Velodyne Subs Are Resurrected
After the apparent demise of Velodyne in November of this year there was considerable dismay at the loss of this highly respected and cutting edge sub company that had been designing and manufacturing world class subs for several decades. I still use their excellent SMS-1 subwoofer parametric EQ system to equalize my four subs.
However, all is not lost as after a year of negotiations with David Hall, the current owner of Velodyne Acoustics, the company was purchased on November 22nd 2019 by Audio Reference, a German based high end audiophile company. Audio Reference have been re-selling Velodyne subs for two decades and who are now providing a one-time trade in policy for Velodyne subs up to 31st December 2019.
Here is the press announcement from Mansour Mamaghani, the owner of Audio Reference:
“Audio Reference have been distributing Velodyne in Germany for more than 20 years and have unrivalled experience with the brand. The purchase extends to all stock, spares, patents, designs and tooling for Velodyne subwoofers.
The owner of Audio Reference, Mansour Mamaghani has commented, “We are very excited with the opportunity presented by the Velodyne purchase. Our goal is to reinstate Velodyne as the market leader for compact high powered subwoofers. We understand this will take some time, but we have already brought the Velodyne design team back together to review the existing product line and also our expectations for the future.”
The Velodyne Acoustics website will be back online within a week. This will contain details of the current product line-up availability, but most importantly, how to obtain service support for existing Velodyne products globally. Velodyne’s global operation will now be based at the Audio Reference HQ in Hamburg, Germany.
Velodyne Acoustics remains a highly regarded brand. They were market leaders in compact high performance subwoofers for twenty five years. David Hall has sold Velodyne Acoustics to focus his attention on the Velodyne LIDAR division. It is a testament to the brilliance of David Hall, that he can lead two unique global technology brands in succession.
Sincerely yours,
Mansour Mamaghani”
A Little History
Velodyne Acoustics has a long history of ground breaking developments and patents that they brought to bear on the development of subwoofer systems, to include:
- 1984, Patented the first servo-controlled subwoofer lowering distortion to <1%, 1984 Special Engineering Award, from CEA
- 1984, Patented the “Sealed Accelerometer”
- 1995, Patented the “Energy Recovery” Class D amp design
- 1995, Introduced the “Subwoofer Direct” feature
- 1995, Developed the “Dual Tandem Voice Coil”
- 1996, Introduced the HGS-10; the first under 12″ cube single driver subwoofer
- 1996, Introduced the world’s first remote controlled subwoofer
- 1999, Engineered “Current Sensing Servo”, awarded the “Design and Engineering Showcase Award” at WCES
- 2003, Introduced the Digital Accelerometer
- 2003, Developed the Digital High Gain Servo system, lowering distortion to <0.5%
- 2003, Introduced the “Patent Pending” Digital Drive Room Equalization System
- 2005, Introduced digital, one-touch room bass EQ
- 2006, Introduced SC-IW in-wall subwoofer with “Patent Pending” “T-shaped” driver
Velodyne is also well known for its pioneering work in LiDAR (Light imaging, Detection and Ranging). A light based technology that is used by almost all autonomous vehicles as it can image its surroundings in a similar way that humans see their surroundings. Having its own light source its performance is essentially independent of the existing light conditions. This development work that started in 2005 created a new division called Velodyne LiDAR that was spun off back in 2016 and is still going strong.
It is rumored that Audio Reference management has got the “old” design team from Velodyne back together. Only time will tell how this acquisition and the “old team” emerge from these rocky times.
See here for my introduction into speaker design.
See here for my white paper on my sub installation and speaker alignment.
