Edgar Villchur | Audio pioneer, 94

Edgar Villchur, 94, who went from repairing radios in his New York City shop to inventing groundbreaking audio equipment and hearing aids, died Monday of natural causes at his Woodstock, N.Y., home.

After serving as an Army electronics officer in World War II, he opened a radio repair shop in Greenwich Village, where he built custom home high-fidelity sets. He moved to Woodstock in 1952, and it was while living there and teaching an acoustics class at New York University that he came up with the idea for the acoustic suspension loudspeaker, said his daughter, Miriam Villchur Berg.

The closed-cabinet device was much smaller than the audio equipment of the era, and Mr. Villchur's invention was credited with bringing hi-fi into people's homes. His AR-3 speaker is on display in the Smithsonian Institute.

Mr. Villchur produced the prototype for what became known as the AR speaker. He received a patent for his new loudspeaker in 1952, two years after founding Acoustic Research Inc. with Henry Kloss, one of his NYU students. The company produced the popular line of AR hi-fi loudspeakers, turntables, and other stereo components Mr. Villchur designed.

After selling the company in 1967, he went into hearing-aid research and developed the multichannel compression hearing aid that has become the industry standard.   - AP