Who Invented the First Loudspeaker

The very first form of loudspeaker came to be when telephone  systems were developed in the late 1800s. But it was in 1912 that loudspeakers really became practical -- due in part to electronic amplification by a  vacuum tube. By the 1920s, they were used in radios, phonographs,  public address systems  and theater sound systems for  talking motion pictures. What is a Loudspeaker? By definition, a loudspeaker  is an  electroacoustic  transducer that converts an electrical  audio signal  into a corresponding  sound. The most common type of loudspeaker today is the  dynamic speaker. It was invented in 1925 by  Edward W. Kellogg  and Chester W. Rice. The dynamic speaker operates on the same basic principle as a  dynamic microphone, except in reverse to produce sound from an electrical signal. Smaller loudspeakers are found in everything from radios and televisions to portable audio players,  computers and  electronic musical instruments. Larger loudspeaker systems are used for music,  sound reinforcement  in theaters and concerts  and in  public address systems. First Loudspeakers Installed in Telephones Johann Philipp Reis  installed an electric loudspeaker in his  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹telephone  in 1861 and  it could reproduce clear tones as well as reproduce muffled speech.  Alexander Graham Bell  patented his first electric loudspeaker capable of reproducing intelligible speech  in 1876 as part of his telephone. Ernst Siemens improved upon it the following year. In 1898, Horace Short earned a patent for a loudspeaker driven by compressed air. A few companies  produced record players using compressed-air loudspeakers, but these designs had poor sound quality and could not reproduce sound at a low volume. Dynamic Speakers Becomes the Standard The first practical moving-coil (dynamic) loudspeakers were made by Peter L. Jensen  and  Edwin Pridham  in 1915 in  Napa, California. Like previous loudspeakers, theirs used horns to amplify the sound produced by a small diaphragm. The problem, however, was that Jensen could not get a patent. So they changed their target market to radios and  public address systems  and named their product  Magnavox. The moving-coil technology commonly used today in speakers was patented in 1924 by  Chester W. Rice  and  Edward W. Kellogg.   In the 1930s, loudspeaker manufacturers were able to boost  frequency response  and  sound pressure  level.  In 1937, the first film industry-standard loudspeaker system was introduced by  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer​. A very large two-way  public address  system was mounted on a tower in Flushing Meadows at the  1939 New York Worlds Fair.   Altec Lansing  introduced the  604  loudspeaker in 1943 and  his  Voice of the Theatre loudspeaker system was sold beginning in 1945. It offered better coherence and clarity at the high output levels necessary for use in movie theaters.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences immediately began testing its sonic characteristics and they made it the  film house  industry standard in 1955. In 1954,  Edgar Villchur  created the  acoustic suspension  principle of loudspeaker design in  Cambridge, Massachusetts. This design delivered  better bass response and was important during the transition to stereo recording and reproduction. He and his partner  Henry Kloss  formed the  Acoustic Research  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹company to manufacture and market speaker systems using this principle.