It was founded by brothers Roy and Gene Clair, who went into business in 1966 after they were asked to bring their sound system on tour with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
Audio Enterprises, Inc. Brothers Roy and Gene Clair grew up in Lititz, Pennsylvania, where their parents owned a grocery store.
Their father bought them a small public address system in 1955 which they started to rent out to bands, schools, and churches.
[1] In the early 1960s Gene began working as a technician for Franklin & Marshall College in nearby Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which gave them opportunities to rent out their sound system.
Their sound system consisted of two columns with six eight-inch speakers each, a Bogen amplifier and four Shure 55s microphones and rented for $95 a night.
[4] In 1967, Clair Brothers used Altec Lansing A7-500 Voice of the Theater speakers on the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons tour.
[5] In 1968, the Clair Brothers main front of house system consisted of stacks of custom designed dual 15 inch bass horns loaded with Altec drivers.
A radical departure from the different sized modular boxes generally used in large concert PA systems of the time.
The S4 was a single box full range 4-way speaker weighing 425 lbs with integrated rigging hardware for suspending from the roof or superstructure of an auditorium or arena.
[8] Speaker cabinets were connected to the amplifier racks using custom large gauge multi pair cables with Cannon multi-pin connectors.
At the end of the decade, Clair Global officially launched a spin-off to install permanent sound, video, and lighting systems in concert venues, churches, stadiums, theaters, cruise ships, and schools.
In 2014, along with partner Tait Towers, Clair opened the 30,000 square-foot Rock Lititz, the largest dedicated rehearsal space in the world.