Just after a few years the German brand with American roots is already internationally renowned.

In America, Ground Zero was the leading manufacturer of subwoofers with large surrounds. Today the global Ground Zero enterprise (supplying 35 countries in Europe alone) offers a complete palette of products in six series: Titanium, Radioactive, Hydrogen, Uranium, Nuclear, and Plutonium with over 150 car hi-fi products - all designed in Germany.
The Ground Zero brand, which is trademarked world-wide, is one of the world’s most respected names in car hi-fi power. The best evidence is provided by comparison-tests in independent trade magazines in which the Ground Zero products have consistently placed by the winner’s circle with best ratings for price / performance, features and quality.

Ground Zero also has the goal of keeping prices stable, no matter how prices of materials fluctuate. As an “add on” often there are additional: features, of which our competitors may just dream off. Therefore we need not to negotiate a “discount surcharge” off the price because the products are constantly “face lifted”. 

- Story of success

1995
The company Ground Zero was founded in 1995 in Frankfurt, Germany, by Karl F. Lautner and Peter Unterharnscheidt under the name of Ultimate / MaGmA GmbH. The name taken from geology, MAGMA was symbolizing the raw force of a volcano. Ground Zero is the denotation for the ground of a volcano's crater.

1977
The American amplifier guru Bob Carver introduced a fully active home subwoofer under the brand name Sunfire, which was unlike anything before: it had an exorbitantly huge surround.
This new Sunfire also attracted the attention of the MaGmA team headed up by Lautner and Unterharnscheidt. They recognized the advantages of thus construction and acquired the sales rights for Europe under the name “Ground Zero”.

In 1997
The search for a new factory lead MaGmA to a German emigrant, Thilo Stompler, who had formed an American company, TC Sound. MaGmA and TC Sound cooperated closely and created a new edition of the beloved Ground Zero woofers. Aluminum cones, tireless spiders and woven-in leads helped to create a level of stability which was – up until then – unheard  for subwoofers. It is still unbeaten!

In 1999
The company moved to the town of Egmating (pop. 2,000) near Munich. 
The Ground Zero product became increasingly recognized and gained significantly higher market share compared with more conventional car hi-fi companies. 

By 2000
Karl F. Lautner and Peter Unterharnscheidt had recognised that their brand, Ground Zero, could be expanded to include car hi-fi power amplifiers and speakers. But this could only be done by meeting the same quality expectations that were used for Ground Zero subwoofers. They designed the line extension with extra features and state-of-the-art engineering.
Ground Zero products have always distinguished themselves because of that extra investment. The power amplifiers convinced with their “inner values” – their functionality and timelessness.

2003
The company was re-named to Ground Zero in order to emphasize that the company is not only the distributor but also the manufacturer of this excellent product. All rights for the brand name “Ground Zero” and the respective trademarks are registered world wide. 

2004
The manufacturing was relocated in the Far East where Ground Zero finally found a manufacturer capable of producing the voice coil that would meet their strict requirements. The result was the new Ground Zero quad coil woofer, model GZPW 15XQ. 
While other quad coil woofers primarily offer flexible impedance, Ground Zero’s GZPW 15 XQ had an entirely different goal: to have an immense load capacity making it possible to operate them with four high performance power amplifiers equalling 10,000 watts! This would allow the user to extract even the last decibel of high level reserve out of the woofer – along with the further advantage that it could use an extremely small enclosure volume.
For this sound pressure other products need double as much cone area, if not the double cone diameter…

- Perspectives

After the tremendous successes with subwoofers, power amplifiers, and, more recently, with speakers, Ground Zero is starting to taste success with models that extend the line further. Current prototypes are creating high expectations. Within a short time the Uranium Line with perfected sound will also be extended by extraordinary power amplifiers. Ground Zero’s challange to the world sound elite.
The most significant company maxim was, is, and will remain: maximum operating safety, longevity and sound quality of the Ground Zero products in every market with every model. 
Nowadays the company produces also product line exclusively for whole sellers (e.g. Makro Markt group under the name GZ-MAXX). Also the new Titanium series can be offered to big sales groups.

The result has been gratifying: an excellent brand image known for quality and innovation, rising sales and satisfied customers and dealers, both. Now the company headquarters is bursting at the seams thanks to the positive order situation and the abundance of the team’s market-driven ideas.

The course has been set: The car hi-fi world now anxiously waits to learn what new and pleasurable audio experiences Ground Zero will bring them in the future.

>Ground Zero company profile video...