Edgar Villchur
Encyclopedia
Edgar Marion Villchur was an American inventor, educator, and writer widely known for his 1954 invention of the acoustic suspension
loudspeaker
which revolutionized the field of high-fidelity equipment. A speaker Villchur developed, the AR-3, is exhibited at the The Smithsonian Institution’s Information Age Exhibit in Washington, DC.
Villchur's speaker systems provided improved bass response while reducing the speaker's cabinet size. Acoustic Research, Inc.
(AR), of which he was president from 1954 to 1967, manufactured high-fidelity loudspeakers, turntables
, and other stereo components of his design, and demonstrated their quality through “live vs. recorded” concerts. The company’s market share grew to 32 percent by 1966. After leaving AR, Villchur researched hearing aid
technology, developing the multichannel compression hearing aid, which became the industry standard for hearing aids.
Villchur died October 17, 2011 at age 94.
in New York City. He worked in the theater, and had plans to be a scenic designer. World War II changed those plans, and he was trained by the US Army in maintenance and repair of radios, radar, and other equipment. He was stationed in New Guinea
, where he rose to the rank of captain and was in charge of the electronic equipment for his squadron.
After the war, Villchur opened a shop in New York’s Greenwich Village
where he repaired radios and built custom home high fidelity sets. He continued to educate himself in the area of audio engineering, taking courses in mathematics and engineering at New York University
. After submitting an article to Audio Engineering magazine
(later renamed Audio), he was asked to write a regular column.
Despite the fact that his Masters Degree was in Art History, Villchur applied for a teaching job at NYU in the mid-fifties, presenting the administration with an outline of a course in Reproduction of Sound. His proposal was accepted, and he taught that course at night for several years. This was the first time such a course had been offered anywhere. At the same time, he worked at the American Foundation for the Blind
in Manhattan
, organizing their laboratory and designing or redesigning devices to make it easier for blind people to live independently. The tone arm on the turntable made by the Foundation had 12% distortion. Villchur redesigned it so that the distortion was less than 4%.
One of his inventions for the Foundation for the Blind was a turntable
tone arm that descended slowly to the surface of a vinyl record. This prevented the possibility that a blind person might drop the arm accidentally and that the sudden fall might damage the stylus or the record. In later years, when he was designing the AR turntable, he added this same feature to the tone arm. In the ads describing the advantages of the product, the photo showed a person accidentally dropping the tone arm, with a caption noting that this turntable was “For butterfingers.”
. Amplifiers, record players, tape players, and tuners were fairly faithful to the original sound, but speakers of the time were unable to reproduce the bass notes of records or tapes without distortion. He came up with the idea for a new form of audio loudspeaker, one that would greatly reduce distortion by replacing the nonlinear mechanical spring with a linear air cushion. This “acoustic suspension” design demonstrated a greater undistorted SPL (sound pressure level) at 25 Hz than any previous loudspeaker type, including bass reflex, infinite baffle, or large horn designs.
He built a prototype of his new speaker out of a plywood box. His wife Rosemary, who had been a draftswoman during the war, sewed the pattern for the flexible surround out of mattress ticking. Unable to afford the full services of a patent attorney
, he found a patent lawyer who was willing to explain the patent process briefly, and Villchur applied for a patent himself. In 1953, he received US Patent No. 2,775,309 in 1952 for the acoustic-suspension loudspeaker. He tried to sell the idea to several loudspeaker manufacturers, but his idea was rejected as impossible.
, listened to Villchur’s explanation of acoustic suspension and agreed that a speaker built on this principle would be a major improvement in hi-fi sound reproduction. Villchur decided that since the established manufacturers were not interested in the invention, the only way to make it available to the public was to go into business producing the new speaker. Kloss had a loft in Cambridge, Massachusetts
where he was making loudspeaker cabinets, and the two men became business partners in Acoustic Research, Inc.
(AR) in 1954. The partnership lasted until 1957, when Kloss left to form KLH
, manufacturing loudspeakers using Villchur’s acoustic suspension principle, under license from AR.
