Origins
Origin Cerwin-Vega dates back to 1954, when a young aerospace engineer named Gene Czerwinski started a speaker company. Czerwinski is driven by his love of music and his desire to recreate a living musical experience. The company quickly branched out into custom high-performance systems that promised the target audience of audio enthusiasts the next best thing to actually being at a concert thanks to Czerwinski’s focus on high-efficiency drivers. The company became known for its large, 4-way speaker system with 18-inch woofers. According to the Cerwin-Vega website, this system, called the Vega 500, can produce 130dB at 30 Hz – an incredible achievement at the time. 1957 Cerwin-Vega introduced the world’s first solid-state amplifier, with a circuit influenced by 10,000 watt sonar amplifiers Czerwinski had designed for Bendix Corp.
Growth in the 1960s
The stature of the Cerwin-Vega brand in the audio industry continued to grow as the years developed. The company was founded for the popular music explosion of the 1960s, where rock-n-roll took center stage and dominated the charts. Studio musicians that Lee Sklar and Carol Kaye began using custom made Cerwin-Vega woofers, musicians touring with the Rolling Stones bought musical instrument monitors also made by Czerwinski’s company. Around the same time, Cerwin-Vega began offering speakers and system design to many major manufacturers of musical instrument amplifiers, including Fender and Vox, according to the company’s website. Cerwin-Vega also designed and produced sound amplification systems for recording studios and concerts. Cerwin-Vega credits included an outdoor sound system for Disneyworld’s Epcot Center, a playback system for A & 0026 M Records, a cinema system for LucasFilms, and a sound amplification system for the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
Shaking Things Up
Cerwin-Vega made a definite impression on popular culture with the introduction of ‘Sensurround’, a dramatic new innovation in film sound that made its debut with the 1974 film ‘Earthquake.’ The concept used giant subwoofer cabins to produce low frequencies that literally ‘shook’ the cinema – or at least the fans’ seats – during the earthquake scenes. Cerwin-Vega not only received credit for ushering in an era when special effects would play an increasingly important role in the film experience, but was also honored with an Oscar for special technical achievement.
Further advances in audio
Cerwin-Vega continued to improve and refine its core business of creating home and professional audio equipment. In the 1970s, several original speaker designs were introduced, including the Stroker, a dual-spindle woofer currently used in the company’s mobile audio products. Cerwin-Vega also developed a bass boost principle, called Thermo-Damp Suspension, by filling its speaker cabinet. Cerwin-Vega became the first audio company to produce its own digital recordings to test the speaker designs.
Cervin-Vega Today h2> Cerwin-Vega’s attention during the 1980s and 1990s reached the growing popularity of home cinema systems – an outgrowth of the home cinema era, which began in 1978 – as well as the mobile audio market. The popularity of all these new product lines led the company to expand its production facility and broaden its distribution to the point where its products are now available in more than 40 countries. Cerwin-Vega is also heavily involved in the research and development of new products and concepts, with its efforts now focused on areas such as air pollution, multi-tone speakers and drive technology. For more than 50 years, Cerwin-Vega has been an American audio icon, known worldwide for its advanced high-performance speakers renowned for low-distortion, high-efficiency audiophiles and enhanced bass response.
Source:danspela.com