THX Ltd. is an American company founded on May 25, 1983 by George Lucas and headquartered in San Francisco, California. It develops the "THX" high fidelity audio/visual reproduction standards for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, gaming consoles, car audio systems, and video games. THX Ltd. is a subsidiary of Razer Inc.The current THX was created on June 12, 2002, when it spun-off from Lucasfilm Ltd. THX was developed by Tomlinson Holman at George Lucas's company, Lucasfilm, in 1983 to ensure that the soundtrack for the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, would be accurately reproduced in the best venues. THX was named after Holman, with the "X" standing for "crossover" or "experiment" as well as in homage to Lucas's first film, THX 1138. The distinctive glissando up from a rumbling low pitch used in the THX trailers, created by Holman's coworker James A. Moorer, is known as the "Deep Note".The THX system is a quality assurance system, not a recording technology. All sound recording formats, whether digital (Dolby Digital, DTS, SDDS) or analog (Dolby Stereo, Ultra Stereo), can be reproduced in a THX system. THX-certified theaters provide a high-quality, predictable playback environment to ensure that any film soundtrack mixed in THX will sound as near as possible to the intentions of the mixing engineer. THX also provides certified theaters with a special crossover circuit whose use is part of the standard. Certification of an auditorium entails specific acoustic and other technical requirements; architectural requirements include a floating floor, baffled and acoustically treated walls, non-parallel walls (to reduce standing waves), a perforated screen (to allow center channel continuity), and NC30 rating for background noise ("ensures noise from air conditioning units and projection equipment does not mask the subtle effects in a movie's soundtrack").In 2002, THX was owned by sound card manufacturer Creative Technology Limited, which held a 60% share of the company. The company has had a long history with Creative innovation and special effects technology, which was responsible for the creation of the first THX-certified audio card for computers, the Sound Blaster Audigy 2.In 2016, THX was acquired by videogame hardware company Razer Inc., with Razer owning all of THX and its intellectual property.
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