Acoustic Research, Inc. (AR) was founded in 1952 and incorporated on August 10, 1954, by audio pioneer, writer, inventor, researcher and audio-electronics teacher Edgar Villchur and his student, Henry Kloss. AR was established to produce the $185 model AR-1, a loudspeaker design incorporating the acoustic suspension principle based on patent US No. 2,775,309, granted to Edgar Villchur and assigned to Acoustic Research in 1956.
One of his students at NYU, Henry Kloss, listened to Villchur’s explanation of acoustic suspension and agreed that a speaker built on this principle would be a major improvement in hi-fi sound reproduction. Villchur decided that since the established manufacturers were not interested in the invention, the only way to make it available to the public was to go into business producing the new speaker. Kloss had a loft in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he was making loudspeaker cabinets, and the two men became business partners in Acoustic Research, Inc. AR logo(AR) in 1954. The partnership lasted until 1957, when Kloss left to form KLH, manufacturing loudspeakers using Villchur’s acoustic suspension principle, under license from AR.
