Back to the Future

Ken Koga’s technical, fantastical and unique journey through decades of car audio is highlighted by friends and colleagues who made his career colorful, successful and memorable.

Words by Jamie Sorcher

Like many in the industry, Ken Koga felt drawn to car audio as a teenager. He is pictured here with his two sons.

Talking with Ken Koga is like hyper-speed travel through a 12-volt time warp—the names, products, experiences. Koga is a 45-year industry veteran, with claims to 50 Grand Prix awards and 10 Innovations Design and Engineering Awards. He’s worked for some of the biggest names in the industry—Nakamichi, Cerwin-Vega, Alpine, Infinity and Rockford Fosgate—and in many cases, he was there when these companies were poised for major milestones. Today, he heads his own company, Koga Technology International Holdings, Inc., open since 2008.

All that said, doing a simple search of his name doesn’t bring up a whole lot. But digging in and doing further investigation revealed he’s a legend in the business. “There was a period of time when I was all over the Internet,” he said

Koga started playing with car stereo back in high school in Illinois. He had a car before he was 16 and got his driver’s license on his birthday the moment the doors to motor vehicles opened. He raced hot rods on the street and the local track.

“I was installing 8-track players and Jensen coaxials in people’s cars, and I even installed a Muntz automatic stereo player [Editor’s Note: Look up Madman Muntz!]. That’s how far back my history goes.”

Car audio was a natural for him, he said, given that he had a love of music to match his passion for cars. Koga also worked with a local band called Madfox doing production for their shows, and another band called Survivor, led by Jim Peterik and co-founded by Franki Sullivan. Formed in Chicago, the band hit it big in the 1980s with several Top 10 hits. They’re best known for “Eye of the Tiger,” the theme song for Rocky III.

Audiomobile and a Mentor for Life

Koga attended Western Illinois University for a year and then took a break, he said, adding, “I was still hot-rodding and blasting my 8-tracks, that sort of thing.”

He thought about becoming a recording engineer. “I even went and explored the University of Colorado, Boulder, as an engineering school, and I also looked at Caribou Ranch which was a famous engineering and recording studio.” Situated in the Rocky Mountains, Caribou Ranch hosted artists such as Elton John, Chicago, the Beach Boys, Earth, Wind & Fire, Billy Joel and more. It is no longer is existence.

Eventually, Koga continued his college education at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. “A friend was encouraging me to go to Cal Poly, so we went out to visit, and it was like being in heaven.”

While at school in 1984, Koga worked for Galaxy Enterprises. “I was doing sales and installations out of my garage,” he said. “I was good at selling and I had the engineering skills to do the installations. Through college, I did all kinds of systems.” Through the university, a student could get a job and receive class credits, so Koga wound up working for Audio Mobile. “They made amplifier and speaker systems. The first big car stereo was built by a guy at Audio Mobile named Rich Coe.”

This year, Coe was inducted into the Mobile Electronics Hall of Fame at KnowledgeFest Fort Worth.

When Koga joined the team at Alpine, he and Rich Coe collaborated on a comprehensive training program that prioritized hands-on experience. Here, Koga is pictured with his original Alpine teammates. On the following page is the same team, reunited.

According to Koga, Audiomobile accomplished many firsts, making this position an incredible opportunity for him. “They engineered the first high-powered BTL amplifier that made 40 watts a channel into two ohms,” he said. “That had not been done before. The BTL amplifier had been around a long time, but not the idea of getting increased power with impedance. They had big amplifiers, 1,000-watt, 500-watt and the first 1,000-watt system was built by Rich Coe. That’s where I met Rich. He was my mentor.”

Koga knew he’d met someone who would constantly push the limits, and he was ready for it. “He had a Lincoln Continental with two 15-inch woofers and pods all over for imaging. He was the first one to put pods on the dash—to be bold enough to cut into the dash of a vehicle. I saw what he was doing and I wanted to copy his style.”

After college, for a year and half, Koga said he went high-tech and made nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers—NMRs. “After that, I started working in car stereo.”

His first stop, Nakamichi, where he served as technical support manager. “It was fun to work with product that I knew was the best. For sound quality, it was absolutely the best at that time in the late ’80s.”

When calls came in from installers, Koga was on the phone to help them. Additionally, he created service manuals featuring technical support information. He most enjoyed the sales team at Nakamichi, he said, adding, “the team and the president, Dean Miller, were interesting folks. Miller has been president at companies like Rolls-Royce, Bentley Motor Cars, AudioQuest and Bang & Olufsen. I liked working for him.”