Over the next two decades, almost all major loudspeaker manufacturers gradually changed from mechanical to acoustic suspension. At first they did so under license to AR, paying royalties
to use the principles of Villchur’s patent. When the Electro-Voice Company
refused to pay the royalties, AR sued them for patent infringement. Electro-Voice countersued, claiming prior art in the form of a mention of an air spring in a different system. The ensuing lawsuit resulted in the loss of the patent for Acoustic Research, a decision which Villchur chose not to appeal. In an interview about the case, Villchur says that he knew the judge’s decision to void the patent was incorrect, but that he felt he had better things to do than to spend his life in litigation. He cited the example of Edwin Howard Armstrong, the inventor of FM radio, whose patent was rendered unprofitable through the actions of RCA
. Armstrong spent years unsuccessfully fighting that injustice, and eventually committed suicide. Villchur decided not to contest the loss of his loudspeaker patent, but rather to move on and continue improving the quality of high fidelity equipment.
The first acoustic-suspension loudspeaker, the AR-1, was introduced at the New York Audio Show in 1954, and was an instant success. Villchur continued to improve loudspeakers, coming out with new models roughly every two years. The AR-2, produced in 1956, was a no-frills version of the speaker at a lower price. The independent testing agency Consumers Union
, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine
, did a report on loudspeakers that year. The AR-2 was one of only four speakers that received the Check Rating for highest quality, regardless of price. Of the four speakers that received the check rating, two were made by AR, and two were made by KLH under license from AR. After the CU rating, sales tripled.
Villchur continued to research improvements in sound reproduction, turning his attention to the tweeter
. He received US Patent No. 3,033,045 for his invention of the direct-radiator dome tweeter. This greatly improved high-frequency fidelity by its smooth response and wide dispersion of sound, and complemented the acoustic suspension woofer’s
improved bass response. The AR-3, which combined the acoustic suspension woofer with the dome tweeter, is considered Villchur’s ultimate achievement in speakers. An example of this model is on display in the Information Age Exhibit of The National Museum of American History at The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Virtually every loudspeaker today uses Villchur’s innovations: Acoustic Suspension Woofers and Dome Tweeters.
Villchur continued to do research, production design, and technical writing during his tenure as president of AR. One of his strongly held views was that the only appropriate criterion to determine the quality of high-fidelity components was comparison with the actual live music in performance. In keeping with that philosophy, AR produced a series of “Live versus Recorded” concerts in which live performances by musical ensembles were compared with previously taped performances played through AR stereo equipment. Musicians participating in these concerts included the Fine Arts String Quartet and classical guitarist Gustavo Lopez, as well as performances on a thirty-two foot pipe organ and an old-fashioned nickelodeon
. The Washington Post featured the Live vs. Recorded concerts with a half-page article with pictures, providing free publicity for AR, in which they said that audiences were fooled over and over by the seamless transitions between live performance and sound reproduced through the AR speakers.
As president of AR, Villchur was known for progressive employment practices and innovative advertising techniques. AR used equal opportunity employment practices, and employees received health insurance
and profit sharing—benefits which were highly unusual in any but the largest firms in the 1950s and 1960s. The company was also known for its liberal repair policies, fixing most products for free no matter how old they were, and in general providing excellent customer service
.
AR’s advertising was distinct from the sensationalistic ads of its competitors, instead concentrating on technical information, reviews by impartial critics, and endorsements from well-known musicians and other personalities who actually used Acoustic Research components. Villchur believed that each ad should provide accurate information and unsolicited endorsements in order to convince the reader of the quality of the product. The list of well-known artists who appeared with their AR stereo equipment in print advertisements included Virgil Thomson
, Miles Davis
, and Louis Armstrong
.
In addition, the company established locations called “Music Rooms” where the public could listen to music through AR components and could ask questions of knowledgeable hosts, but where no selling took place. The most famous of the Music Rooms was in Grand Central Station, and became known as a quiet haven in the middle of the noisy terminal. During one year the Music Room counted one hundred thousand visitors.
In 1961, Villchur designed a turntable (record player), and published an article explaining its several innovations. The tone arm and turntable platen were mounted together and suspended independently from the body of the turntable, so that a shock to the body of the turntable would have little effect on the playing of the record. Indeed, Villchur was fond of demonstrating this independent suspension by hitting the wooden base of the turntable with a mallet while the record played on flawlessly. The mechanical isolation of the tone-arm-platen assembly from the base had a further advantage. It eliminated the “muddy” bass sound that often resulted when vibrations from the loudspeaker were conducted through the floor and caused feedback through the pickup into the amplifier.
