In The News

Audio pioneer who revolutionised speaker design passes away

Audio pioneer who revolutionised speaker design passes away

THE death has taken place of Edgar Villchur whose speaker designs stunned the world of hi-fi. He was 94.

Until Mr. Villchur invented his first speaker, the AR-1, in the early 1950s, high-fidelity speakers were large and cumbersome — some being as big as refrigerators.

But the AR-1 was compact and considerably cheaper than existing speakers when it came on the market.

It was the quality of sound produced by the speakers, however, which stunned so many.

Mr. Villchur had originally intended to sell his patent to one of the existing speaker manufacturers, but these companies dismissed his design.

At the time he was teaching an acoustics class at New York University and one of his students, Henry Kloss, encouraged him to begin production of the speaker. 

For a time Mr. Kloss was a shareholder in Acoustic Research, the company they had set up.

Mr. Villchur was eventually to design and manufacture two further speakers — the AR-2 and the AR-3 which sold in large numbers.

In the late 1960s Mr. Villchur sold off his company and established the Foundation for Hearing Aid Research. He went on to develop a prototype of the multichannel compression hearing aid which today is an industry standard.

To view an interview with Edgar Villchur click here.

 

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