Paul Wilbur Klipsch

Infobox_Person
name = Paul Wilbur Klipsch
residence = Hope, Arkansas
Houston, Texas
Tocopilla, Chile
El Paso, Texas
Elkhart, Indiana
other_names = PWK


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birth_date = March 9, 1904
birth_place = Elkhart, Indiana
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death_date = death date|2002|5|5
death_place = Hope, Arkansas
death_cause =
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occupation = Engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, Lt. Colonel, geophysicist, pilot
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employer = Klipsch Audio Technologies
Klipsch & Associates
General Electric
US Army
height =
weight = and early speaker systems, Klipsch used scientific principles to develop a corner horn speaker that sounded more lifelike than its predecessors.

The Klipschorn®, which today is still manufactured and sold worldwide, proved that it was possible to reproduce the sound of a live orchestra inside a home. The resulting acoustics career of Klipsch spanned from 1946, when he founded one of the first U.S. loudspeaker companies, to 2000 when the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society published one of his papers. He died on May 5, 2002 at the age of 98.

Fred Klipsch, current Klipsch owner and chairman and cousin to founder Paul Wilbur Klipsch, said, “Paul was a verifiable genius who could have chosen any number of vocations, but the world sounds a lot better because he chose audio. He was a great man who always tried to do the right thing in the right way.” [http://www.klipsch.com/news-center/founder-biography/default.aspx Paul W. Klipsch Biography] ]

Honors

In 1978, Paul W. Klipsch was awarded the Audio Engineering Society's second highest honor, the Silver Medal, for his contributions to speaker design and distortion measurement. Klipsch was inducted into the Audio Hall of Fame in 1984. In 1997, he was inducted into the Engineering and Science Hall of Fame. In 2004, at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), he was inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame. [ [http://www.ce.org/Events/Awards/357.asp CE Hall of Fame. Inductees.] ]

Klipsch received a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from New Mexico State University in 1926, a Masters of Science in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1934, and a Doctor of Laws from New Mexico State University (NMSU) in 1981. The NMSU engineering department was renamed the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1995, in honor of Paul W. Klipsch.

Education and Career

Klipsch's interest in engineering was influenced by his father, an instructor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind. Although he was only 12 when his father passed on, Klipsch's interest in science and engineering endured. He built his first speaker using a mailing tube and a pair of earphones at the age of 15, which was a year before the first public radio broadcast.

After graduating from El Paso High School, he enrolled at NMSU where he played cornet in the university band and was an award-winning member of the school rifle team. He credits his four years as a member of the Aggie Band for developing his love and knowledge of music and musical instruments.

Following graduation from NMSU, Klipsch went to work for General Electric designing radios that were then sold to RCA. In 1928, he responded to a notice on the GE bulletin board. This resulted in a new job maintaining electric locomotives in Chile for three years before entering graduate school at Stanford. After receiving his Masters Degree, Klipsch worked as a geophysicist for a Texas oil company. He later served in the U.S. Army during World War II, earning the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

It was during his service at the Southwest Proving Grounds located in Hope, Arkansas that Klipsch refined his corner horn speaker design. Visitors to his officer's quarters were amazed by the lifelike reproduction and encouraged Klipsch to start his own manufacturing business. He received a patent on his loudspeaker design in 1945, registered the name Klipsch & Associates in 1946, and began making each loudspeaker with his own two hands until he hired his first employee in 1948.

During a 1999-videotaped interview, Klipsch claimed that he did not, in fact, name the Klipschorn himself. He said that he made a sales call to a man in New York City during the first years of operating Klipsch & Associates and, surprisingly, the business prospect already knew about the revolutionary new loudspeaker. "We've heard all about your corner horn," the man said. "We call it the Klipschorn."

Eccentricities

The eccentric touch and no-compromise spirit of Paul W. Klipsch has indeed become part of the consumer electronics industry, the practice of engineering, and acoustic research itself. For example, Klipsch related that when he was developing a smaller speaker for use between two Klipschorns, an acquaintance declared that he couldn't possibly introduce it to the public because it was in direct violation of Klipsch's own corner horn principles, and amounted to acoustic heresy. "The hell I can't," Klipsch said. "And that's exactly what I'm going to call it!"

A year later the Klipsch Heresy loudspeaker was introduced and it became a bestseller in the church sound reinforcement market.

While the official company motto is “The Ultimate Sound Experience,” the unofficial one is “Bullshit.” Klipsch started using the slogan after reading a competitor’s loudspeaker ad that made claims of supposed “breakthroughs.” After that, he wore a yellow [http://www.klipsch.com/products/details/bs-lapel-button.aspx "Bullshit" button] behind his lapel and showed it to anyone he felt was making an outlandish claim.