The low mass and damped suspension of the tone arm itself compensated for any irregularities on the surface of the disk so that even warped records could often be played without distortion. When released, the tone arm floated down to the record, so that if it were dropped, it would not crash into the disc (which could harm both the needle and the record). With its quiet motor and precision-ground rubber drive belt, the turntable had extremely low wow
and flutter (the lowest of any turntable on the market at that time), and far exceeded the National Association of Broadcasters
(National Association of Broadcasters) standards for turntable measurements. The overall look of the turntable was given an award by Industrial Design magazine.
Acoustic Research continued to expand its loudspeaker line, producing the smaller “bookshelf” speaker, the AR-4, which was popular among college students and younger families. In 1966, Stereo Review’s yearly summary of the high-fidelity equipment showed that AR’s loudspeaker sales represented almost one-third of the entire market, a share that had never been achieved by any hi-fi company before that, and which has never been equalled since.
In 1967, Villchur sold AR to Teledyne
, and signed an agreement not to go into business in the field of sound reproduction equipment. Teledyne kept the AR name, and continued to produce stereo equipment. Although it was Villchur’s plan for the company to produce a complete set of sound reproduction components, he sold the company before the amplifier and receiver became part of the line.
s, since he felt that there was considerable room for improvement in these devices. He pointed out to an interviewer that when you see a person with eyeglasses, you assume that whatever vision problem they might have is fully corrected by their glasses. But when you see a person with a hearing aid, you assume that the person still has hearing difficulties. He set out to change that, and spent several years investigating the problem in his home laboratory in Woodstock, NY.
Villchur worked with many volunteer subjects to analyze the various types of hearing loss. He discovered that traditional hearing aids of the day amplified loud sounds to the same extent as quiet sounds. He quickly realized, however, that quiet sounds needed more amplification than loud sounds. In fact, loud sounds might need no amplification at all. Many of his subjects complained that their hearing aids made soft sounds audible, but amplified moderately loud sounds to a painful level.
By 1973, he had come up with a revolutionary concept in hearing aid design. This was the idea of using multi-channel compression to make up for the variable loss of loudness. Each patient’s audiogram
, combined with individual testing, would determine the correct program for that person. It was multi-channel so that those with hearing losses in specific frequency ranges could receive amplification where needed. More importantly, he used “wide dynamic range compression” (WDRC). Unlike the previous “compression limiting” circuits, which limited loud sounds to a certain level but did nothing to increase the gain for quiet sounds, Villchur’s WDRC amplifiers increased gain for softer sounds without excessively amplifying louder sounds.
Rather than apply for a patent, he decided to publish his findings and make them available to anyone who wanted to use them. Fred Waldhauer
of Bell Labs
heard Villchur lecture on this new hearing aid system, and started a Bell Labs project to develop a hearing aid. Bell Labs did not continue with the project, but Waldhauer went on to work for ReSound
, and bought the rights from them for the work that had been done to that point. ReSound manufactured a programmable hearing aid based on Villchur’s principles. Over the next twenty-five years, Villchur’s innovations became the industry standard for hearing aid design. It is nearly impossible to find a hearing aid today – digital or analog – that does not use multi-channel wide dynamic range compression.
Edgar Villchur has written three books and over one hundred and fifty articles on high fidelity, sound reproduction, audio engineering, and hearing aid technology in both peer-reviewed scientific journals and popular magazines, including two articles written when he was ninety years old. At the 1995 meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
he received the Life Achievement Award from the American Auditory Society.
Acoustic suspension
The acoustic suspension woofer is a type of loudspeaker that reduces bass distortion caused by non-linear, stiff mechanical suspensions in conventional loudspeakers...
loudspeaker
Loudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
which revolutionized the field of high-fidelity equipment. A speaker Villchur developed, the AR-3, is exhibited at the The Smithsonian Institution’s Information Age Exhibit in Washington, DC.
Villchur's speaker systems provided improved bass response while reducing the speaker's cabinet size. Acoustic Research, Inc.
Acoustic Research
Acoustic Research was a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company that manufactured high-end audio equipment. The brand is now owned by Audiovox. Acoustic Research was well known for the AR-3 series of speaker systems, which used the 12-inch acoustic suspension woofer of the AR-1 with newly designed...
