Binaural Sound: The Advancement of Music Technologies

Alan Dower Blumlein was born on June 29, 1903 in Hampstead, England. He received his degrees from Highgate School, and from City and Guilds College. Around 1924, he took a job at International Western Electric Corp and at Standard Telephones and Cables. He spent most of his time on a project involving long distance telephone communication in Britian. The chiefs of the project felt his contributions were worthy of recognition and gave him an award when he had finished his time with the companies.

With a mission accomplished in the telephone industry, Blumlein moved on to a company called Columbia Gramophone Company. He eventually patented a new system for cutting wax gramophone cylinders. This patent utilized moving coils to engrave the ridges. He also developed a new form of microphone using the same moving coil concept. This truly peaked his interest in stereophonic recording and reproduction.

Unfortunately, his attention was frequently diverted from sound research to the more popular and lucrative television industry. When he entered the business of television, signals were received and processed by large and redundant machinery. With the assistance of several other brilliant minds, the first vacuum cathode ray tube was developed for the television. This technology helped to direct electrons and ions through the tube and onto the screen. This helped to develop a clearer picture and easily lended itself to the development of the color television screen (Clayden).

Blumlein worked to develop a newer, more efficient circuit for computers. Before, they used very large valves to control the flow of electricity. These were very large and inefficient. Given his recent discovery of the Cathode Ray Tube, he could put in limiting systems to control the flow of Electrons. With this, he replaced the valves, and the mechanisms used to raise and lower them.

Eventually, Blumlein was able to make a patent for what he called Binaural Sound. This refers to sound coming from more than one place. He was at a movie theater with his wife when he wished that the sound could more accurately reflect the distance and location of the actor. At this time, all sound came from one speaker. Blumlein devised a way to get several microphones to process their signal separately from the other microphones. This put a heavy emphasis on Binaural Sound, which was later renamed Stereo. To ensure his work was worthwhile and marketable, he patented a way to cut more than one groove into a wax cylinder, so that it could record in his newly discovered system of Binaural Sound.

Blumlein did several tests of Abbey Road Studios and they kept the recordings and made them available to help chronicle the development of the sound production that people enjoy today. These are all available at the Abbey Road Website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7538101.stm .

Blumlein's engineering brilliance was being discovered by several groups. The military moved to contract him to work on several highly secretive works (Clayden). He improved several things such as the placement of remotely fired guns, as well as advancement of Radar. He was trying to make it easier for bombers to find their targets. However, his work was cut short due to his untimely death. He was in an airplane crash that was never explained.

In his lifetime, he developed somewhere around 128 patents (Newton). Most people try to give all of his significance to the sheer number of patents he made. I disagree with this. I think that his legacy is more important than just that of an overactive engineer. Some try to discredit his work by saying that all he did was make improvements to pre-existing items. I do not believe that this is an important factor. The critics are not about making drastic improvements to the technologies we have today.

His advancements on circuits helped to speed technology to the small, relatively inexpensive pieces of equipment we can find today. We do not see servers and mainframes that take up entire city block basements. Instead we have highly portable laptops that are not only easily transported, but they are extremely effective. His small victory in limiting the size of the circuit greatly influenced his predecessors to develop the processors and chips that we have today.

The Binaural Sound development that Blumlein did has completely revolutionized the direction that sound reproduction has gone through. Because of his first small steps towards two separate sound signals, we have technologies today such as surround sound. If he had never developed the thought to separate the signals, we would still be on a mono-speaker system. The reality of the television, movie theater, and computer sound output would never have been this accurate. Headphones would also be drastically different. Also, we would never be able to change the filter between highs and lows. Bass and Treble features are very common on most audio output equipment. Had he not allowed his mind to wander in the theater, we would never be able to adjust the sound we would like to hear just by turning a knob or more accurately, configuring a playback device. He brought an entirely new life to several pieces of motorized cardboard.

His developments in Radar are less celebrated, due to their aggressive nature. However, they have led to great developments in the defensive capabilities of Radar as well as all of the advancements employed for destruction.

We can only imagine what Blumlein could have done for advanced society if he had not met a very unfortunate death. There was a great loss on that day, June 7, 1942.

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"Blumlein Pair Stereo Miking." EQ Magazine - For audio and home recording studio equipment and software. 23 Mar. 2009 .

"News Story - Alan Blumlein - the man who invented stereo - Abbey Road Studios." Abbey Road Studios - Abbey Road Studios. 23 Mar. 2009 ."Untitled Document." Dora Media Productions. 23 Mar. 2009 .