CE Pro December 2023 - 38

INDUSTRY
CE Pro Masters
Ken Hecht, MSE Audio
Standard, a Fortune 500
company specializing in
alternate energy sources.
The audio bug was inA
SECOND-GENERATION
audio designer, Ken Hecht
has been a fixture at MSE
Audio brands for an incredible
40 years. He currently
serves as vice president of
SoundTube, PhaseTech, and
Rockustics for the company,
and has been an audio enthusiast
for most of his life.
Hecht says he was always
interested in audio electronics,
building speakers,
amplifiers, tuners, and
preamps as a teenager. He
graduated from the University
of Hartford with a B.S.
in Mechanical Engineering
and an MBA. Early in his
career he worked in business
planning for Hamilton
herited and fostered by his
father, William (Bill) Hecht,
who developed patented
technologies and started
United Speaker System, a
major OEM manufacturer
of speakers. The elder
Hecht got Ken interested
at a young age and set the
course for his journey in the
industry, he notes.
In 1983, the younger
Hecht joined United Speaker
Systems and in 1990 became
its president. After the company's
sale to MSE Audio
in 2006, Hecht continued
as the president of USS, in
addition to being VP of R&D
for all MSE companies.
Hecht has designed
hundreds of products in
the consumer, automotive,
commercial, and professional
sound markets. He has
developed audio electronics
and speakers, networked
audio, wireless transmission
of sound and theater AV,
not only for MSE but other
major brands.
" My first love is product
design, " Hecht states. " My
favorite projects involve
purpose-built systems
which have dedicated digital
processing, crossovers,
amplification, and speakers. "
Considering his long
industry tenure, Hecht
has been a part of its shift
from the old retail-centric
approach where consumers
experienced firsthand
product demos, to an installer-based
market. In the
commercial domain, where
MSE Audio also serves in a
significant way, he says the
biggest change is a move to
digital from analog systems.
" As an engineer, I look
forward to the continued
advancement of sound reproduction
and the application of
digital electronics in the creation
of sound. We're seeing
this now and it will continue
to evolve, " Hecht says.
Beyond his role at MSE,
Hecht has served on the
board of the CEA (now CTA)
Audio Division and chaired
its International Committee.
He was a member of the
Audio Engineering Society's
(AES) Loudspeaker Technical
Council and served on the
Professional Audio/Video Retailers
Association's (PARA)
Manufacturer's Advisory
Board. Additionally, Hecht
has worked on CEDIA and
CTA standards committees,
and outside the industry he
served on the board of the
University of North Florida's
College of Education and
the Florida Chamber Music
Project.
COURTESY OF MSE AUDIO
Rick Goren,
Technology Interiors; Speaker Snap
As he vividly recalls, in
WHEN ONE door closes,
another one opens and
Rick Goren's custom industry
path has embodied this
to where he considers " All
38 | CE Pro December 2023
1998, while working for a
very large integrator called
Simplex, he was ready
to go out on his own. As
serendipity would have it,
on Thanksgiving Wednesday
1998, Tyco (whose
president, Dennis Kozlodoors
open on small hinges "
his mantra. That path
led Goren to forming an
integration company and,
more recently, launching
Speaker Snap, which has
earned rave reviews from
CEDIA Expo attendees the
past two years.
wski later went to jail for
embezzling millions from
the company), purchased
Simplex for a huge sum and
terminated all of the top
security communication
design experts. " We were
the top guns of intellectual
asset and hostage proteccepro.com
http://www.cepro.com
CE Pro December 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CE Pro December 2023
