Author Topic: RIP Sidney Harman, Newsweek owner and founder of Harmon/Kardon, 92  (Read 1496 times)

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Sidney Harman, Newsweek owner and high-fidelity sound pioneer (Harman/Kardon) was 92.  Harman's name is familiar to nearly anyone who grew up in a home with a high-fidelity stereo sound system. In 1953, he founded Harman/Kardon Inc. with Bernard Kardon, a fellow engineer with whom he worked at a New York electronics firm that specialized in public address systems. They tried to persuade their boss that the new field of high-fidelity sound was a promising business opportunity. He passed. Harman and Kardon soon developed an aesthetically pleasing home stereo system with cutting-edge sound. They became the first manufacturers to put an amplifier, preamp and radio tuner into a single unit that looked like a piece of furniture.
At their early trade shows, they set up a hotel room to look like a private living room, then played Frank Sinatra records on their hi-fi. "Where is he?" confused customers would ask, a story Harman recounted in his 2003 memoir, "Mind Your Own Business."
"I have vivid memories of our living room being covered with these ugly speakers that my mother of course hated — PA system speakers and wiring," said Barbara Harman, whose mother was Harman's first wife, Sylvia. Her father would play test records — "a train going from one end of the track to another, or you'd hear a drop of water hitting something and splashing. All the kids in the neighborhood would come in and everybody would sit around and go, 'Wow.' "
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-sidney-harman-20110414,0,771603.story