Bart N. Locanthi
Bartholomew Nicholas Locanthi II (White Plains, New York, 1919 – Glendale, California, January 9, 1994) was an audio engineer and leading expert in the US pro-audio industry in the 1970s and 1980s.
Bart Locanthi graduated from California Institute of Technology in 1947 with a B.S. degree in physics.
From 1947–1960, he mostly contributed to analog computers.[1][2]
Locanthi became the Vice President of Engineering at JBL in 1960.
In the late 1960s, he developed the "T circuit", an output configuration for solid-state power amplifiers that became a standard in the industry.[3][4] He received three US patents for his pioneering work on transistor amplifiers.[5][6][7]
It was under his tenure that the JBL L-100 Century, the world’s most popular loudspeaker in its day, was manufactured.[8] In 1975, he was named a Vice President of Pioneer North America Development. While at Pioneer, he and his team of engineers designed the HPM-100 loudspeaker as an "improved" JBL L-100 Century. It was also at Pioneer that he was deeply involved in digital development during the early years of the compact disc.[9]
He died on January 9, 1994 in Glendale, California after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Bart Locanthi was a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and the Audio Engineering Society (AES); he was awarded posthumously the AES Gold Medal in 1996. Locanthi was active in many AES affairs, he served as papers chairman for conventions, member of the Board of Governors, and served as president (1986–1987).
References
- ^ Howell N. Tyson Jr., "Caltech's Role in NASTRAN"
- ^ Analog Simulation: Solution of Field Problems
- ^ Cordell, Bob (2010). Designing Audio Power Amplifiers. McGraw Hill. pp. 185–191. ISBN 9780071640251.
- ^ Technical Details of T-circuit by Bart Locanthi.
- ^ U.S. patent 3,428,908 Transistor Amplifier, 1966.
- ^ U.S. patent 3,102,984 Transistor Amplifier, 1960.
- ^ U.S. patent 2,948,841 Transistor Power Supply, 1958.
- ^ http://www.vintage-speaker-review.com/2012/02/jbl-l-100.html
- ^ [1]
Further reading
- John Eargle (March 1994). "In memoriam: Bart Locanthi 1919–1994" (PDF). Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. 42 (3): 208–209.