Many of the outrageous, but absolutely true stories of the eccentricities of Paul W. Klipsch were captured by author Jim Shahin in a 1989 interview for American Way Magazine, who told of his taking notes during sermons so as to better take issue with exasperated ministers after the service. Parishioners even remember his walking over pews to get out of church. He also retells of an audio retailer’s recollection of Klipsch drilling a hole through the top of his Mercedes to install a gauge of some kind.

Legacy

In addition to the Klipschorn and Heresy, the Klipsch Rebel, Shorthorn, Cornwall, La Scala, and Belle Klipsch are among the most well known loudspeakers developed by Paul W. Klipsch. Many of these models, which are regarded as some of the worlds finest, are still manufactured and sold around the world today.

The Klipschorn is the only speaker in the world that has been in continuous production, relatively unchanged, for over 60 years.

Patents

* Stock-and-barrel assembly for firearms. US patent 2205982. Klipsch, P.W., 6/25/1940. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2205982.html freepatentsonline.com #2205982] ]
* Wave synthesizing network. US patent 2230803. Klipsch, P.W., 2/4/1941. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2230803.html freepatentsonline.com #2230803] ]
* Electrical prospecting with alternating current. US patent 2231013. Klipsch, P.W., 2/11/1941. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2231013.html freepatentsonline.com #2231013] ]
* Recording seismic waves. US patent 2232612. Klipsch, P.W., 2/18/1941. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2232612.html freepatentsonline.com #2232612] ]
* Seismic prospecting. US patent 2232613. Klipsch, P.W., 2/18/1941. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2232613.html freepatentsonline.com #2232613] ]
* Equalizer. US patent 2238023. Klipsch, P.W., 4/8/1941. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2238023.html freepatentsonline.com #2238023] ]
* Electrical prospecting. US patent 2243428. Klipsch, P.W., 4/27/1941. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2243428.html freepatentsonline.com #2243428] ]
* Mixing circuit for electrical prospecting. US patent 2251549. Klipsch, P.W., 8/5/1941. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2251549.html freepatentsonline.com #2251549] ]
* Method of electrical prospecting. US patent 2293024. Klipsch, P.W., 8/11/1942. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2293024.html freepatentsonline.com #2293024] ]
* Firearm vibration control. US patent 2302699. Klipsch, P.W., 11/14/1942. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2302699.html freepatentsonline.com #2302699] ]
* Horn for loud-speaker. US patent 2310243. Klipsch, P.W., 2/9/1943. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2310243.html freepatentsonline.com #2310243] ]
* Loudspeaker. US patent 2373692. Klipsch, P.W., 4/17/1945. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2373692.html freepatentsonline.com #2373692] ]
* Rotating band tester. US patent 2450003. Klipsch, P.W., 9/28/1948. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2450003.html freepatentsonline.com #2450003] ]
* Loud-speaker horn. US patent 2537141. Klipsch, P.W., 1/9/1951. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2537141.html freepatentsonline.com #2537141] ]
* Crossover filter network. US patent 2612558. Klipsch, P.W., 9/30/1952. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2612558.html freepatentsonline.com #2612558] ]
* Logarithmic converter circuit. US patent 3330966. Klipsch, P.W., 7/11/1967. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3330966.html freepatentsonline.com #3330966] ]
* Small dimension low frequency folded exponential horn loudspeaker with unitary sound path and loudspeaker system including same. US patent 4138594. Klipsch, P.W., 2/6/1979. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4138594.html freepatentsonline.com #4138594] ]
* Low frequency folded exponential horn loudspeaker apparatus with bifurcated sound path. US patent 4210223. Gillum, G. C./ Klipsch, P.W., 4/8/1941. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4210223.html freepatentsonline.com #4210223] ]
* Crossover network for optimizing efficiency and improving response of loudspeaker system. US patent 4237340. Klipsch, P.W., 12/2/1980. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4237340.html freepatentsonline.com #4237340] ]
* Anechoic chamber arrangement. US patent 4387786. Klipsch, P.W/Hunter, J. R., 6/14/1983. [ [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4387786.html freepatentsonline.com #4387786] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.klipsch.com Official Klipsch Audio Technologies website]
* [http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/afternoon_klipsch.pdf 1980 Interview transcript] of Klipsch by Audio Engineering Society, retrieved August 8, 2008
*US patent|2310243 "Horn for Loudspeaker", filed February 1940, issued February 1943