Mr. Kenton Forsythe

Vice-President – Strategic Engineering

head design engineer for 22 years at EAW

the recipient of Parnelli Audio Innovator Award

Kenton Forsythe was born in 1944.

Kenton graduated from Yale University in New Haven Connecticut in 1966 with a BA degree. He first worked in the Transportation Planning group at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, leaving there in 1968 to attend a Master of City Planning program at University of California in Berkley, CA.

He returned to Boston in 1970 where his avocation for speaker building turned into a business with the founding of dB Engineering. This became Forsythe Audio Systems and was the manufacturing wing of the Pro Audio division of K&L Sound. He left there to co-found EAW with Ken Berger in 1978.

Kenton has been an avid music lover since early childhood. This turned into designing speakers for friends while at UC Berkeley, which later turned into manufacturing them at Forsythe Audio Systems and then EAW. He was head design engineer for 22 years at EAW and lead the development of many innovative product ranges including the international touring standard KF850. Following the acquisition of EAW by Mackie Designs, later Loud Technologies, Kenton was appointed Vice-President – Strategic Engineering.

He also worked on many custom designs, such as Piazza San Pietro in Vatican City and the call to prayer system for the Hajh in Makkah, the largest sound system in the world. Many of these designs, including those for countless large sporting facilities and internationally renowned theme parks, have become standard product offerings now. He recently has been closely involved in several new products for EAW.

In 2011, Kenton received the Parnelli Audio Innovator Award, a lifetime achievement award, in recognition of his many pioneering contributions to professional loudspeaker system designs.