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Arthur A. Janszen's Autobigraphical Sketch May 1962 Audio Magazine 15th Anniversary Edition I was born in corn and cotton country in Texas, on a rolling prairie near Yoakum, nearly fifty-five years ago. In 1912 I decided to leave home for good and make my own way, but I changed my mind about a mile down the road. When my parents picked me up, hot, tired, and hungry, I thought it might be a good idea to wait until I was at least six. Actually, I didn't leave again for fifteen years. In that time we moved from a relatively gentle community into a frontier area near the King Ranch's feudal domain, a hundred miles from the Mexico border. My post-high school education began when I enlisted in the U. S. Navy for four years, "to see the world." My travel expectations, seemingly justified by the recruitment poster of that time, were thwarted by President Hoover, who apparently thought it more important to save oil than to send our fighting ships around the world for the purpose of subjecting foreign coastal populations to the amenities of our ships' men. Since it was clear that the battleship I was on, the U. S. S. Wyoming, wasn't going to travel, I transferred after a year to the Balboa, Panama Canal Zone radio station. After Balboa, I spent an enchanting year on a three-man radio station in the rain forest on the southern shore of the Isthmus of Panama, near the Colombia border, at a village named La Palma. The following year was spent in the utility (euphemism for entertainment) squadron at the Naval Air Station, Coco Solo, Canal Zone. Our function of supplying transportation for visiting important persons to and from points of non-military interest around the Canal Zone triggered a development program that gave birth to a "first" in aircraft communication. One of the points of interest, a mountain vacation retreat, was too distant for two-way radio communication between Zone stations and planes equipped with standard equipment. I helped my friend, Chief Radioman Harvey J. Woods, build and flight test the first short-wave aircraft transmitter and receiver for the Navy. While still at home, I had built and sold a number of battery-operated radio receivers prior to 1926. Some were pretty good. With a good antenna, I was able to listen over a loudspeaker to the 500 watt station of KDKA in Pittsburgh at five o'clock in the afternoon during the winter time, using a set with four UV-199 tubes. Although I flunked the Navy examination for entrance to their radio school, which was an inevitable result of my walking out of the test session, my transfer to the radio division aboard the Wyoming was executed without difficulty with the aid of Chief Radioman Larry Stansell, of Galveston, Texas, who invited me to bring my horse. My first exposure to what might be called high fidelity came about when the captain decided that the crew of the Wyoming needed some music. Since the top deck was the only place in which the crew could congregate in reasonable numbers, the music had to be loud. Therefore, if one uses one of the criteria that is too often still used in evaluating high fidelity equipment, this playback system must have been at least partially high in fidelity. From 1943 to 1945, I worked at the Harvard Underwater Sound Laboratory as a Special Research Associate, on the development and field testing of underwater ordinance. During this time I was elected to membership in Sigma Xi. In 1945, the ordnance section of the Underwater Sound Laboratory was transferred to Pennsylvania State College. It functioned in its new location as the Ordnance Research Laboratory, and was populated largely by ex-Underwater Sound personnel, including me. I remained as Associate Professor of Engineering Research in charge of the laboratory's field test station in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, until I returned to Harvard in 1946 as a Senior Research Assistant in the Acoustics Research Laboratory. At the Acoustics Research Laboratory, in connection with the projected measurement of the transient response of a microphone array, the investigation of the transient response of loudspeakers as sound sources was undertaken. The results of a series of tests indicated that meaningful data on the transient response of a receiving array could not be obtained without a prior development of a suitable sound source. Electrostatic transduction was chosen for the source. New materials had become available since electrostatic loudspeakers dropped out of sight in about 1932. By 1951, the first push-pull, full-range electrostatic loudspeaker capable of producing high acoustic pressure levels had been developed, and an experimental model was shown during a meeting of the American Physical Society in Cambridge, Mass., in January of that year. In 1954, the Magnetic Amplifier Corp., of Waltham, Mass. became Janszen Laboratory, Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., with me as president and general manager. With the indispensable aid of my wife, the development of the first commercially-practical electrostatic loudspeaker (mid and high frequencies) was completed, and production began in April, I955 under the name JansZen Model 130. This loudspeaker is now made by the Neshaminy Electronic Corporation. In early 1959, the first production models of the full-range electrostatic loudspeaker, now being manufactured and sold by the KLH Research and Development Corporation, as its Model Nine, were delivered. Prototypes had been placed in the field during 1957 and 1958. During 1959, the assets of Janszen Laboratory were transferred to the KLH Research and Development Corporation, of Cambridge, Mass., and I became a stockholder and a vice presidentof KLH. My activities include the development of new industrial and home-entertainment products, production engineeing, and general administration. My family and I live in Belmont, Mass., just beyond the Cambridge boundary. My wife. Pearl, and I have three lovely children named David, Karen, and Eric, whose ages are 6, 5,and 4 years respectively. I am a member of the Acoustical Society of America and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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