| Jennings Musical Instruments (JMI), headed by Tom Jennings and Dick Denney, was started in 1957. Within a couple of years of their initial introduction of the AC-15, VOX was well on its way to being the most influential musical instrument manufacturer of the day. By the mid sixties, VOX had climbed the ladder of success to become one of the worlds largest musical instrument manufacturers and distributors. With most of the major 1960's British rock groups featuring VOX amplifiers in their backline, VOX had to do little to encourage musicians that VOX was the equipment choice of the day.
During the mid sixties JMI began designing solid state amplifiers. Their tube amplifiers while great sounding, were expensive to produce, very heavy (weight wise) and could be difficult to maintain. Converting the JMI amplifiers to solid state was a monumental task that would soon elude VOX. Because of the onslaught of the British invasion, VOX was constantly running up against an inability to produce products in sufficient quantities to satisfy customer demand. About this time, Tom Jennings struck a business deal with Thomas Organ in the USA and and soon after was bought out by The Royston Group and VOX Sound Limited replaced JMI.
Thomas Organ initially imported amplifiers directly from JMI, but because of JMI's inability to supply amplifiers in great quantity, they soon started to design and manufacture their own models and soon abandoned the English amplifiers altogether. This fateful departure from Jennings designed amplifiers soon led to wide spread customer disappointment. This disappointment was fueled by the fact that the Thomas amplifiers didn't sound anything like the British amplifiers and had an even worse reputation for poor reliability. By the early 70's, VOX had fallen out of favor. The company had been sold a number of times by the early 1970's, and Tom Jennings and Dick Denney who had master minded the VOX empire, were no longer participating with VOX products.
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