More than 40 years ago Acoustiguide responded to a need in the cultural community and helped to revolutionize the traditional museum experience. As tourism increased worldwide, many institutions struggled to become more welcoming to a public that craved information and a personal connection with history and art. Audio tours met that demand. Today our programs guide visitors at the world's great cultural attractions and have also become valued selling tools at conventions and on showroom floors.

The lightweight digital audio players that are commonplace today are a far cry from the equipment used for the first audio tour. Visitors to Eleanor Roosevelt's Hyde Park home carried portable reel-to-reel players, the most technologically advanced equipment circa 1957. The first museum to use Acoustiguide to interpret its permanent collection was the Phoenix Museum of Art in 1959. Cassette players were adapted for use in the 1960s, and infrared and radio frequency tour systems were introduced in the 1970s.

In the 1980s, Acoustiguide expanded to address the needs of cultural institutions in China and the United Kingdom. In China, Acoustiguide manages many highly regarded projects, including The Forbidden City and Shanghai Museum. In the United Kingdom, Acoustiguide tours are offered at the Cabinet War Rooms, Canterbury Cathedral, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tate Britain and Tate Modern, among other sites.

Acoustiguide opened offices in Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy in the 1990s. Altogether, we've produced audio programs for clients in 22 countries and in nearly 20 languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, Tibetan and Maori, to name a few.

The 1990s coincided with the international explosion in audio tours, sparked by the popular digital player, Inform, the first unit to collect information on visitor behavior. This wand unit was introduced at the Louvre in 1993. Inform is actively marketed and is in use at more than 100 sites worldwide, including The Frick Collection in New York.

In 1996, Acoustiguide and Denon launched the second generation of digital players. This headphone system is lightweight, easy to use and can accommodate a wide range of programming and sound effects.

Introduced in Spring 2000, the Acoustiguide 2000 Series is our third generation of digital random access audio equipment, combining the best of wand and headphone players into an adaptable system that can be configured to meet the needs of any location. Two AG2000 players - the Wand and the Mini  - offer unprecedented memory capacity, MP3 stereo sound, customized data collection, LCD screens and features for the disabled at an affordable price. Programming can be easily updated via the Internet.

We are continuously inventing new creative techniques, new technology and new services. No audio tour producer has more experience developing linear and random-access tours, foreign-language programs, children's audio adventures and guides for the visually impaired. We aim to reach visitors in all their diversity - eager for education and entertainment, expecting sound and programming that speaks to them.