Mark Engebretsen, Don Keele and John Eargle will receive a Scientific/Technical Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, honoring their development of cinema loudspeaker systems using constant-directivity horns and vented-box, low-frequency enclosures.
Eargle, in addition to being the Grammy-winning chief recording engineer for Delos International, is an author of standard textbooks on audio, a consultant to Harman International and a past president of the Audio Engineering Society.
Keele, who now works at Harman Becker automotive systems, is an engineer who designed the first constant-directivity horns for Electro-Voice and the bi-radial horns for JBL. He later succeeded Dick Heyser as loudspeaker reviewer for Audio Magazine.
Engebretsen now works for JBL Professional and has designed professional loudspeaker systems for a number of American and Japanese companies.
In other Academy Award-winner news, Tomlinson Holman of THM Corporation will be awarded an Academy Award for the research and systems integration resulting in the improvement of motion picture loudspeaker systems. For over 20 years, Holman has been involved in the research and integration of the constant-directivity, direct-radiator bass type of cinema loudspeaker systems. He is the technical architect of Skywalker Ranch and invented the THX businesses, which were named after him. Twice governor of Audio Engineer Society, Holman holds six audio and video patents, lectures worldwide and teaches sound at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television in L.A.
