Sadly the world has lost a GREAT Engineer.
In the 60's and 70's it was said that he made "The Ferrari of loudspeakers".
He made me a pair of his new Servo units a year or so ago, so when they say he was productive his entire life I can attest to that.
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Obituaries
Louis Wilbur Erath
(June 10, 1917 - September 8, 2008)
Abbeville - Funeral Services will be held Thursday September 11th, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. at Abbeville United Methodist Church honoring the life of Louis Wilbur Erath, 91, who died Monday, September 8, 2008 at his home in Abbeville.
Visitation will be held Thursday September 11th at the Church beginning at 1:00 p.m. He will be laid to rest at Graceland Cemetery with Reverend John L. Vining officiating the services.
Louis Wilbur Erath was born June 10, 1917, in Abbeville, the son of Oscar Edmond and Laura Frenzel Erath. He was provided with mechanical toys by his parents and he developed a special interest in anything electrical. When he was ten years old he requested an automobile storage battery for his Christmas present, and that is what he found under the Christmas tree. He used it to learn about elementary electrical circuits. He purchased old battery operated radios from Harry Landry’s Battery Station for one dollar each, and learning from them and using them for parts, he made his own one-tube radio without assistance from anyone when he was eleven years old. His “shack” in the back yard of his home on State Street became a gathering place for neighborhood boys and more than a few people can tell stories about receiving unexpected electrical shocks from mischievous boys.
After graduating from Abbeville High School, Louis entered Louisiana State University with much practical knowledge of electricity. He majored in physics and electrical engineering. His first employment as an electrical engineer was with United Gas Pipe Line Company in Houston, Texas, and there he met and married Clara Ellison.
When World War II began, Louis was called to Washington, D.C. by the Navy. During the war years he worked with the Navy at the Applied Physics Laboratory of John Hopkins University and at Bell Telephone Laboratories. He developed a Magnetometer depth charge firing device for which he received a patent and the Meritorious Civilian Service Award from the Navy.
After the war, he returned to Houston where he was employed for a while by Schlumberger, an international well logging company. He later entered a partnership in Southwestern Industrial Electronics, which eventually merged with Dresser Industries, where he served as Vice-President and Technical Director. After leaving Dresser, he formed Test Equipment Company and developed instruments for NASA. He now holds fifty United States patents. He was an early member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and was made a fellow of the organization for his contributions in Seismic and Geographical Instrumentation and Naval Ordnance.
His hobby was high fidelity reproduction of music, and pursuing this hobby he invented a feed-back loudspeaker that was marketed, making him nationally known as a sound and acoustics expert. After a number of years in the sound business, he returned to Abbeville and lives in the old home in which he was born. Where he conducted a business doing consulting work in acoustics and electronics until his recent illness.
Louis Erath is survived by his wife Clara Erath and three daughters, Louise Erath Hebert of Abbeville, Susan Erath of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Elizabth Anne McKurtis and husband Terry; his grandchildren, Anthony Bordon, Mary Page, Russell Weinburger, Billy Weinburger, and Katie McKurtis.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Oscar Edmond Erath and Laura Frenzel Erath and his sister, Hulda Olga Erath.
In the 60's and 70's it was said that he made "The Ferrari of loudspeakers".
He made me a pair of his new Servo units a year or so ago, so when they say he was productive his entire life I can attest to that.
=============================================
Obituaries
Louis Wilbur Erath
(June 10, 1917 - September 8, 2008)
Abbeville - Funeral Services will be held Thursday September 11th, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. at Abbeville United Methodist Church honoring the life of Louis Wilbur Erath, 91, who died Monday, September 8, 2008 at his home in Abbeville.
Visitation will be held Thursday September 11th at the Church beginning at 1:00 p.m. He will be laid to rest at Graceland Cemetery with Reverend John L. Vining officiating the services.
Louis Wilbur Erath was born June 10, 1917, in Abbeville, the son of Oscar Edmond and Laura Frenzel Erath. He was provided with mechanical toys by his parents and he developed a special interest in anything electrical. When he was ten years old he requested an automobile storage battery for his Christmas present, and that is what he found under the Christmas tree. He used it to learn about elementary electrical circuits. He purchased old battery operated radios from Harry Landry’s Battery Station for one dollar each, and learning from them and using them for parts, he made his own one-tube radio without assistance from anyone when he was eleven years old. His “shack” in the back yard of his home on State Street became a gathering place for neighborhood boys and more than a few people can tell stories about receiving unexpected electrical shocks from mischievous boys.
After graduating from Abbeville High School, Louis entered Louisiana State University with much practical knowledge of electricity. He majored in physics and electrical engineering. His first employment as an electrical engineer was with United Gas Pipe Line Company in Houston, Texas, and there he met and married Clara Ellison.
When World War II began, Louis was called to Washington, D.C. by the Navy. During the war years he worked with the Navy at the Applied Physics Laboratory of John Hopkins University and at Bell Telephone Laboratories. He developed a Magnetometer depth charge firing device for which he received a patent and the Meritorious Civilian Service Award from the Navy.
After the war, he returned to Houston where he was employed for a while by Schlumberger, an international well logging company. He later entered a partnership in Southwestern Industrial Electronics, which eventually merged with Dresser Industries, where he served as Vice-President and Technical Director. After leaving Dresser, he formed Test Equipment Company and developed instruments for NASA. He now holds fifty United States patents. He was an early member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and was made a fellow of the organization for his contributions in Seismic and Geographical Instrumentation and Naval Ordnance.
