Acoustic Research Inc.

The AR1 was the first acoustic suspension speaker employing a tuned port

A pair of classic AR3 bookshelf speakers are on display in the Smithsonian

Acoustic Research is a manufacturer of high-end audio equipment based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1952 by New York "University electronics instructor Edgar Villchur and his student, Henry Kloss, to produce a new type of loudspeaker. Loudspeakers in the '50s used massive woofers to reproduce bass. Edgar Villchur designed and patented "acoustic suspension", a tuned port that reinforced bass response and allowed him to use small drivers and small enclosures. AR built and sold the AR-1 for $185 ($1700 in 2018 dollars). The AR-1 set new standards of low-frequency performance and low distortion that were unsurpassed for many years. Edgar Villchur went on to design the AR-3 speaker systems, which was the state-of-the-art in speaker design. In 1993, an AR-3 was placed on permanent display in the Information Age Exhibit of National Museum of American History at The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. .Henry KLoss left AR in 1957 to form his own loudspeaker company, KLH

My Experience:

My only experience with AR was an 8-inch downward firing sub-woofer I bought at the Goodwill Thrift Store for $8. The build was sturdy and the bass was strong and very tight. I would say it out-performed my Polk Audio 8" front-firing subs.

The Bose Corporation

The Bose corporation was founded in 1964 by Amar Bose, a graduate student from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He had purchased a stereo system and was disappointed with its performance. He noticed the sound was different directly in front of the speakers than off-axis. This led him to research the importance of indirect sound on perceived audio quality. Dr Bose began extensive research aimed at clarifying factors that he saw as the fundamental weaknesses plaguing high-end audio systems: speakers failed to account for the spatial properties of the radiated sound in typical listening spaces. He researched the implications of sonic spatial effect on human hearing, or psycho-acoustics, i.e. the listener's ear as a part of the entire audio reproduction system. Eight years later, he started the company, charging it with a mission to achieve "Better Sound Through Research", now the company slogan. A majority of Bose Corporation's non-voting shares were given by Amar Bose in 2011 to his alma mater and former employer, MIT. They receive cash dividends, but are prohibited from selling the shares and are unable to participate in the management and governance of the company.

Bose has built a successful reputation based on three new audio-design paradigms and an intensive marketing strategy.

Design paradigms

1. Minimize Hardware: Create room-filling bass with compact Wave Canons, not large drivers
2. Maximize Reflections: Use direct and reflected sound to create a large sound stage.
3. Minimize Footprint: Hide the hardware using bass-and-satellite Speaker Systems

Minimize the Hardware

Most speaker designs use large-diameter cone drivers (up to 16") and a ported box to increase the bass output of their cabinets. Bose never used very large woofers to reproduce bass. Instead, they use a folded wave guide to coax the most bass from mid-sized drivers. Klipshorn used a folded horn wave guide to reverberate and reinforce the bass from a high-powered horn driver in its classic (and monstrous) Bella-Klipsch speakers. The Bose Wave Radio is an extreme example of Bose's use of a wave guide to reinforce the bass response.

The Bose WAVE RADIO

The "Wave Canon" folded horn

Maximize Reflections

The Bose line of speakers have focused on creating a fuller, room-filling sound stage through the use of off-axis drivers. From the smaller bookshelf speakers to the highly successful 901s, all Bose designs have angled the drivers to disperse sound beyond the frontal plane.

Bose Model 301

Bose Model 401

Bose Model 501

Bose Model 601

The famous Bose 901's took this philosophy to extreme, having only two forward-facing drivers while eight drivers faced the rear.

Minimize the Footprint

Bose Marketing

Bose has a reputation for being particularly protective of its patents, trademarks, and brands, and his success has been based on the perception of the brand rather than the true quality. It is simply impossible to rely on 6" or 8" drivers to reproduce a bass sound that competes with much larger drivers. [bose quality questionability] To that end, the company has strongly controlled the presentation of the brand, requiring distinct and separate retail displays, building and operating their own single-brand retail stores, and developing demonstration media that highlights their speaker's performance strengths while hiding the weaknesses.