(AR), of which he was president from 1954 to 1967, manufactured high-fidelity loudspeakers, turntables
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
, and other stereo components of his design, and demonstrated their quality through “live vs. recorded” concerts. The company’s market share grew to 32 percent by 1966. After leaving AR, Villchur researched hearing aid
Hearing aid
A hearing aid is an electroacoustic device which typically fits in or behind the wearer's ear, and is designed to amplify and modulate sound for the wearer. Earlier devices, known as "ear trumpets" or "ear horns", were passive funnel-like amplification cones designed to gather sound energy and...
technology, developing the multichannel compression hearing aid, which became the industry standard for hearing aids.
Villchur died October 17, 2011 at age 94.
Education, World War II, and early careers
Edgar Villchur received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in art history from City CollegeCity College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
in New York City. He worked in the theater, and had plans to be a scenic designer. World War II changed those plans, and he was trained by the US Army in maintenance and repair of radios, radar, and other equipment. He was stationed in New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, where he rose to the rank of captain and was in charge of the electronic equipment for his squadron.
After the war, Villchur opened a shop in New York’s Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
where he repaired radios and built custom home high fidelity sets. He continued to educate himself in the area of audio engineering, taking courses in mathematics and engineering at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. After submitting an article to Audio Engineering magazine
Audio (magazine)
Audio magazine was a periodical published from 1947 to 2000, and was America's longest-running audio magazine. Audio published reviews of audio products and audio technology as well as informational articles on topics such as acoustics, psychoacoustics and the art of listening...
(later renamed Audio), he was asked to write a regular column.
Despite the fact that his Masters Degree was in Art History, Villchur applied for a teaching job at NYU in the mid-fifties, presenting the administration with an outline of a course in Reproduction of Sound. His proposal was accepted, and he taught that course at night for several years. This was the first time such a course had been offered anywhere. At the same time, he worked at the American Foundation for the Blind
American Foundation for the Blind
The American Foundation for the Blind is an American non-profit organization that expands possibilities for people with vision loss. AFB's priorities include broadening access to technology; elevating the quality of information and tools for the professionals who serve people with vision loss; and...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, organizing their laboratory and designing or redesigning devices to make it easier for blind people to live independently. The tone arm on the turntable made by the Foundation had 12% distortion. Villchur redesigned it so that the distortion was less than 4%.
One of his inventions for the Foundation for the Blind was a turntable
Turntable
A turntable is generally a rotating platform, and may refer to:-Music:* Turntable, a motor-driven platform that normally rotates a gramophone record at a constant rotational velocity as part of a phonograph....
tone arm that descended slowly to the surface of a vinyl record. This prevented the possibility that a blind person might drop the arm accidentally and that the sudden fall might damage the stylus or the record. In later years, when he was designing the AR turntable, he added this same feature to the tone arm. In the ads describing the advantages of the product, the photo showed a person accidentally dropping the tone arm, with a caption noting that this turntable was “For butterfingers.”
Invention of the acoustic-suspension loudspeaker
Villchur recognized that the weak link in home equipment was the loudspeakerLoudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
. Amplifiers, record players, tape players, and tuners were fairly faithful to the original sound, but speakers of the time were unable to reproduce the bass notes of records or tapes without distortion. He came up with the idea for a new form of audio loudspeaker, one that would greatly reduce distortion by replacing the nonlinear mechanical spring with a linear air cushion. This “acoustic suspension” design demonstrated a greater undistorted SPL (sound pressure level) at 25 Hz than any previous loudspeaker type, including bass reflex, infinite baffle, or large horn designs.
He built a prototype of his new speaker out of a plywood box. His wife Rosemary, who had been a draftswoman during the war, sewed the pattern for the flexible surround out of mattress ticking. Unable to afford the full services of a patent attorney
Patent attorney
A patent attorney is an attorney who has the specialized qualifications necessary for representing clients in obtaining patents and acting in all matters and procedures relating to patent law and practice, such as filing an opposition...
, he found a patent lawyer who was willing to explain the patent process briefly, and Villchur applied for a patent himself. In 1953, he received US Patent No. 2,775,309 in 1952 for the acoustic-suspension loudspeaker. He tried to sell the idea to several loudspeaker manufacturers, but his idea was rejected as impossible.
Acoustic Research, Inc.
One of his students at NYU, Henry KlossHenry Kloss
Henry Kloss was a prominent American audio engineer and businessman who helped advance high fidelity loudspeaker and radio receiver technology beginning in the 1950s. Kloss was an undergraduate student in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology , but never received a degree...
