LONDON, ONT. -- London’s Q5X has worked closely with professional sports leagues (NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB, CFL) for more than decade, providing player worn microphones that are safe and reliable.

On Thursday,  the company announced a major partnership agreement

“We’ve been working on this for a long time,” says Paul Johnson, CEO of Q5X.

“We’re finally able to announce that we have a collaboration with Shure Corporation out of Chicago, who is one of the largest wireless microphone manufacturers in the world.”

The collaboration brings Shure’s new Axient Digital wireless transmitter into the housing that Q5X has developed for use in an array of sports, theatre, and reality television shows.

“With the combination of Q5X and Shure, this is really the best of both worlds,” says Jens Rothenburger, director of Pro Audio Marketing at Shure.

Johnson adds, “That’s one of the things that’s been a big deal for us, the fact that the audience can hear the players, we’ve been at the forefront of enabling that across all sports around the world, our product is used in all those sports to capture player audio.”

Engineers from both companies have been working together for the past 18 months, and will begin production by the end of the month.

The products will feature the Q5X and Shure Branding on the product and be sold by both companies individually. This partnership has also created a need for the company to hire more staff

“We’re in hiring mode, we’re looking for engineers, we’re particularly looking for software and firmware engineers. We’ve got most of our hardware finished, but we still have to upgrade all of our software for the control systems,” says Johnson.

It’s a move that has president and CEO of the London Economic Development Corporation Kapil Lakhotia excited for local companies that are thriving during the economic downturn.

“Q5X is a great example of London companies making their mark on a global stage.”

“We held a virtual job fair last week that brought out over two thousand job seekers, there’s a real appetite in the job market with companies that are growing and looking to hire more talent,” Lakhotia adds.

The partnership also moves Q5X from analog to a digital platform, ensuring an encrypted signal crucial for secure broadcasts and platforms.

“It’s a big step for us, people have been asking about digital for a long time, we are now finally able to deliver it with what is the best digital system in the world.”

The new system will be available on both the Q5X and Shure online stores starting in the next few weeks.