Creating a Key Program at the Peak of Alpine’s Success

It wasn’t long before Koga joined Coe at Alpine. “He recruited me,” he said. Once there, the two collaborated on a new initiative. “We invented the GAIT program—the Global Alpine Institute of Technology.” GAIT was a comprehensive training program that covered installation technique with a focus of hands-on experience.

“Once it was launched, we went around the country and did training seminars for dealers.” They were part of the technical support group. At the time, Koga said, this was a big deal. “Dealers were in heaven when you went to visit them. For them, it was like having a buddy who worked for a manufacturer. Not only did we do trainings all over the country, but we also trained the trainers for programs in the international markets. I used to travel to international locations to do these trainings.”

One of the most distinctive aspects of his time at Alpine, Koga said, was that Alpine was at its peak. “It was fun as hell. We made the 7909, the flagship CD player, during my time there. [Ed. Note: The iconic Alpine 7909 is considered by many in the industry to be one of the best-sounding CD receivers ever made, as it established a high standard for audio quality in the car. It was highly regarded by audiophiles and car audio competitors and had a huge presence at IASCA. It has such cult status that even now there is an Alpine 7909 Owners Club group on Facebook.]

“This head unit came out when people were just starting to get rid of their cassettes,” he added. “I went from the most premium cassette players at Nakamichi to the premium first CD players at Alpine.”

For those interested in making a career out of car audio, Koga recommended fine-tuning one’s talent.

Making it Loud at Cerwin-Vega

Koga made a few moves once Coe left Alpine. When Coe went to Infinity, part of Harman International, Koga joined him once again, staying two-and-a-half years before being recruited by Cerwin-Vega.

“I worked for the original Cerwin-Vega and Gene Czerwinski,” he said, adding that the company was known at the time for high-performance audio equipment and renowned loud sound quality. Cerwin-Vega’s founder, aerospace engineer Gene Czerwinski, made a lasting impression on Koga.

“I worked in both product development and sales. On the engineering side, I worked with Henry Goldansky, who served as Director of Engineering from 1986-2002. He taught me a huge amount about woofer design. In fact, I got as far as designing woofers, assembling them by hand, and making my own samples. At Cerwin-Vega, I had a lot of responsibility and was put in charge of the entire car audio division.”

According to Koga, Czerwinski was a bit eccentric and would sometimes come into the office wearing baggy pants and military jackets and go listen to his pro audio stuff. “He had a sound system in one of the studio rooms and it sounded so real, like the band was in front of you. He taught me a lot. What I learned from him was about materials for subwoofer cones. He always tried different fibers and was always in favor of high-efficiency. In the industry, we were known as the loud boys.”

Koga remained at Cerwin-Vega for 10 years. “What I enjoyed the most was helping to develop their brand and then bringing all the technology to the car audio industry. When I started there, the company was barely doing $100,000 in sales and when I left, we were doing over $28 million. I developed a whole product line, and then I went out and sold it. I used to travel on the road carrying an anvil case with a Stroker in it.”

The Stroker lineup was known for massive power handling, SPL output and physical features like its extended pole piece. “I understood it technically like no one else could because I designed it. I invented the Stroker with Gene. He made the professional version, but then I modified it for the car audio market. We changed it a lot.”

Czerwinski, he said, made 18-inch Strokers, which Koga said was the woofer used for the premier of the film entitled Earthquake at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. “They had to hang nets because we were knocking chunks of the ceiling out. This is why we were the kings of SPL competitions.”

Talent: An Essential Trait for Working in Car Audio

Hoping to make car audio a career? Koga said it’s important to dig in and be talented. “There are fewer jobs. The industry is shrinking. I came from a time when it was the height of the car stereo business and the hobbyist sector was strong. People were building big systems.”

Koga, who finished out his corporate career at Rockford, was then recruited by a speaker factory in China, which led to him founding his own company, Koga Technology International Holdings, Inc. “Today, I represent Chinese factories making various things. I am still making speakers. I sell to the brands, and we’re making speakers for a lot of brands. I design and work with customers here in the country, get an understanding of what they want technically, and then work with the Chinese companies to build it.”

Retirement is just around the corner, but he’ll miss the crazy times, the cool people and the international travel. “I even went to Moscow,” he recalled. “They used to have SPL contests on frozen riverbeds.”

He’ll be spending more time with his family, who live close, including his granddaughter who is two-and-a-half years old. He still loves to listen to music. In fact, he said, he enjoys Taylor Swift. “Having worked with bands and musicians, I appreciate her talent. I told one of my buddies recently—if you listen to her Tortured Poets Department album, it’s engineered for car stereo. Just the way it’s EQ’d. When you’re in the studio, you have to engineer an album or the recording so it’ll sound good in all environments,” he said, adding, “And where do most people frequently listen to music? In the car!”