It's no secret that local broadcast mixing console manufacturers, Calrec Audio, are heroes of ours. So you can imagine our delight when Stephen Jagger — who joined the company straight out of college in 1972 and went on to be managing director from 1989 to 2009 — agreed to give a talk on their early history.

In his talk Stephen takes us all the way from their humble beginnings as a group of audio enthusiasts, through their initial foray into manufacturing and hiring their first full time member of staff, before going on develop groundbreaking new microphone technology and getting their first orders from the BBC.

There are plenty of fascinating insights in Stephen's talk, including the particular technical advantages that they finely honed in order to secure a position as leaders in their field. And also why they designed fuses out of their mixing desks!