Dr. Floyd Toole: An Oral History 1 - Two Ears and a Brain | Transistors | Rules and Data

This week, host Jorden Guth is joined by the loudspeaker legend himself, Dr. Floyd Toole, whose research at Canada’s National Research Council (NRC), followed by his tenure at Harman International, resulted in arguably more improvements to the fidelity of audio we hear at home than anything attributable to any one person. In this first of our two-part discussion, Dr. Toole discusses his path from university to the NRC and right up to the onset of the Athena project, where we’ll pick up in the second part.

Sources:

“Canada’s NRC: A Forthcoming Look at Its Role in the Advancement of Canadian Loudspeaker Design” by Doug Schneider: https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/opinion/1849-canadas-nrc-a-forthcoming-look-at-its-role-in-the-advancement-of-canadian-loudspeaker-design

“The Loudspeaker Class of ’74: A Canadian Reunion” by Doug Schneider: https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/opinion/1866-the-loudspeaker-class-of-74-a-canadian-reunion

“Floyd Toole, NRC, SoundStage!—Filming of Our Upcoming Documentary” by the soundstagenetwork on YouTube: https://youtu.be/k8ykCTEOhZI?si=BfcmIAWg1s6BKyQm

Chapters:
00:00:00 Announcement
00:00:28 Introductions
00:04:39 The dawning of the age of the transistor
00:11:05 Two ears and a brain
00:21:28 A fateful interview
00:27:58 Music break: "Turkish March” by T. Bless & the Professionals
00:29:24 Friday afternoon experiments
00:33:54 The differences between musicians and audiophiles
00:38:54 An industry operating without rules
00:49:45 What can we learn from a set of data?
00:54:01 “When I Get Home” by Brian Claxton