, listened to Villchur’s explanation of acoustic suspension and agreed that a speaker built on this principle would be a major improvement in hi-fi sound reproduction. Villchur decided that since the established manufacturers were not interested in the invention, the only way to make it available to the public was to go into business producing the new speaker. Kloss had a loft in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
where he was making loudspeaker cabinets, and the two men became business partners in Acoustic Research, Inc.
Acoustic Research
Acoustic Research was a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company that manufactured high-end audio equipment. The brand is now owned by Audiovox. Acoustic Research was well known for the AR-3 series of speaker systems, which used the 12-inch acoustic suspension woofer of the AR-1 with newly designed...
(AR) in 1954. The partnership lasted until 1957, when Kloss left to form KLH
KLH (company)
KLH is an audio company founded in 1957 as KLH Research and Development Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, by Henry Kloss, Malcolm S. Low, and J. Anton Hoffman originally to produce loudspeakers. KLH had sales of $17 million, employed over 500 people and sold over 30,000...
, manufacturing loudspeakers using Villchur’s acoustic suspension principle, under license from AR.
Over the next two decades, almost all major loudspeaker manufacturers gradually changed from mechanical to acoustic suspension. At first they did so under license to AR, paying royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
to use the principles of Villchur’s patent. When the Electro-Voice Company
Electro-Voice
Electro-Voice is a manufacturer of audio equipment, including microphones, amplifiers, and loudspeakers. A subdivision of Telex Communications Inc., Electro-Voice markets its products for use in small or large concert venues, broadcasting, houses of worship, and in retail situations.-History:On...
refused to pay the royalties, AR sued them for patent infringement. Electro-Voice countersued, claiming prior art in the form of a mention of an air spring in a different system. The ensuing lawsuit resulted in the loss of the patent for Acoustic Research, a decision which Villchur chose not to appeal. In an interview about the case, Villchur says that he knew the judge’s decision to void the patent was incorrect, but that he felt he had better things to do than to spend his life in litigation. He cited the example of Edwin Howard Armstrong, the inventor of FM radio, whose patent was rendered unprofitable through the actions of RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
. Armstrong spent years unsuccessfully fighting that injustice, and eventually committed suicide. Villchur decided not to contest the loss of his loudspeaker patent, but rather to move on and continue improving the quality of high fidelity equipment.
The first acoustic-suspension loudspeaker, the AR-1, was introduced at the New York Audio Show in 1954, and was an instant success. Villchur continued to improve loudspeakers, coming out with new models roughly every two years. The AR-2, produced in 1956, was a no-frills version of the speaker at a lower price. The independent testing agency Consumers Union
Consumers Union
Consumers Union is a non-profit organization best known as the publisher of Consumer Reports, based in the United States. Its mission is to "test products, inform the public, and protect consumers."...
, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine
Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports is an American magazine published monthly by Consumers Union since 1936. It publishes reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory. It also publishes cleaning and general buying guides...
, did a report on loudspeakers that year. The AR-2 was one of only four speakers that received the Check Rating for highest quality, regardless of price. Of the four speakers that received the check rating, two were made by AR, and two were made by KLH under license from AR. After the CU rating, sales tripled.
Villchur continued to research improvements in sound reproduction, turning his attention to the tweeter
Tweeter
A tweeter is a loudspeaker designed to produce high audio frequencies, typically from around 2,000 Hz to 20,000 Hz . Some tweeters can manage response up to 65 kHz...
. He received US Patent No. 3,033,045 for his invention of the direct-radiator dome tweeter. This greatly improved high-frequency fidelity by its smooth response and wide dispersion of sound, and complemented the acoustic suspension woofer’s
Woofer
Woofer is the term commonly used for a loudspeaker driver designed to produce low frequency sounds, typically from around 40 hertz up to about a kilohertz or higher. The name is from the onomatopoeic English word for a dog's bark, "woof"...
improved bass response. The AR-3, which combined the acoustic suspension woofer with the dome tweeter, is considered Villchur’s ultimate achievement in speakers. An example of this model is on display in the Information Age Exhibit of The National Museum of American History at The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Virtually every loudspeaker today uses Villchur’s innovations: Acoustic Suspension Woofers and Dome Tweeters.
