Today is the centenary of the loudspeaker

It’s hard to imagine that it’s only 100 years since the loudspeaker was invented.  On April 1st, 1925, Edward Wente, of the Western Electric Company, New York, filed patent no 1,812,389 for a practical moving coil loudspeaker, although the patent only refers to it as an “acoustic device”.  I doubt that he was aware of just how revolutionary that would be.  Within a year, amplifiers with his design of loudspeaker would be on sale, allowing everyone in a room, or even a theatre to hear the same recording, film or radio broadcast.  Up until then, everyone had been forced to huddle around horns to listen to their records or the radio. 

It is fascinating that sound reproduction lagged so far behind video.  Films which we still consider as iconic were already known around the world, from Georges Méliès’ Trip to the Moon in 1902 to the original Nosferatu.  Eisenstein’s ground-breaking Battleship Potemkin, acclaimed as one of the greatest films ever made, started shooting the day before Wente filed his patent.  On a lighter note, millions knew the antics of Gertie the Dinosaur, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and the amazing imagery of Harold Lloyd hanging off a clock.  But all of these were silent.

Although cinema was well developed, and commercial radio stations had been broadcasting around the world from 1920, sound was still remarkably primitive.  If you wanted to listen to a record or the radio, you still needed to huddle around a listening horn.  This was the consumer audio experience in April 1925.

Nineteen days after Edward Wente filed his patent, Chester Rice, of the competing General Electric Company filed a very similar one.  His would be granted first, keeping their company lawyers busy for many years afterwards.  The drawings in Rice’s patent would look familiar to anyone who’s opened up a speaker cabinet:

Although Rice used the name “Loud Speaker” (with a space), the patent acknowledges that the name was already well known.  Loudspeakers were already a popular topic of conversation in consumer magazines. The April 1925 issue of Popular Science Monthly contains an article on “How to Select Your Loudspeaker”, with the following example of a homemade device:

The years before these two patents were filed were filled with personal innovation. If you were lucky enough to live in the “idyllic” community of Waterford, Va, you had an alternative way of listening to music.  In 1923, local inventor and patent attorney M.C. Hopkins designed and installed a cement horn that let local residents hear radio melodies “up to three miles away”.  Popular Science Monthly thought it offered “better days ahead” for loudspeakers, obviously dreaming about future Glastonbury and Woodstock concerts.  But in 1923, the concept didn’t catch on.

Wente and Rice’s patent applications were the result of assiduous research and experimentation from two of America’s leading technology companies.  They laid down the concept of a stiff diaphragm  along with a moving coil and magnet, attached in a way that would allow high volume production of loudspeakers with reliable performance and good frequency range.  The principles they described have become the basis of mass market loudspeakers ever since.

The effect that loudspeakers have had on people’s lives has been incredible.  These patents led to a century of innovation and ever evolving audio experiences, bringing us to where we are today, where it’s possible to listen to almost anything we want, whenever we want.

If you’re interested in hearing more about the strange history of audio reproduction, I’m giving a lecture on it in central London at the IET’s headquarters at 14.00 on 25th April, which is free to attend.  You can register at https://events.theiet.org/events/from-horns-to-hearables/, or scan the QR code below.