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Henry Kloss

Henry Kloss
Born February 21, 1929
Altoona, Pennsylvania, United States
Died January 31, 2002(2002-01-31) (aged 72)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Nationality US
Occupation
  • Inventor
  • Audio Engineer
  • Entrepreneur

Henry Kloss (1929, Altoona, Pennsylvania – January 31, 2002, Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a prominent American audio engineer and entrepreneur who helped advance high fidelity loudspeaker and radio receiver technology beginning in the 1950s. Kloss (pronounced with a long o, like "close") was an undergraduate student in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (class of 1953), but never received a degree. He was responsible for a number of innovations, including, in part, the acoustic suspension loudspeaker, and the high fidelity cassette deck. In 2000, Kloss was one of the first inductees into the Consumer Electronics Association's Hall of Fame. He earned an Emmy Award for his development of a projection television system, the Advent VideoBeam 1000.


During the course of his half-century career, Kloss founded or co-founded several significant audio and video equipment manufacturing companies, most of which were located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at least during the period he was directly associated with them.

After entering MIT in 1948, Kloss bought woodworking tools which he used to make enclosures for a speaker designed by an MIT professor and his student. Henry dropped out of MIT, and soon after took a course in high fidelity taught by Edgar Villchur at New York University.

Kloss was an early adopter of new technology, including the transistor, Dolby noise reduction, and chromium dioxide tape.

In the early 1950s, Kloss built (but did not design) the Baruch-Lang speaker in his loft in Cambridge while he was a student at MIT. This corner speaker had four 5" drivers ("and 15 holes"), and sold for $25 (or $30 for the Deluxe Model "with a handsome frame and grill cloth").


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