Edgar M. Villchur, a Hi-Fi Innovator, Is Dead at 94By DENNIS HEVESI
Published: October 17, 2011
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.
....
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.
....
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 first loudspeakers were
KLH Model 6 loudspeakers. I still have them. I have some AR speakers too, from the '60s and '70s.
Edgar Villchur also developed my favorite hi-fi component of all time, the AR turntable.
A Glorious Time: AR's Edgar Villchur and Roy AllisonBy David Lander • Posted: Feb 6, 2005 • Published: Jan 6, 2005
Editor's Note: In 1954, a New York writer and teacher reinvented the world of audio with the modest-looking Acoustic Research AR-1 loudspeaker. A small fraction of the size of the behemoths that were then de rigeur for the reproduction of bass frequencies, Edgar Villchur's loudspeaker went as low with less distortion. Perhaps more importantly, the AR-1 pioneered both the science of speaker design and the idea that a low-frequency drive-unit could not be successfully engineered without the properties of the enclosure being taken into account.
To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Villchur's revolutionary idea and his founding (with the late Henry Kloss) of the Acoustic Research company, I asked David Lander to interview not only Villchur but also Roy Allison. Allison played a major role in the company's fortunes for several years before leaving in 1972, but more importantly, extended Villchur's idea of system engineering to one where a complete loudspeaker should not be designed without taking the properties of the listening room into account.—John Atkinson
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Lander: Tell us about the genesis of the legendary AR turntable, which Roy told me was your baby.
Villchur: I wanted to make a complete system, and I thought the next thing should be a turntable, because our forte was mechanical rather than electronic. I hired a consultant for the job, but about a year and a half and maybe $25,000 later, what he had was useless. So I had to do it, and I did almost all of it in my lab in Woodstock in the late '50s and early '60s, just after the AR-3. We thought we could bring it out at $58, but that was an error. Not too long afterward, we had to raise it to $78—complete, with everything but a cartridge. By that time, we had a reputation. When we announced we were bringing out a turntable, we had orders for thousands.
Hat tip to
rec . antiques . radio+phono
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