Category: Tech

Ray Dolby, 1933-2013

Another audio technology pioneer has passed away. Ray Dolby started at Ampex, working on magnetic tape recorders that were based on German machines captured at the end of WWII by Jack Mullin. Later, Dolby made major contributions to Ampex’s development of the first video tape recorder. In the 1960’s, when recording studios went from four to eight tracks — leaving less surface area on the tape for each track — hiss was the result, and the Dolby A noise reduction system was developed to alleviate the problem. Dolby B was the consumer version of the circuit. Today, every HDTV has Dolby Digital decoding built in. I know somebody who worked at Dolby Labs. I’ll see if I can pry out a comment about the man.

Addendum: Somebody who worked at Dolby Labs says…

He was a very very nice man, quiet, extremely intelligent, good-natured. The company under his leadership was a marvelous place to work, where engineers had the ability to follow ideas, where the technology was cutting edge. He was also an extremely good businessman, and understood the power of licensing. His engineering contributions to early recording were ground-breaking.

… and the comments at this link are recommended.

The Bose Wall of Sound

Amar Bose has died. I drive past the Bose headquarters almost every day, and I felt obliged to buy a Bose Wave Music System after having the porch remodeled. There really is no other product that does what the Wave does for its size.

Bose 901 Series II loudpspeaker

In high school, when I was bitten by the stereo bug, the Bose 901 speakers were a big deal. It became a joke that if you walked into a stereo store you were guaranteed to hear Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein” played full blast on a pair of Bose 901’s.

Personally, I never cared for the sound of the heavily-equalized Bose 901, preferring instead the designs of Roy Allison, but I have to admire Amar Bose for his marketing savvy and his profit margins. He had the vision to lead the home audio trend away from ever-bigger box speakers by introducing tiny stereo satellites that were coupled with a dedicated bass unit that could be hidden under an end table. The innovative and imitated Bose noise-cancelling headphones are very successful.

Greater Boston has a great and grand tradition in audio, but now it’s mostly in the past. Acoustic Research, KLH, Advent, H.H. Scott, EPI, Genesis, Allison, Snell, ADS, Cizek, Avid and Apt are long gone. Boston Acoustics was sold years ago and NAD is in Canada. Only the Bose Corporation endures with its name and heritage intact, and that is a testament to the leadership of Amar Bose.

Addendum: In 1971 Bose sued Consumer Reports for libel, because its review of the 901 Series I loudspeaker stated that the stereo image “wandered around the room.” Not yet knowing of the CU lawsuit, but having read the review at the library, I had the exact same impression of the Series I when I heard it in early 1972. A year later the 901 Series II was introduced and the “ten feet tall violin” effect had been tamed. I assumed Bose had taken the criticism to heart and fixed the problem, which can also be affected by speaker placement, so I was surprised when I learned of the lawsuit in one of the hi-fi magazines I devoured in those days. Bose should have dropped the case, but it dragged on for over ten years and went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Bose lost.

Addendum 2: Atlantic Technology is still in business, in Norwood, MA.

Ant-tenna

Aereo HDTV antenna
Aereo HDTV antenna

Without Aereo’s DVR feature I probably wouldn’t have tried the service, but I am so impressed with it that I think I’m going to be a paying subscriber, despite the fact I don’t have compelling need for it. A key aspect of Aereo’s technology is its amazingly effective tiny TV antenna. Each customer gets one assigned to them within a huge array of tiny antennas. That way, Aereo can say they aren’t rebroadcasting TV stations for public use. It may sound clunky, but it isn’t at all. Assuming you have good Internet throughput, it’s all quite seamless and elegant. (Aereo’s opponents claim the antennas act in unison. Read this for more.)

How Aereo works
How Aereo works – note: base price is $8/month for 20 hours of recorded video

When I started this blog in 2006 I had Comcast analog cable SDTV hooked into an ATI TV Wonder Elite DVR on my desktop computer. I lost the use of that cable tuner when I switched to FiOS digital HDTV. Since then I’ve seen the start of the Netflix streaming video service on Web browsers, then later it became available on the Roku player, and now there’s Aereo to put live TV back on my computer with dual monitors. Technology marches on!

Cloud in the Aereo

AeroWindow

Boston is the second city to get Aereo, the new “DVR in the cloud” service that puts local broadcast TV over the Internet. I’m giving it a try, and there is nothing rough or difficult about it at all. It’s slick, smooth, and clean. It works great on the Roku, but that’s not where I see Aereo being the most compelling. Where I’m really impressed is on the Acer netbook I’m using right now, with its 11.6″ 1366×768 screen. I’ll leave it to you to look up all of the details of the Aereo service, and the lawsuit by broadcasters.

AeroFull