Villchur continued to do research, production design, and technical writing during his tenure as president of AR. One of his strongly held views was that the only appropriate criterion to determine the quality of high-fidelity components was comparison with the actual live music in performance. In keeping with that philosophy, AR produced a series of “Live versus Recorded” concerts in which live performances by musical ensembles were compared with previously taped performances played through AR stereo equipment. Musicians participating in these concerts included the Fine Arts String Quartet and classical guitarist Gustavo Lopez, as well as performances on a thirty-two foot pipe organ and an old-fashioned nickelodeon
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon is a US cable TV channel.Nickelodeon may also refer to:-In television:*Spinoffs of the Nickelodeon channel:** Nickelodeon Magazine, a children's magazine.** Nickelodeon Universe, an amusement park....
. The Washington Post featured the Live vs. Recorded concerts with a half-page article with pictures, providing free publicity for AR, in which they said that audiences were fooled over and over by the seamless transitions between live performance and sound reproduced through the AR speakers.
As president of AR, Villchur was known for progressive employment practices and innovative advertising techniques. AR used equal opportunity employment practices, and employees received health insurance
Health insurance
Health insurance is insurance against the risk of incurring medical expenses among individuals. By estimating the overall risk of health care expenses among a targeted group, an insurer can develop a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax, to ensure that money is...
and profit sharing—benefits which were highly unusual in any but the largest firms in the 1950s and 1960s. The company was also known for its liberal repair policies, fixing most products for free no matter how old they were, and in general providing excellent customer service
Customer service
Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer...
.
AR’s advertising was distinct from the sensationalistic ads of its competitors, instead concentrating on technical information, reviews by impartial critics, and endorsements from well-known musicians and other personalities who actually used Acoustic Research components. Villchur believed that each ad should provide accurate information and unsolicited endorsements in order to convince the reader of the quality of the product. The list of well-known artists who appeared with their AR stereo equipment in print advertisements included Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, and Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
.
In addition, the company established locations called “Music Rooms” where the public could listen to music through AR components and could ask questions of knowledgeable hosts, but where no selling took place. The most famous of the Music Rooms was in Grand Central Station, and became known as a quiet haven in the middle of the noisy terminal. During one year the Music Room counted one hundred thousand visitors.
In 1961, Villchur designed a turntable (record player), and published an article explaining its several innovations. The tone arm and turntable platen were mounted together and suspended independently from the body of the turntable, so that a shock to the body of the turntable would have little effect on the playing of the record. Indeed, Villchur was fond of demonstrating this independent suspension by hitting the wooden base of the turntable with a mallet while the record played on flawlessly. The mechanical isolation of the tone-arm-platen assembly from the base had a further advantage. It eliminated the “muddy” bass sound that often resulted when vibrations from the loudspeaker were conducted through the floor and caused feedback through the pickup into the amplifier.
The low mass and damped suspension of the tone arm itself compensated for any irregularities on the surface of the disk so that even warped records could often be played without distortion. When released, the tone arm floated down to the record, so that if it were dropped, it would not crash into the disc (which could harm both the needle and the record). With its quiet motor and precision-ground rubber drive belt, the turntable had extremely low wow
Wow (recording)
Wow is a relatively slow form of flutter which can affect both gramophone records and tape recorders. In the latter, the collective expression wow and flutter is commonly used.-Gramophone records:...
and flutter (the lowest of any turntable on the market at that time), and far exceeded the National Association of Broadcasters
National Association of Broadcasters
The National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association, workers union, and lobby group representing the interests of for-profit, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States...
(National Association of Broadcasters) standards for turntable measurements. The overall look of the turntable was given an award by Industrial Design magazine.
Acoustic Research continued to expand its loudspeaker line, producing the smaller “bookshelf” speaker, the AR-4, which was popular among college students and younger families. In 1966, Stereo Review’s yearly summary of the high-fidelity equipment showed that AR’s loudspeaker sales represented almost one-third of the entire market, a share that had never been achieved by any hi-fi company before that, and which has never been equalled since.
In 1967, Villchur sold AR to Teledyne
Teledyne
Teledyne Technologies Incorporated is an industrial conglomerate primarily based in the United States but with global operations. It was founded in 1960, as Teledyne, Inc., by Henry Singleton and George Kozmetsky....
, and signed an agreement not to go into business in the field of sound reproduction equipment. Teledyne kept the AR name, and continued to produce stereo equipment. Although it was Villchur’s plan for the company to produce a complete set of sound reproduction components, he sold the company before the amplifier and receiver became part of the line.
