sound” 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.