Saturday, March 30, 2013

Subwoofers: The Earley Years

By Fj Philben


Todays sub-woofers had there humble inceptions in the garage area of team entrepreneurial guys by the name of Arnold Nudell and Cary Christie, in the closing years of the 1960's. Mr Nudell was physicist and Mr Christie an airline pilot . They started a business by the name of New Technology Enterprises, which later become renamed and reorganized as Infinity. The proto-type sub-woofer encasement was an 18 inch Cerwin Vega containing the addition of a 2nd winding to move the electrical signal to the enclosed amp . This first system was priced around $1800 around 1967 and and at time was some 40 % more costly than its closest competitor , which then was a loud-speaker system. This first enclosed bass sub-woofer unit was called the Servo Statik 1.

In and around the very same time period a local shop owner in LA was getting complaints from clients concerning the inability of the electrostatic speakers , considered the best of their kind in that year , to deal with the lower ranged bass heertz . Mr. J. Miller approached his business partner Ken Kreisel with the issue and Mr. Kriesel designed a powered subwoofer that could handle the bass hertz spectrum , the bass sub-woofer.

Subwoofersbecame widely known by the public with their usage in the motion picture "Earthquake." The Sensurround system was bought and installed in several film theaters throughout the nation . This system consisted of multiple five-hundred watt amplifiers that were managed by soundtrack control tones. By the latter part of the 1970's, as a result of this ticket office hit film , there were numerous hundred additional movie theaters that were to install the Sensurround system to supply a new listening and viewing offering for their clients .

Unfortunately for many homeowners it was not until the bringing to market had the ability to use the tape to reel devices for taping the lower tones , but also for mass distribution it was the introduction of the smaller form factor cassette/CD.

Along with the continuing advancement and miniaturization of elements and technology , sub-woofers are regularly included with today'ssurround systems and are reasonably inexpensive compared to the first days of New Technology Enterprises back in the latter part of 60's.




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