A New Era Begins
A sound reproducing device with a mechanically damped diaphragm, characterized in that between the diaphragm and rigid abutments located at a distance of a fraction of a centimeter from it, fine, resilient structures of hard, highly resilient material used in a thickness of dog stems of millimeters are applied in a few, narrowly defined zones.
This was a patent by Dr. Emil Podszus from 1931. It was the fourth in a series of patent applications relating to loudspeakers. He initially tried to compensate for the disadvantages of existing concepts. At the same time, he worked on completely new inventions. As early as 1931, for example, he developed an electrodynamic loudspeaker with several coaxially arranged cone diaphragms of different sizes - still available on the market today as buzzing cones.
One year later, he devoted himself to improving the sound of telephones with loudspeaker systems.
However, the most important concern remained the improvement of the membrane. He used hardened fabrics impregnated with varnish and resin, later different fibers and fillers bound into the varnish and experimented with different membrane thicknesses, until he finally found the solution: a foam solidified on a carrier with bubbles of different sizes - enclosed by walls a few hundredths millimeters thick. By varying the films on the front and back as well as the quantity and type of fillers he was able to further optimize the sound conduction and damping as well as the hardness and rigidity of the membrane. The next step in the right direction was the use of plastic foils for the bead and the centering, the design of which enabled him to significantly improve the impulse behavior.
A further milestone was his “Plurale”: several geometrically correctly arranged loudspeakers of different sizes per stereo channel. As a result, he was able to significantly reduce the stroke of the single chassis and thus the distortion. The icing on the cake was the newly developed tweeter which had a transmission range of up to 16000 Hz - a true sensation.
From the beginning it was his goal to build a loudspeaker for everyone to enjoy high-quality music reproduction. Nevertheless, he and his son Kurt inspired many private and also industrial customers with these exceptional sound converters which were far ahead of their time – such as for example the studio supplier Klein + Hummel. Thus, the era of high-fidelity loudspeakers was initiated - by Zellaton - handmade by Dr. Emil Podszus and son. Manuel Podszus, the grandson, now continues the family tradition – committed to build loudspeakers that are truly ahead of their time.