His hobby was high fidelity reproduction of music, and pursuing this hobby he invented a feed-back loudspeaker that was marketed, making him nationally known as a sound and acoustics expert. After a number of years in the sound business, he returned to Abbeville and lives in the old home in which he was born. Where he conducted a business doing consulting work in acoustics and electronics until his recent illness.
Louis Erath is survived by his wife Clara Erath and three daughters, Louise Erath Hebert of Abbeville, Susan Erath of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Elizabth Anne McKurtis and husband Terry; his grandchildren, Anthony Bordon, Mary Page, Russell Weinburger, Billy Weinburger, and Katie McKurtis.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Oscar Edmond Erath and Laura Frenzel Erath and his sister, Hulda Olga Erath.
I am afraid I do not have web links ( he was OLD school) but I will see if I can dig up the names of the various companies he had.
He did the LWE-1A which is what he became famous for.
There is a forum for his products on Yahoo, but they mostly focus on his older work. The man was making new stuff until the day he died.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/lweusersgroup/
He did the LWE-1A which is what he became famous for.
There is a forum for his products on Yahoo, but they mostly focus on his older work. The man was making new stuff until the day he died.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/lweusersgroup/
Left hand side has "photos".
Such as this... I wish I could pose this cool..
http://tech.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/lweusersgroup/photos/view/3f1e?b=3
Such as this... I wish I could pose this cool..
http://tech.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/lweusersgroup/photos/view/3f1e?b=3
Interesting how some technologies seem to drift in and out of "fashion." I read quite regularly about speaker designs that go back decades and seem to have been quite revolutionary. Seems that if someone came up with a particularly effective speaker design that it would stick and become adopted widely.
So, where does servo fit in to this? Is it really that good (and can it be applied to DIY), or, is it a double-edged sword as so many ideas are, with advantages and pitfalls that must be weighed against eachother and the particular goals of the individual design?
So, where does servo fit in to this? Is it really that good (and can it be applied to DIY), or, is it a double-edged sword as so many ideas are, with advantages and pitfalls that must be weighed against eachother and the particular goals of the individual design?
How his patented servo worked was a closely guarded secret. Now that he has passed on I think there would be less resistance to opening up the circuit for DIYers to build and try.
I have a couple of units that I can photograph and we can see how difficult it is to reverse engineer them.
I loved the Servo units, but I was not keen on his active crossovers before the servo. I would prefer to do my own ( http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74420 ) or use the Belinger (?) dcx2496 in front of it.
I can tell you the systems I heard and personally had and if anyone is interested we can see what we can do.
I have a couple of units that I can photograph and we can see how difficult it is to reverse engineer them.
I loved the Servo units, but I was not keen on his active crossovers before the servo. I would prefer to do my own ( http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74420 ) or use the Belinger (?) dcx2496 in front of it.
I can tell you the systems I heard and personally had and if anyone is interested we can see what we can do.
Today I visited Mr. Gerald (more like went harass him) and among other things we talked about the "stuff" Mr. Erath had in his shop. Apparently Mr. Erath was a hammy and had quite a few things for RF along with a few bits and pieces of the audio stuff.
While I was there I made a donation to the Louis estate and picked up an early prototype tube amplifier he made. This is my first tube piece and I couldn't be happier with it's origins no matter how it sounds, which I have not heard yet (I hope it works).
I will try to post some pictures of it and all of the stuff by him that I have.
I wish I had a fourth the knowledge that man had. I wish I knew as much as he forgot.
While I was there I made a donation to the Louis estate and picked up an early prototype tube amplifier he made. This is my first tube piece and I couldn't be happier with it's origins no matter how it sounds, which I have not heard yet (I hope it works).
I will try to post some pictures of it and all of the stuff by him that I have.
I wish I had a fourth the knowledge that man had. I wish I knew as much as he forgot.
I had a pair of LWE 3 speakers I bought at Home Electronics in Houston about 1971. I liked the sound of them, but my ST70 burned out one of the tweeters about 1975 and I didn't have the nerve to change it out with a generic Quam speaker. There was wasn't a lot of choice in those days for people that "didn't have an open account" with the parts dealer, you either bought what he had laying surplus out in the front of the shop, or didn't buy anything. Stupid questions were not allowed at the parts desk. Or you could go to the dealer, and pay whatever he wanted to charge. I was making $3 an hour in those days. Dad pitched the speakers after I was called back into the Army in 1980.
The LWE 3 had a feedback mechanism that involved led's in the speaker box and mirror tape on the speakers- there was a 6 pin Jones plug installed on the ST70 that fed the feedback back into the feedback loop of the amp. Brilliant idea, I don't know why nobody else ever did this. The most amazing thing was that on Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart's "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" which Atco recorded particularly hot, the woofer would vibrate in and out about 2 cm. Not even my Peavey T-300's do that song quite so impressively. Thanks for the memories, Mr. Erath.
The LWE 3 had a feedback mechanism that involved led's in the speaker box and mirror tape on the speakers- there was a 6 pin Jones plug installed on the ST70 that fed the feedback back into the feedback loop of the amp. Brilliant idea, I don't know why nobody else ever did this. The most amazing thing was that on Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart's "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" which Atco recorded particularly hot, the woofer would vibrate in and out about 2 cm. Not even my Peavey T-300's do that song quite so impressively. Thanks for the memories, Mr. Erath.
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