Clifford A. Henricksen

After a long career working for well-known professional audio companies Cliff started Cliff Innovations LLC in Framingham MA, where he developed new electroacoustic technologies and new, advanced ribbon microphone concepts, for use in recording and broadcasting. Using the new concepts for ribbon microphones, he later started the "Cliff Mics" company and introduced the RM1 ribbon microphone to the professional market at the summer Audio Engineering Society's 2014 convention in Los Angeles. This microphone used large Neodymium magnets to achieve unprecedented raw transduction sensitivity. Also, a unique phantom-powered preamplifier with proprietary voicing gave the microphone a sound presentation similar to large-diaphragm condenser microphones but having the well-known dynamic qualities unique to ribbon microphones. At this show, he was reunited with old friend Allen Sides, Grammy-winning owner of famous Ocean Way recording studios and Ocean Way Audio. Allen listened to the mic at the show. Amazed at what he heard, he offered to help Cliff promote and distribute the microphone. Cliff in turn offered to help Allen with new original loudspeaker designs. And so, they formed a "strategic alliance" defined by a personal contract, which is in place as of this writing (8/4/2021)

Cliff began his career in professional audio by starting a research group at Altec Lansing in Anaheim CA in 1974. In the course of that work he met and became friends with Bill Putnam and Allen Sides, both of whom became important inspirations for achieving a balance between audio aesthetics and engineering excellence. Putnam's work on the UREI Time Align studio monitor loudspeaker, and Side's work through his Ocean Way studio business (then operating out of a garage in Santa Monica CA) were fundamental and profound influences in showing Cliff how to listen diagnostically to the audio qualities of speakers, microphones and music electronics generally. The importance of "audio aesthetics first" has been a guiding principle in all of Cliff's work since that time.

Cliff Henricksen was born on July 12, 1943 in Kew Gardens on Long Island NY, the son of Norwegian immigrant Birger ("Bill") and Alice (née Totland) Henricksen, and grew up in Elmont, New York. His father's early career was as first-engineer on ocean-going ships for the Moore McCormack Company. He subsequently took a land-based day job as a mechanic and welder in order to participate more actively in home and family life. He also became an accomplished musician, playing accordion, drums and fiddle, and performing as a well-known square dance caller with a country music band called "The Ranch Boys". He also played drums at nightclub gigs and was bandleader of his own "society orchestra" that played events in venues like New York City's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It was his father's facility with all things mechanical, as well as his love of music and his fascination with the technology behind the music, which was the single most important influence in Cliff's formative years.