My Experience:

Tammy bought me a Bose Acoustimass 3 system. The Acoustimass 3 had three units, a bass reflex box and two dipole satellites. The dipoles were fixed at about a 40 degree angle between them. Bose' later dipoles could be turned to any angle. The bass box was a passive-crossover, ported box design. A single small mid-range driver was hidden inside the box, and was fed from a low-pass filter. A high-pass fed the high notes to the satellites. It was not cheap, but it was not a great performer either. The ported box did a lot to help the mid-bass, but you just can't get deep punchy bass from a 5" driver.

My early production Acoustimass 3

Definitive Technology

Founded in Owings Mills, Maryland in 1990 by former Polk Audio founder Sandy Gross, along with Don Givogue and Ed Blaise. The company's first products were monolithic bipolar speaker towers. In 2004, the company was acquired by Directed Electronics which became DEI Holdings. In 2013, DEI combined Polk Audio, Definitive Technology, and the Boom Movement brands into a new division called Sound United.

My Experience:

I purchased my Definitive Technolgy BP6 bipolar towers from a co-worker who invited me over to hear his system. He had just upgraded and had some equipment to sell: a Harman / Kardon receiver and the pair of BP6's. After hearing his system, I was so impressed I bought all three pieces.

Definitive Technology's BP6 is a full-range bipolar system, meaning the speakers fire both front and rear for huge room-filling sound. The BP6 has four drivers, a 5 ¼" polymer-coated midrange driver and a 1" annealed aluminum dome tweeter facing front-ward and an identical pair facing the rear. This combination gives the razor-sharp resolution and pinpoint imaging of the finest dipolar loudspeakers with the highly efficient extended bass response, wide dynamic range and easy-to-position convenience of a conventional ported-box system. The Definitive Technology BP6 creates a spacious sound stage with increased depth-of-field.

The Specifications:

• The enclosure takes up less than one square foot of floor space
• The cabinet measures 7" W x 11" D x 35" H
• Frequency Response: 25 Hz - 30 kHz
• Sensitivity: 91 dB
• Power handling capacity: 175 watts

Definitive Technology BP6 Bipolar Towers

Japan Victor Corporation (JVC)

The Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. is usually referred to as JVC or The Japan Victor Company. Founded in 1927, it is a Japanese international professional and consumer electronics corporation based in Yokohama. JVC sold their electronic products in Japan under the "Victor" name with the "His Master's Voice" logo, but used the name JVC for export due to the Victor Talking Machine Company's ownership of the name "Victor" and the "His Master's Voice" logo. In 2008, JVC merged with the Kenwood Corporation to create JVC-Kenwood. In 2011, the Victor brand for electronics in Japan was replaced by the global JVC brand. However, the previous "Victor" name and logo is retained by JVC Kenwood Victor Entertainment. JVC is best known for introducing Japan's first televisions to the U.S. and for developing the Video Home System (VHS) video cassette recorder (VCR).

My Experience

My very first electronics purchase was a JVC product. It was a time when the stereo cassette recorder (aka "Boom Box") was the desire of all the high school kids. I remember when I bought it, it had a plastic sticker over the front speaker touting that it had "3000 Milli-Watts of Power" (which is really 3 watts). It had several options, including bass boost, wide-angle simulation, and Chrome/metal tape bias. Compared to others on the market, I believe my JVC offered superior sound quality in a moderate-sized package. I used it many years and was very sad when it finally quit.

I have had several cassette recorders and video tape recorders and always found JVC to provide a superior magnetic recording product. As the VCR market dwindled, I bought a pair of JVC VCRs - the only brand I could find consistently offering VCRs with stereo high-fidelity playback.

JVC portable cassette recorder

JVC S-292U

JVC S-5900U

JVC xxxx

JVC xxx

Onkyo

Onkyo Corporation is a Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer,specializing in premium home cinema and audio equipment, including receivers, surround sound speakers and portable devices. The word Onkyo translates as "sound harmony". In 2015, Onkyo purchased Pioneer Corporation's home electronics, which makes home cinema amplifiers, Blu-ray players and other AV products. In return, Pioneer took a 14.95% stake in Onkyo. The current Onkyo Corporation umbrella includes the Integra and Integra Research divisions as well as the main Onkyo brand.

