Public domain ↗
Magnavox Loudspeaker
- Year
- 1915
- Creator
- Peter L. Jensen, Edwin S. Pridham
- Company
- Commercial Wireless and Development Company, later the Magnavox Company
- Location
- 1606 F Street, Napa, California
- Room
- Radio Valley ↗
Description
Peter Jensen and Edwin Pridham made this type of loudspeaker in 1915 in Napa, and they called it Magnavox, Latin for great voice. A coil of wire moves in a magnetic field and moves a diaphragm, and the illustration shows a Magnavox horn from 1922.
Importance
On December 24, 1915, a Magnavox system sent a Christmas Eve program from San Francisco City Hall to a crowd outside. It was one of the first public uses of electrically amplified sound. Later, Charles Herrold of San Jose used a Magnavox horn on a car for his mobile radio sound system.
Interesting fact
In an early test in Napa, the inventors heard a voice from the horn at one mile, and then a crosswind stopped the test.
Sources
- Napa marks the invention of 'The Big Voice' - the loudspeaker ↗Napa Valley Register (Rebecca Yerger) · 2015-05-05
- Inventors of loudspeaker honored in Napa ↗Napa Valley Register (Kerana Todorov) · 2015-05
- History Files: Marking A Significant PA System Milestone From More Than A Century Ago ↗ProSoundWeb (Andy Coules)
- Perham Collection Creator Profile: Charles and Sybil Herrold ↗History San José