ALMA International

THE DRIVER AWARDS
Beryllium • Titanium • Gold

The Board of Directors were pleased to bestow five Driver Awards to deserving recipients at the recent 2012 Member "Driver Award" Banquet at The Riviera Hotel, Friday, January 13, 2012.  Sixty-eight attendees delighted in "celebrating the best and brightest".  The Driver Awards are given in recognition of accomplishments, improvements and contributions that have “driven” the industry or ALMA, the association.

The Beryllium Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes significant and sustained contributions to the loudspeaker industry over the lifetime of a career.  This year two were awarded, one to Edgar Vilchur posthumously.  Mead Killion eulogized his long-time friend saying the following:  "I met Edgar Villchur in 1968 at an Audio Engineering Society meeting in New York City, in front of the Bruel & Kjaer booth looking at test equipment.  We somehow struck up a conversation about the proper way to measure the real ear response of earphones, and each of us quickly concluded that the other was an idiot.   We finally realized that wasn’t quite true, and he decided that it would be a kindness to show this young kid from Battle Creek, Michigan some of the big city.  He asked if I had ever been to a NY Jewish delicatessen, which I hadn’t.  As we were walking toward the Carnegie Deli, he said “I should tell you about Jewish waiters.  Their job is to be as rude as possible to the customer, and the customer’s job is not to back down.”  When we were seated, the dialog started:  “What’ll it be, gentlemen?”  Eddie said “I’ll have plain cheesecake.”  To Eddie’s delight, the waiter, visibly insulted, said “So what’s wrong with the cherry cheese?”  Eddie played his role and said, “Probably nothing, but I’m a very difficult customer.” To which the waiter said “I vuldn’t ahgue!”

Villchur made his living as a writer before he and Henry Kloss founded AR.  Go here for more.

In 2011 the Beryllium Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Ed Dell, Publisher of Voice Coil Magazine; Don Keele of DBK Associates, DBK Labs; Andy Kotsatos, retired co-founder of Boston Acoustics; Floyd Toole, retired Corporate VP of Acoustical Engineering at Harman International; and Laurie Fincham, Senior Vice President of R&D at THX Ltd.

Update still in progress: 
2012 program will be posted soon.

The Titanium Driver Award recognizes specific contribution, accomplishment and expertise in the loudspeaker industry and was awarded to Dr., Prof. Wolfgang Klippel, Director of Klippel, GmbH.  The Gold Driver Award recognizes contributions to ALMA, The International Loudspeaker Association and was awarded to Cliff Digre, founding-50-year member of ALMA; Laurie Crook, newly retired from Stillwater Designs who served on the ALMA Board of Directors for the last 11 years, most recently as the treasurer; and Zarina Bhimani, the ALMA Executive Director for the last four years. Michael Oslac, ALMA Board Emeritus, gives Cliff Digre "Gold" Driver Award. Cliff is a 50-year-founding member of ALMA!

Cliff Digre, MISCO Co., receives a Gold Award at the WS 2011 presented by Michael Oslac.  Cliff was one of the founder's of ALMA, 50 years ago!
 

 


A 2012 Winter Symposium report will be posted later this week, please stop by again!

Invited Papers can be found under the "Library" tab on the menu above.

   

ALMA is the only international trade association dedicated to improving the design and manufacture of loudspeakers. The ALMA Winter Symposium is where the loudspeaker industry meets to improve their skills and to network.