• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Audio Science Innovators

mhardy6647

Grand Contributor
Joined
Dec 12, 2019
Messages
11,213
Likes
24,173
Fritz Pfleumer, the inventor of magnetic tape recording. Without him, high fidelity recording likely wouldn't exist.
Alexander M. Poniatoff, the founder of Ampex, who popularized tape recording as opposed to direct-to-disk (thanks in large part to Bing Crosby, who just didn't want to do every radio appearance live).
Les Paul, the inventor of overdubbing. Without him, modern recording as we know it would not exist.
These are good ones.
I used to drive by the (even then derelict, or nearly so) Ampex HQ next to US 101 more than occasionally back when we lived in the "Bay Area" :|

Of course, der Bingle (Bing Crosby) figures rather large in the whole magnetic tape thang, as well...

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/anna...and-the-nazis-helped-to-create-silicon-valley
https://theaudiophileman.com/bing-crosby-tape-revolution/
(e.g.)

1596244735507.png
 

Duke

Major Contributor
Audio Company
Forum Donor
Joined
Apr 22, 2016
Messages
1,523
Likes
3,745
Location
Princeton, Texas
Earl Geddes. Father of modern low-coloration waveguide design, early proponent of Polar Map data for loudspeakers, pioneer in the area of distributed multi-sub systems, co-developer of a vastly more predictive distortion metric than traditional ones like THD. Earl was the first to pattern-match woofers and low-coloration constant-directivity waveguides in the crossover region. We see waveguides on loudspeakers today largely because of his influence.
 

q3cpma

Major Contributor
Joined
May 22, 2019
Messages
3,060
Likes
4,416
Location
France
Earl Geddes. Father of modern low-coloration waveguide design, early proponent of Polar Map data for loudspeakers, pioneer in the area of distributed multi-sub systems, co-developer of a vastly more predictive distortion metric than traditional ones like THD. Earl was the first to pattern-match woofers and low-coloration constant-directivity waveguides in the crossover region. We see waveguides on loudspeakers today largely because of his influence.
The waveguide bit is interesting to me, because I'd like to know if Genelec was pioneering the way or just applying Geddes' theory. As Geddes' seminal paper came in 1989 (presented at the 1987 AES convention) and he says himself "I was not aware of any usage of the term
Acoustic Waveguide prior to mine in 1991" but Genelec dates their DCW (Directivity Control Waveguide) back to 1983-1985 with their 1022A model, it's quite confusing. It's called a "short horn" in the model's datasheet, even more confusingly, I guess the DCW term was made later.
1022a.jpg

index.php
 

Attachments

  • out4w2.png
    out4w2.png
    337.3 KB · Views: 1,247

Racheski

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Apr 20, 2020
Messages
1,116
Likes
1,699
Location
Chicago
The waveguide bit is interesting to me, because I'd like to know if Genelec was pioneering the way or just applying Geddes' theory. As Geddes' seminal paper came in 1989 (presented at the 1987 AES convention) and he says himself "I was not aware of any usage of the term
Acoustic Waveguide prior to mine in 1991" but Genelec dates their DCW (Directivity Control Waveguide) back to 1983-1985 with their 1022A model, it's quite confusing. It's called a "short horn" in the model's datasheet, even more confusingly, I guess the DCW term was made later.
1022a.jpg

index.php
Any self-respecting Star Wars fan should own this speaker.
1596274089372.png
 

Hrodulf

Member
Joined
May 17, 2018
Messages
64
Likes
135
Location
Latvia
Behind the scenes work of special note: Siegfried Linkwitz, a man who spent the majority of his life working to share his knowledge of loudspeaker design, and whose designs were always based on sound engineering, much it a result of his own groundbreaking work.

I'd say his most notable work is together with Russ Riley on the Linkwitz-Riley filter.
 

ng411s4

Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jul 30, 2020
Messages
11
Likes
15
Location
Si Wilai, Bueng Kan, Thailand
Valdemar Poulsen magnetic wire recording
Walter Weber and Hans Joachim von Braunmuehl discovering AC bias magnetic recording (it had actually previously been discovered twice already) and understanding what could be done with it (which the other two groups had not understood).
Ray Dolby for many well known things!

I was going to say Willi Studer, as Studer Revox is pretty much my all time favourite company in this area, but I was beaten to it!
 

Bamboszek

Active Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2018
Messages
181
Likes
306
Stefan Kudelski comes probably first to my mind when talking about audio inventors born in Poland. He spent majority of his life in Switzerland however. Famous for his Nagra professional tape recorders, very popular and rewarded back in time. Unfortunately as far I know, now company focuses on really expensive hi-end consumer gear.
 

Pluto

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Sep 2, 2018
Messages
990
Likes
1,631
Location
Harrow, UK
Michael Gerzon
Possibly the most significant “man that never was” within the entire canon. His work in the field of Ambisonics foresaw so much of what eventually became Dolby Surround (and other Dolby trademarks) but think how much better off we would have now been had this work, which remains largely in the public domain, not been picked up by the Dolby company (desperate to seek new fields of endeavour when it became apparent that the noise reduction gravy train would not survive the transition to digital technology) and lawyered-up so hard that it became largely their exclusive preserve.

My gripe with Dolby is not entirely commercial but rather that they simplified many of the Ambisonic concepts to the point where they could deliver something resembling surround sound (out of the funeral pyre of quadraphonics), but entirely missing the real point – the recording and reproduction of the entire soundfield.

Had Gerzon lived, I feel that Dolby's ownership of the surround space would have been a vastly less commercially dominant proposition.
 
Top Bottom