Hearing aid research and development
When he left AR, Villchur went back to working as a researcher. He chose the field of hearing aidHearing aid
A hearing aid is an electroacoustic device which typically fits in or behind the wearer's ear, and is designed to amplify and modulate sound for the wearer. Earlier devices, known as "ear trumpets" or "ear horns", were passive funnel-like amplification cones designed to gather sound energy and...
s, since he felt that there was considerable room for improvement in these devices. He pointed out to an interviewer that when you see a person with eyeglasses, you assume that whatever vision problem they might have is fully corrected by their glasses. But when you see a person with a hearing aid, you assume that the person still has hearing difficulties. He set out to change that, and spent several years investigating the problem in his home laboratory in Woodstock, NY.
Villchur worked with many volunteer subjects to analyze the various types of hearing loss. He discovered that traditional hearing aids of the day amplified loud sounds to the same extent as quiet sounds. He quickly realized, however, that quiet sounds needed more amplification than loud sounds. In fact, loud sounds might need no amplification at all. Many of his subjects complained that their hearing aids made soft sounds audible, but amplified moderately loud sounds to a painful level.
By 1973, he had come up with a revolutionary concept in hearing aid design. This was the idea of using multi-channel compression to make up for the variable loss of loudness. Each patient’s audiogram
Audiogram
An audiogram is a standard way of representing a person's hearing loss . Most audiograms cover the limited range 100 Hz to 8000 Hz which is most important for clear understanding of speech, and they plot the threshold of hearing relative to a standardised curve that represents 'normal'...
, combined with individual testing, would determine the correct program for that person. It was multi-channel so that those with hearing losses in specific frequency ranges could receive amplification where needed. More importantly, he used “wide dynamic range compression” (WDRC). Unlike the previous “compression limiting” circuits, which limited loud sounds to a certain level but did nothing to increase the gain for quiet sounds, Villchur’s WDRC amplifiers increased gain for softer sounds without excessively amplifying louder sounds.
Rather than apply for a patent, he decided to publish his findings and make them available to anyone who wanted to use them. Fred Waldhauer
Fred Waldhauer
Frederick Donald Waldhauer was an American electrical engineer known for his work in hearing aids and combining art and technology.Waldhauer was born on December 6, 1927, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, USA...
of Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
heard Villchur lecture on this new hearing aid system, and started a Bell Labs project to develop a hearing aid. Bell Labs did not continue with the project, but Waldhauer went on to work for ReSound
ReSound
GN ReSound is one of the World’s largest providers of hearing aids and diagnostic audiological instrumentation, represented in more than 80 countries...
, and bought the rights from them for the work that had been done to that point. ReSound manufactured a programmable hearing aid based on Villchur’s principles. Over the next twenty-five years, Villchur’s innovations became the industry standard for hearing aid design. It is nearly impossible to find a hearing aid today – digital or analog – that does not use multi-channel wide dynamic range compression.
Edgar Villchur has written three books and over one hundred and fifty articles on high fidelity, sound reproduction, audio engineering, and hearing aid technology in both peer-reviewed scientific journals and popular magazines, including two articles written when he was ninety years old. At the 1995 meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
Acoustical Society of America
The Acoustical Society of America is an international scientific society dedicated to increasing and diffusing the knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications.-History:...
he received the Life Achievement Award from the American Auditory Society.
Sound Reproduction
Articles by Edgar Villchur- Villchur, E. (1954) “Revolutionary Loudspeaker and Enclosure,” Audio 38, October 1954, p. 25-27, 100.
- Villchur, E. (1957) “Problems of Bass Reproduction in Loudspeakers” Journal of the Audio Engineering Society Vol. 5, No. 3, July 1957, pp. 122–126.
- Villchur, E. (1958) “New High-Frequency Speaker,” Audio 42, October 1958, p. 38.
- Villchur, E. (1961) “High Fidelity to What?” Saturday Review, November 25, 1961.
- Villchur, E. (1962) “A New Turntable-Arm Design,” Audio, September and October 1962.
- Villchur, E. (1962) Reproduction of Sound in High-Fidelity, rev. ed., New York: Dover Publications, 1965; 1st published in Cambridge, Mass.: Acoustic Research, 1962.
- Villchur, E. (1962) "A Method of Testing Loudspeakers with Random Noise Input", Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, October 1962, Vol. 10, No.4, 306-309.