My Experience

I found an Onkyo open-box return at a discount re-seller, Bargain Hunt. After watching th price for several weeks, I bought it on mark-down with the intent to resell. The Onkyo TX_RZ800 lists for $1299 - but I bought it for $240. I attempted to resell it for a while, but decided to keep it for myself, replacing my venerable Outlaw Audio 950 premp-possessor.

Onkyo TX RZ-800

The Onkyo TX RZ-800 is a 7.2 Channel THX Certified Audio-Video Receiver with integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It offers many signal processing modes, including

• mono
• stereo
• Dolby Surround EX
• Dolby Pro-Logic II
• Dolby Digital 5.2 and 7.2
• DTS 5.1 and DTS-ES 6.1
• DTS Neo:6
• Cirrus Extra Surround (Music and Cinema)
• "Pure Audio" digital bypass

Audio Specifications (analog section):

• Frequency response: 10 Hz - 90 kHz: +0, -3 dB (Bypass Mode)
• Signal to Noise Ratio: 102 dB (Bypass Mode)
• Distortion: 0.0038% (20 Hz ~ 20 kHz) Bypass Mode)

-(digital section)

• Signal to Noise Ratio: 102 dB
• Total Harmonic Distortion: <0.005% (1 kHz, at 0 dB)
• Dynamic Range: 100 dB
• D/A Output: Rated output 2 V (At 0 dB playback)

Panasonic Corp.

Panasonic Corporation, formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. is a consumer electronics corporation headquartered in Osaka, Japan. The company was founded in 1918 as a producer of lightbulb sockets and has grown to become one of the largest Japanese electronics producers alongside Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba, Pioneer and Canon Inc. In addition to electronics, it offers non-electronic products and services such as home renovation services. In 2012, Panasonic was the world's fourth-largest television manufacturer.

My Experience:

I have had two Panasonic products in my setups. My first Video Cassette Recorder was a Panasonic, purchased in 1981. It was a 2-piece unit with tape deck and tuner. The tape deck recorder was portable and could be run off household current or battery. The tuner portion stayed connected to the television. We also had a video camera that connected to the recorder. Portable VCRs were not common in 1981, and the outfit cost $1100, which would be $3000-$3200 in today's dollars (2019). My brother and I used the camera to record a program called "WBNK", a collection of skits and satirical television ads, similar to seen on the late-night television show, Saturday Night Live

.

My only other experience with Panasonic has been two DVD players.

Pioneer Corporation

Pioneer is a Japanese multinational corporation based in Tokyo, Japan, that specializes in digital entertainment products. The company was founded by Nozomu Matsumoto in 1938 in Tokyo as a radio and speaker repair shop. Pioneer's innovations include the development of interactive cable TV, the Laser Disc player, the first automotive Compact Disc player, the first detachable face car stereo, Supertuner technology, the DVD and DVD recording, plasma displays and the Organic LED display (OLED).In 2007, Sharp Corporation took a 14% shareholder stake in Pioneer which has been reduced to 9%. Sharp still remains the largest shareholder of Pioneer Corporation, followed by Honda Motor Co., Ltd. who owns roughly 4%. In September 2014, Pioneer agreed to sell Pioneer Home Electronics to Onkyo, and in March 2015, Pioneer sold its DJ equipment business division to KKR,

My Experience

My only experince with Pioneer has been a direct drive turntable and a 12-band graphic equalizer.

Pioneer

Pioneer

Pyle

Pyle

My Experience

I am not impressed with Pyle. It may be that Pyle builds products for the live perfomssncce versus home reproduction, The PBX hould have been able TO deliver, as it had both 1/4" inputs for live sound and RCA connections for home use. It did not deliver.

I purchased a newPyle PXB active crossover to route The treble and midrange to the maiins and the bass signals to the subs. The concept was vaalid. The pbX had three crossover points, The low-pass coould be set at. The high pass at . I could never get balanced sound out of the Pyle, and eventually I gave up.

Sansui

TEXT

my Experience

My father had a pair of Sansui SP-200 speakers he bought from Japan.

SONY

TEXT

Technics

TEXT.

TEXT