Bart N. Locanthi
Encyclopedia
White Plains, New York
White Plains is a city and the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...
, 1919 – Glendale, California
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of 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
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
in 1947 with a B.S. degree in physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
.
From 1947–1960, he mostly contributed to analog computer
Analog computer
An analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously-changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved...
s.
In the late 1960s, Bart Locanthi developed the "T-Circuit", an output configuration for solid-state
Solid state (electronics)
Solid-state electronics are those circuits or devices built entirely from solid materials and in which the electrons, or other charge carriers, are confined entirely within the solid material...
power amplifiers that became a standard in the industry. He received three US patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
s for his pioneering work on transistor amplifiers.
Bart Locanthi became the Vice President of Engineering at JBL
JBL
JBL is an American audio electronics company currently owned by Harman International. It was founded in 1946 by James Bullough Lansing. Their primary products are loudspeakers and associated electronics. There are two independent divisions within the company — JBL Consumer and JBL Professional...
in 1960. It was under his tenure that the JBL L-100 Century, the world’s most popular loudspeaker
Loudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
in its day, was manufactured. In 1975, he was named a Vice President of Pioneer
Pioneer Corporation
is a multinational corporation that specializes in digital entertainment products, based in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan. The company was founded in 1938 in Tokyo as a radio and speaker repair shop...
North America Development. While at Pioneer, he and his team of engineers designed the HPM-100
Pioneer HPM-100
The Pioneer HPM-100 is a high fidelity, 4-way, 4-speaker Bass-Reflex loudspeaker system designed by Bart Locanthi and his team of ex-JBL engineers, manufactured in Japan for the Pioneer Electronic Corporation from 1976 to 1979...
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
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
.
He died on January 9, 1994 in Glendale, California
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
after a long bout with pancreatic cancer.
Bart Locanthi was a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America
Acoustical Society of America
The Acoustical Society of America is an international scientific society dedicated to increasing and diffusing the knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications.-History:...
and the Audio Engineering Society
Audio Engineering Society
Established in 1948, the Audio Engineering Society draws its membership from amongst engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or products for audio, and persons working...
(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).