- Villchur, E. (1964) “Techniques of Making Live-Versus-Recorded Comparisons,” Audio, October 1964.
- Villchur, E. (1986) “Comments on ‘Theory, ingenuity, and wishful wizardry in loudspeaker design—A half-century of progress?’” [Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 77, No. 4, April 1985, p. 1303-1308] Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 79, No. 1, January 1986 [Letter].
- Villchur, E. (2000) “A Short History of the Dynamic Loudspeaker,” Voice Coil, July 2000, p. 26-32, paper presented at the 133rd meeting, Acoustical Society of America, June 1997.
Hearing Aids
Articles by Edgar Villchur- Villchur, E. (1973) “Signal processing to improve speech intelligibility in perceptive deafness,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of AmericaJournal of the Acoustical Society of AmericaJournal of the Acoustical Society of America is a scientific journal in the field of acoustics, published by the Acoustical Society of America. It contains technical articles on sound, vibration, speech and other topics.Access to articles is by subscription or purchase, though most universities...
, 53, No. 6, 1646-1657. - Villchur, E. (1974) “Simulation of the effect of recruitment on loudness relationships in speech,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 56, 1601-1611. (Recording bound in with article).
- Villchur, E. (1977) “Electronic models to simulate the effect of sensory distortions on speech perception by the deaf,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 62, 665-674.
- Villchur, E. (1987) “Multichannel Compression processing for profound deafness,” Journal of Rehabilitation Research and DevelopmentJournal of Rehabilitation Research and DevelopmentThe Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development is a peer-reviewed open access medical journal published by the Rehabilitation Research and Development Service of the Veterans Health Administration Office of Research and Development. Itcovers research on rehabilitation medicine. It...
, 24, 135-138. - Villchur, E. and Waldhauer, F. (1988) “Full Dynamic Range Multiband Compression in a Hearing Aid,” The Hearing Journal, Sep. 1988.
- Villchur, E. (1989) “Comments on ‘The negative effect of amplitude compression in multichannel hearing aids in the light of the modulation-transfer function,’” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 86, 425-427 [Letter]
- Villchur, E. (1993) “A Different Approach to the Noise Problem of the Hearing Impaired” American Journal of AudiologyAmerican Journal of AudiologyThe American Journal of Audiology is a peer-reviewed medical journal published semi-annually by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. It publishes articles related to clinical practice in audiology, including various clinical techniques, professional issues, and administration.-External...
July 1993, 47-51. Transcription of a presentation made at the Mayo Clinic. Online at: http://www.asha.org/NR/rdonlyres/8E2319A7-A526-4983-BD0C-71F8066ADDC5/0/3759_1.pdf - Villchur, E. (1996) “Multichannel Compression in Hearing Aids,” in Hair Cells and Hearing Aids, C. Berlin ed., Singular Publishing Group, Inc. San Diego, 1996.
- Villchur, E. (2004) “Elements of Effective Hearing-Aid Performance,” Audiology Online, February 2004. Online at: https://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/article_detail.asp?article_id=565
- Villchur, E. (2008) “Compression in Hearing Aids: Why Fast Multichannel Processing Systems Work Well.” Hearing Review, June 2008.
External links
- "A Glorious Time: AR's Edgar Villchur and Roy Allison", StereophileStereophileStereophile is a monthly magazine that focuses on high end audio equipment, such as loudspeakers and amplifiers, and audio-related news, such as online audio streaming. It was founded in 1962 by J. Gordon Holt....
, Jan 6, 2005, David Lander - Acoustic Research and the Acoustic Suspension Loudspeaker by Andrew Hayden
- The Classic Speaker Pages, Specializing in Acoustic Research and its New England Progeny
- Revolution: The Sealed Enclosure Loudspeaker
- The Audio Century, Part II: The Twentieth Century and the Birth of Audio Technology, by John Pearsall, Audio Discourse, Positive Feedback Online
- Steve Hoffman Music Forums: History of the AR-3
- Technology Makes Music: A short, distortionfree history of high fidelity by David Lander
- The Loudspeaker Part 3 Arcane Radio Trivia, March 7, 2007
- Acoustic Research AR-2a Loudspeakers: Replacement of the Tone Control Potentiometers
- History of the AR-3
- AR Turntable History
- "Edgar Villchur and the Acoustic Suspension Loudspeaker" by Steven E. Schoenherr