Invention Acclaim: Harman International

Post date: Aug 23, 2010 3:17:39 PM

Harman Technolgocial Superiority

Harman currently lists amongst their automotive "Technolgocial Superiority"(Feb/2011)[1] five loudspeaker innovations. I am co-inventor on two of them. Hey, that's a really high ratio considering the dozens & dozens of Harman engineering staff that haven't contributed to that list !!)

Just a little ego boost & acknowledgement that 41/2 years after leaving, they are still promoting the technologies I helped invent. Anyway, I take pride in the continued success of the developments I contributed to and indeed led while with the Harman Automotive division (I left in Sept./06).

EDPL:

The "EDPL" (electro-dynamic planar loudspeaker) and Alumaprene polymer cone. I led the team that industrialized the EDPL from a license of the "neo-planar" technology originally devloped by audio industry veterans David Graebener & Jim Croft and owned by American Technology Corp. I led the evaluation & licensing of this device & even coined the phrase "EDPL". One of the coolest attributes of the EDPL is the "acoustic lens" co-invented with D.B. (Don) Keele & John Steere. The lens is a powerful directivity control modyfier, though I'm not sure who at Harman that fully gets it is working on it, or how they can take it to the next level (not that they're asking). Most people in the biz know Don as a legend, and before John Steere joined Harman he was one of the quiet heros at Electro-voice.

Alumaprene®[2]:

Alumaprene® is a pretty cool material where cone stiffness can be modified by changing the material mix without changing dimensional attributes or mass (much). The name came from a miscommunicated phone call when an colleague misheard me speaking of the Dr. Lou Mango (he invented the material blend) along with polypropylene & aluminium (-sp. my colleague is British). But acutally the name stems more from scientific principals than from poor intelligibility on a phone line.

I was priviledged to work with a great team at Harman and my contributions are a result of their collaboration. You can see more on my Bio page.

[1] http://www.harman.com/automotive/en-us/products-innovations/audio_systems/Pages/default.aspx (still posted as of 25/Feb/11)

[2] The "®" was placed next to Alumaprene® in the Harman press releases and suggests that it now a registered trademark. The US patent (7,945,069) issued 17/May/11