Jerry Harvey never envisioned himself as an entrepreneur. Like most great inventions, his innovative reference earphones were born of necessity. While Harvey was touring with Van Halen as a monitor engineer, drummer Alex Van Halen demanded a better solution for the outdated wedge monitors that blasted his ears night after night. After trying and quickly discarding the available in-ear options, Harvey leveraged his experience with high-performance live monitoring systems to engineer the first two-way, custom-fit earpieces. Van Halen couldn’t have been happier with the result, and the word quickly spread to other artists and engineers. A company was born when Mindy Harvey, Jerry’s wife at the time, quit her job to help him seize the opportunity. The Harveys brought a fresh perspective to the world of pro audio manufacturing, quickly distinguishing them from the competition. By focusing on cutting-edge design and extraordinary customer service, the pair led Ultimate Ears to become the industry standard in reference earphones. The Ultimate Ears difference For the first five years, Jerry and Mindy built their business through word of mouth, one band at a time. Jerry encountered prospective clients while touring as a monitor engineer, and Mindy tapped into the extensive artist community around their base of operations in Las Vegas. From the beginning, Ultimate Ears established a reputation for taking great care of their artists. With a lifetime of experience in sound engineering and building large PA systems, designing and manufacturing miniature components posed an entirely new challenge for Jerry Harvey. Unfettered by traditional methodologies, Harvey sought new ways to build products—even going so far as to recruit a hearing aid manufacturer to set up their in-house production facilities. Through the years, Harvey demonstrated relentless ingenuity in pioneering new solutions that transformed the product landscape. “Jerry takes a more musical approach to the product than a researcher who’s looking at it through an audiologist’s eyes,” says Mindy. “His philosophy is to take all the components of a large PA for an arena and place that in something that can fit inside the human ear. That’s always been our approach, and the result is that the audio signature represents a different perspective than any other manufacturer on the market.” Ears wide open It wasn’t long before artists like k.d. lang and Aerosmith joined Van Halen and Skid Row as satisfied customers. Today, the company boasts a large endorsee roster featuring diverse talents such as Stevie Wonder, Seal, Depeche Mode, Celine Dion, Norah Jones, Big & Rich and many more. “Every day, I work with artists who say there’s nothing out there that’s working for them,” Jerry explains. “I’ve built custom solutions for Bette Midler, Julio Iglesias and Richie Sambora—all ends of the musical spectrum. I've been working with this technology so long that I know how to tweak it to get whatever response we're trying to achieve with that earpiece.” Jerry Harvey never tires of hearing how his earphones transform the user’s experience with audio. “Most of the time, the response is that they've never heard their music like this before,” he attests. “They hear new things in the mix—little congas, little percussion hits and reverb trails. It’s as close to near field as you can get without mainlining it into your brain. Because of the isolation, frequency response and headroom of these earpieces, most people are blown away by the audio quality.” The knowledge and expertise achieved from crafting custom personal monitors then evolved into the consumer and professional market with the addition of the personal earphone, universal fit product line. Because of the variety of products in the universal fit family and Harvey’s background as an established entrepreneur, the personal earphones have been accepted with open arms. Today Jerry, Mindy and the Ultimate Ears’ take pride in the growth of the company and look forward to what the future brings. They thank everyone for their continual support.
