Small business spotlight: Ashly Audio amps up sound

For Ashly Audio Sound Systems, as the Dylan song goes, the times certainly have been a-changin’.

The Webster sound company has rock-and-roll roots dating back to just after Woodstock. Now, the big customers of Ashly’s equipment tend to be mega-churches and schools.

This is a company that has evolved from raucous outdoor music festivals to reverential indoor houses of worship. Between those times, Ashly equipment helped upgrade sound quality at movie theaters throughout the country.

Ashly Audio started as a spinoff of Brighton Sound, a company that provided sound systems for outdoor music festivals at the dawn of the 1970s. Bill Thompson, one of the Brighton Sound partners, helped found Ashly in 1974.

“Billy was an engineer who was interested in audio and might have worked in radio at one point,” said Ashly President Mark Wentling. “Back then, it was all about getting the sound system going, taking it to shows. We’re a manufacturer now. The power amps that we make, we ship ‘em out.”

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