Throwback Thursday

Joe Grado hand-built phono cartridges in his BrookIyn home in the early 1950s and founded Grado Labs in 1953 when production exceeded the size of his kitchen table.

The beginnings of CEDIA date back to 1989 when a group of audio/video professionals who called themselves “custom installers” got together to formulate a plan to establish an industry group that would promote the interest of its members and offer professional training as well as a place to exchange ideas and exhibit new products. The Custom Electronic Design and Industry Association was borne out of those early meetings.

It didn’t rise to the level of Kasparov versus Deep Blue, but still, it was another example of man vs. machine. This time it was radio DJ Charlie Bermant playing music from 1967 versus playlists I asked two different smart speakers to generate.

You have to go back 117 years to find the origins of the jukebox. But that early machine (left) is nothing at all like the iconic Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox from 1946 (right) or the ’60’s-era Zodiak (middle).” The primitive contraption wasn’t even called a jukebox…

We call it a phone and carry it with us everywhere we go but let’s be honest we mostly use our smartphones for everything but making a call. This remarkable pocket computer would have been unfathomable to Pacific Bell lineman Ralph Eric Knudsen, who made the final splice of the transcontinental telephone line in Wendover Nevada on the Nevada/Utah border 103 years ago in the early summer of 1914.

This week in 1929, the year inextricably linked to the October stock market crash that plunged the country into the Great Depression, On With the Show opened at New York City’s Winter Garden Theater with sound and color.

Our modern AV world arguably all stems from a single product: the Ampex 200A, the first successful commercial magnetic audiotape recorder, which debuted 70 years ago this month.