"One more man gone" - In Memoriam

[paja959]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15179959

RIP

[Bujodrag]

Eh, šteta.

Opasan lik.

R.I.P.

[ozzy]

R.I.P. Bert

[srdjan_cvetkovic]

Preminuo Steve Jobs

R.I.P.

[pera451]

Kakav covek .

R.I.P.

[Mingus,Mingus]

Steta,veliko ime.

[ozzy]

R.I.P.

[vladovid]

R.I.P.

[civi]

Nek mu je slava...

[anubisgrau]

covek koji je promenio svet. neka mu je laka zemlja.

[pera451]

Nedavno sam citao neki tekst John Dvorak-a o stanju marketing-a u IT industriji. Dvorak cesto omane, ali mi se cini da je u pravu kada konstatuje da nisu na pomolu neki novi Jobs-ovi. IT sektor je pun mladih, nadobudnih ljudi, iz tasna-masna price, sa skracenicama od 3 slova, stavom i hipertrofiranim egom, ali kada se dodje do vizije, onda je situacija malo teza...

[nkrgovic]

covek koji je promenio svet. neka mu je laka zemlja.

Na mnogo vise nacina nego sto je vecina svesta.

Otisao je pravi vizionar...

[prophet]

“He believed...if you weren’t going to do something special, it wasn’t worth doing”

[Zexx]

Edit Chowek: obrisano prepucavanje - nije baš zgodna tema za to.

[MRMOT]

R.I.P.

[Silver Surfer]

[mbranko]

Da se rodio pre 2000 godina... kako bi se zvala ta religija?

[nenad]

Steve Jobs govor na Stenfordu

[Bujodrag]

...ali kada se dodje do vizije, onda je situacija malo teza...

S vizijama je uvek tako.

Mi, obiÄni smrtnici, nismo ni svesni koliko su vizije lepe, osetljive i dragocene.

[zeratul]

R.I.P.

[haj_faj]

R.I.P.

[pecass]

Once again - God of Matrix has left the earth - RIP

[rrapaic]

Laka mu zemlja.

Nego, nisam znao, on je bio pola Sirijac, bas interesantno. U svakom slucaju, otisao je sjajan predstavnik cuvene 'garaza' generacije.

[Tutti]

R.I.P.

[空也]

Edgar Villchur, 1917-2011

http://www.classicsp...?showtopic=6765

http://www.nytimes.c...Villchur&st=cse

Edgar Villchur, 1917-2011

I learned this afternoon that Edgar Villchur died in his sleep in Woodstock, NY. He was 94 years old.

Edgar Villchur died in his Woodstock home on Monday, October 17, 2011 at the age of 94. He was an inventor, educator, and writer. His 1954 invention of the acoustic suspension loudspeaker revolutionized the field of high-fidelity equipment, providing better bass response than was previously possible, at the same time radically reducing the size of the cabinet. He received a patent for that invention as well as for the dome tweeter, which greatly improved the ability of loudspeakers to reproduce accurate high-end sounds. His AR-3 speaker is on display in the Smithsonian Institute’s Information Age Exhibit in Washington, DC. Acoustic Research, Inc. (AR), of which he was president from 1952 to 1967, manufactured high-fidelity loudspeakers, turntables, and other stereo components of his design. After leaving AR, he went into hearing aid research and developed the multichannel compression hearing aid, whose basic design has become the industry standard for hearing aids.

Villchur received his Master’s degree from City College in art history, and was headed for a career as a scenic designer. World War II changed those plans, and he was trained 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 Army squadron. Later, he served in the Philippines and on Okinawa.

After the war, he opened a shop in 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 night courses in mathematics and engineering. After submitting an article to Audio Engineering magazine (later renamed Audio), he was asked to write a regular column. He also taught a course in his special area of interest, Reproduction of Sound, at the night school at New York University. He wrote three books and over one hundred and fifty articles on acoustics and sound reproduction, including two articles written at the age of ninety.

Although he considered himself a scientist and a researcher, he was very successful as a businessman. 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.

In 1967, Villchur sold AR to Teledyne, and went back to working as a researcher. He chose the field of hearing aids, since he felt that there was considerable room for improvement in these devices. He spent several years investigating the problem in his home laboratory in Woodstock, NY. By 1973, he had come up with multichannel compression, a revolutionary concept in hearing aid design. Rather than apply for a patent, he decided to publish his findings and make them available to anyone who wanted to use them. Resound, a hearing aid company in California, worked with Villchur to produce a compression hearing aid. Over the next two decades, Villchur’s design became the industry standard for hearing aids.

Villchur lived in Woodstock from 1952 until his death. Music and art were very important to him, and he served on the boards of Maverick Concerts and of the Woodstock Artists’ Association for many years. He was a friend, advisor, and benefactor to countless organizations and individuals in the community.

He is survived by his wife, Rosemary (Romy) Villchur, to whom he had been married for sixty-six years; his son, Mark Villchur of Boston; his daughter, Miriam Villchur Berg, of Woodstock; and many devoted friends who considered themselves, and were considered by him, members of his family.

For more information, see the Wikipedia article “Edgar Villchur” and its accompanying bibliography and links, as well as his personal website, edgarvillchur.com. He was a great philanthropist, and supported many local organizations, including Family of Woodstock, The Woodstock Emergency Rescue Squad, the Woodstock Fire Department, the Woodstock Library, Maverick Concerts, and the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum. Donations in his name can be made to any of those organizations.

