Friday, March 29, 2013

The Beginning Of Subwoofers

By Fj Philben


Todays sub-woofers had there modest beginnings in the garage of team entrepreneurial men by the name of Arnold Nudell and Cary Christie, in the closing years of the 1960's. Mr Nudell was inventor and Mr Christie an aviator . They started a business by the name of New Technology Enterprises, which became known and rearranged as Infinity. The proto-type sub-woofer encasement was an 18 inch Cerwin Vega containing another winding to send the signal to the enclosed amp . This very first unit was priced just below $1800 around 1967 and and at time was some 40 % more costly than its closest rival , which then was a loud-speaker system. This first enclosed bass sub-woofer system was called the Servo Statik 1.

Around the same time a music store owner in LA was receiving grievances from clients regarding the inability of the electrostatic speaker system , the best of their kind in that year , to deal with the lower bass frequencies . Mr. J. Miller approached his partner and friend Ken Kreisel with the problem and Mr. Kriesel crafted a powered subwoofer that could handle the lower pitch sounds , the bass sub-woofer.

Subwoofersbecame widely known by the public with their preview in the motion picture "Earthquake." The Sensurround system was acquired and set up in several film theaters throughout the US . This system comprised of several 500 watt amplifiers that were managed by soundtrack control tones. By the end of the 1970's, as a result of this smash hit movie , there were several hundred movie theaters that were to put up the Sensurround system to provide a brand-new listening and viewing offering for their clients .

Unfotunately, for the homeowners it was not realizeable until the development could utilize the reel to tape drives for recording the lower frequencies , but for mass circulation it was the intro of the smaller cassette/CD.

Along with the on-going advancement and miniaturization of elements and technology , sub-woofers are routinely included in today'ssurround systems and are relatively inexpensive as compared to the initial days of New Technology Enterprises back in the end of 60's.




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