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.
32 Facts About Edgar Villchur
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Edgar Villchur received his bachelor's and master's degrees in art history from City College in New York City.
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Edgar Villchur worked in the theater, and had plans to be a scenic designer.
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Edgar Villchur was stationed in New Guinea, where he rose to the rank of captain and was in charge of the electronic equipment for his squadron.
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Edgar Villchur continued to educate himself in the area of audio engineering, taking courses in mathematics and engineering at New York University.
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Edgar Villchur's proposal was accepted, and he taught that course at night for several years.
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Edgar Villchur recognized that the weak link in home equipment was the loudspeaker.
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Edgar Villchur 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.
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Edgar Villchur built a prototype of his new speaker out of a plywood box.
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The dimensions of the face of the box were taken from a picture frame that Edgar Villchur had hanging in his house.
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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 Edgar Villchur applied for a patent himself.
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Edgar Villchur tried to sell the idea to several loudspeaker manufacturers, but his idea was rejected as impossible.
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Edgar 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.
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The ensuing lawsuit resulted in the loss of the patent for Acoustic Research, a decision which Edgar Villchur chose not to appeal.
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Edgar Villchur cited the example of Edwin Howard Armstrong, the inventor of FM radio, whose patent was rendered unprofitable through the actions of RCA.
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Edgar 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.
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Edgar Villchur continued to improve loudspeakers, coming out with new models roughly every two years.
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Edgar Villchur continued to research improvements in sound reproduction, turning his attention to the tweeter.
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Edgar Villchur received for his invention of the direct-radiator dome tweeter.
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Edgar Villchur continued to do research, production design, and technical writing during his tenure as president of AR.
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Edgar Villchur was known for its liberal repair policies, fixing most products for free no matter how old they were, and in general providing excellent customer service.
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Edgar Villchur believed that each ad should provide accurate information and unsolicited endorsements in order to convince the reader of the quality of the product.
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In 1961, Edgar Villchur designed a turntable, and published an article explaining its several innovations.
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Indeed, Edgar 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.
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In 1967, Edgar Villchur sold AR to Teledyne, and signed an agreement not to go into business in the field of sound reproduction equipment.
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Edgar Villchur 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.
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Edgar Villchur set out to change that, and spent several years investigating the problem in his home laboratory in Woodstock, NY.
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Edgar Villchur worked with many volunteer subjects to analyze the various types of hearing loss.
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Edgar Villchur discovered that traditional hearing aids of the day amplified loud sounds to the same extent as quiet sounds.
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Edgar Villchur quickly realized that quiet sounds needed more amplification than loud sounds.
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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.
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Edgar Villchur died on Monday, October 17,2011 of natural causes at his Woodstock, New York home, his daughter, Miriam Villchur said.