--Tom Tyson

Edgar M. Villchur, a Hi-Fi Innovator, Is Dead at 94

By DENNIS HEVESI

Edgar M. Villchur, whose invention of a small loudspeaker that could produce deep, rich bass tones opened the high-fidelity music market in the 1950s to millions of everyday listeners, died on Monday at his home in Woodstock, N.Y. He was 94.

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His daughter, Miriam Villchur Berg, confirmed the death.

Audiophiles have hailed Mr. Villchur as a seminal figure in the field. In its 50th-anniversary issue in 2006, Hi-Fi News ranked him No. 1 among the “50 Most Important Audio Pioneers.” John Atkinson, the editor of Stereophile magazine, credits him with bringing hi-fi into the home.

“Villchur’s development of what he called the acoustic suspension woofer made it possible for music lovers to buy loudspeakers that were domestically acceptable,” Mr. Atkinson said in a 2009 interview. “A guy’s wife could accept their presence on the bookshelf in the living room.”

Before Mr. Villchur’s invention of the AR-1 loudspeaker in 1954, producing high-fidelity bass tones required speakers large enough to generate the long wavelengths of the deep notes. Some speakers were as large as a refrigerator. In the cabinet, mounted toward the front, would be what hi-fi specialists call the drive unit: a cone-shaped device activated by a magnet and a coil of wire to produce the sound. In the early days of hi-fi, manufacturers were not fully aware of the relationship between the drive unit and the acoustic role played by the cabinet itself, and they sometimes left the rear of the cabinet open.

Mr. Villchur realized that if the cabinet were completely sealed, the air trapped inside would act something like a spring that would control the cone’s vibrations, greatly enhancing the drive unit’s low-frequency performance.

“My measurements showed that my little prototype had better bass and less distortion than anything on the market, yet it was one-quarter the size,” Mr. Villchur said in an interview with Stereophile in 2005. “I thought, ‘This has got to be the future of loudspeakers.’ ”

It was. By 1966, according to Stereo Review magazine, Mr. Villchur’s company, Acoustic Research, was the leader in the nation’s speaker market, with a share of just over 32 percent.

One of Mr. Villchur’s breakthrough speakers was placed on permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in 1993.

Mr. Villchur also made two other advances that greatly improved high-fidelity performance.

He developed one of the first dome tweeters, a drive unit that produces high frequencies. Before the tweeter, high frequencies were emitted by the woofer, but with very poor sound quality. Instead of the cone, Mr. Villchur (and other innovators working independently of one another) devised small dome-shaped diaphragms that proved optimal for producing high frequencies.

In the early days of the turntable, one of its biggest problems was an effect called rumble: vibrations from the motor and the turntable that were picked up by the needle. Mr. Villchur’s solution was to separate the motor from the turntable and connect the two with a rubber belt, significantly reducing the vibrations.

Even though digital sound has largely replaced vinyl and turntables, Mr. Atkinson said, “Edgar Villchur’s inventions have led to the application of scientific principles that are used in every loudspeaker now on the market.”

Edgar Marion Villchur was born in Manhattan on May 28, 1917, the only child of Mark and Mariam Villchur, who had immigrated from Russia. His father was editor of a Russian-language newspaper, his mother a biologist.

It was his service in World War II that sparked Mr. Villchur’s fascination with sound and electronics. He had graduated from City College in 1938, then earned a master’s degree in education there two years later. But within a year he was drafted into the Army Air Forces and was trained as an electronics technician. For most of the next five years, while rising to captain, he was responsible for his squadron’s radio operations in the Pacific.

After the war Mr. Villchur opened a radio shop in Greenwich Village, making repairs and building custom hi-fi sets. He also taught a course in sound reproduction at New York University.

Mr. Villchur married Rosemary Shafer in 1945. Besides his wife and daughter, he is survived by a son, Mark, of Boston.

The Villchurs moved to Woodstock in 1952. In his basement, Mr. Villchur began testing his notion of a sealed-cabinet loudspeaker. One day in spring 1954, speaking to his acoustics class at N.Y.U, he hinted at his idea. One student, Henry Kloss, stayed after class, eager to learn more. Soon, student and teacher were in Mr. Villchur’s 1938 Buick, headed to Woodstock. In Mr. Villchur’s basement workshop, they listened to the copious low-frequency tones on an LP recorded by the renowned organist E. Power Biggs.

Mr. Kloss had a loft in Cambridge, Mass., where he was already building mail-order cabinets for Baruch-Lang speakers. It became the first headquarters for Acoustic Research. Mr. Kloss, who died in 2002, is credited with designing the production process for the AR-1 speaker and its successors, the AR-2 and the AR-3, which combined Mr. Villchur’s woofer and tweeter models.

Among Mr. Villchur’s duties was promoting the products. In the early 1960s he sponsored “live versus recorded” concerts around the country, including one in a recital room at Carnegie Hall and another at Grand Central Terminal. At the concerts, a string quartet would play a piece of music, then mime it as parts of a recording by the same quartet played through a pair of AR-3 speakers. The listeners were rarely able to detect the switchovers.

Mr. Villchur was president of Acoustic Research until 1967. After being bought by a series of manufacturers, the company went out of business in 2004. Its brand name was bought by the Audiovox Corporation.

Soon after leaving Acoustic Research, Mr. Villchur started the Foundation for Hearing Aid Research in Woodstock, where he developed a prototype of the multichannel compression hearing aid that has become an industry standard.