Fostex (フォステクス株式会社) is a Japanese manufacturer that is one of the largest transducer and OEM speaker makers in the world, founded in July 1973 by Foster Electric Co. Ltd.

Fostex (フォステクス株式会社), founded in July 1973 by Foster Electric Co. Ltd., has today over 20,000 employees in nine countries.

Fostex, along with TASCAM, pioneered affordable multitrack recording equipment and was the first to offer an eight-track reel-to-reel multitrack that used affordable 1/4 inch tape. It competes with Tascam and Yamaha with a full line of products for the home and semi-pro recording studio market including an extensive line of cassette-based multitracks. Fostex's current product range includes digital multitrack recording equipment, loudspeaker drivers, studio monitors, microphones, and headphones.

Some production sound mixers for motion pictures use the Fostex Field Memory Recorder (FR-2), which records audio and stores recordings as WAV files, as their recording device for sync sound.

Fostex drivers are popular in the DIY speaker building community,^{[citation needed]} because they have a large selection of drivers (including many full-range models) that work well in back-loaded horns (BLH) or transmission lines and are very efficient.

Joseph Leslie "Joe" Sample (born February 1, 1939) is an American pianist, keyboard player and composer.

He is one of the founding members of the Jazz Crusaders, the band which became simply The Crusaders in 1971, and remained a part of the group until its final album in 1991 (not including the 2003 reunion album Rural Renewal).

Sample began playing the piano when he was five years old. He was a student of the late great organ and piano extraordinaire Curtis Mayo. Since the early 1980s, he has enjoyed a successful solo career and has guested on many recordings by other performers and groups, including Miles Davis, George Benson, Jimmy Witherspoon, B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, and The Supremes. Sample incorporates jazz, gospel, blues, Latin, and classical forms into his music.

In high school in the 1950s, Sample teamed up with two friends, saxophonist Wilton Felder and drummer "Stix" Hooper, to form a group called the Swingsters. While studying piano at Texas Southern University, Sample met and added trombonist Wayne Henderson and several other players to the Swingsters, which became the Modern Jazz Sextet and then the Jazz Crusaders, in emulation of one of the leading progressive jazz bands of the day, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Sample never took a degree from the university; instead in 1960, he and the Jazz Crusaders made the move from Houston to Los Angeles.