Jeffrey Cox in Oxnard

They turned the beat around, didn’t they? Before L-Acoustics brought out their V-DOSC cabinets, and Jeffrey Cox started manufacturing and selling them in the US, there were no significant line array products. Now, we are drowning amidst a sea of them. I drove to Oxnard, California and met with Jeffrey in his office, part of an industrial complex warehouse space, where drivers are inserted into V-DOSC cabinets, and then sent to buyers across America.

We talked about how his own career as a mixer brought him to this point, and how he came to believe so strongly in Dr. Christian Heil’s line array baby.

Even though he is now primarily perceived as a manufacturer, Jeffrey told me that “first and foremost, I am a mixing engineer. I am a sound engineer. I believed that what Christian had created was such an important product, that my feeling was that if any of my friends on the road, or in houses, had the opportunity to mix on this new enclosure, it would speak for itself. Through the support of my brothers in this industry, it got out there.”

It’s only been nine years since Buford Jones had the experience of mixing on V-DOSC in Europe, and told Jeffrey about the new invention. Jeffrey called and got the literature, and immediately felt that “if this is true, it could be the biggest step since the crossover.”

Jeffrey remembers, as many of us do, what an Altec A7 cabinet was all about. In his case, he began messing with audio in 1968, armed with a Bogen amp and two Cobraflex horns, upgrading to some Vox column speakers. A native of Seattle, Jeffrey owned his own company for a while, and toured for six years with a country rock band called the Skyboys.

In addition to years spent mixing the Ventures, Jeffrey hooked up with Bruce Allen Management in Vancouver, who handled Loverboy and Bryan Adams. It was 1980 and the band Prism was looking like they were going to be huge, so Jeffrey made a choice that he chuckles over today, to go with Prism and not seek the gig with that Bryan Adams guy, who didn’t seem to have as much potential.

Getting married in ’86, moving back to Southern California in ’88, Jeffrey was mixing headlining acts like Julie Andrews, complete with a string section and members of the Sinatra band. Starting to work for MSI in November ’89, Jeffrey settled in as a house guy at the Greek Theatre in L.A., as well as the Universal Amphitheatre.

MSI had purchased Stanal Sound from Stan Miller, and a compnay called Audio Techniques, and Jeffrey designed a new system for the Greek, as well as the Universal Amphitheatre, that incorporated equipment from the Audio Techniques system.

Then came the word from Buford about V-DOSC. For his vacation, Jeffrey flew to Europe on his own dime, and took the train to Montreux after arriving in Zurich. Christian Heil was demo-ing his invention for the Montreux Jazz Festival people at their Stravinsky Auditorium. Jeffrey “spent six hours writing in a legal tablet, spent the night, and left.”

He called Patrick Baltzell when he got back to the States and said that the V-DOSC “might solve all your problems for the TV shows, because the rejection is incredible.”

M. Cox et le dV-DOSC

The ability to focus the throw so much more accurately than with previous designs meant that spill would be almost entirely eliminated. Also, awards show designers had always complained about bulky traditional stacks, and they would embrace the way that V-DOSC could do the job with less obtrusive cabinets. Jeffrey remembers how Christian called and said, essentially: “you’re the guy to do this.” Two months after the demo, Jeffrey went back and spent a week in meetings, the first of five trips to Europe he would make that year. By the end of the process, Cox Audio Engineering held the patent, trademark and manufacturing rights for the US market, since “I wanted to be protected, because I was going to be changing my life.