PART 13
Electro Voice (EV) has a long and illustrious history in the electronics industry. Starting as a relatively small company near the start of the Great Depression. Check Wikipedia for a brief history of the company. EV began manufacturing inexpensive carbon and later crystal microphones mainly for PA systems and ham radio operators.
Like several other smaller manufacturers, EV had a tough time breaking into the broadcast and recording markets. In the mid 1930s EV designed a line of inexpensive but quality ribbon mikes to go along with their carbon and crystal models. These ribbon mikes had a shape similar to RCAs design yet at a much lower price. EV continued this line of ribbon mikes into the 1950s. Modesto’s KMOD used an EV ribbon in their control room in the early 50s as seen in photos on this website. Modesto station KBOX also used the EV ribbons.[1]
EV really began to try to crack the broadcast market in the late 40s when they began to build high quality dynamic mikes. The development that really gave EV a boost was their “Acoustalloy” nonmetallic diphragm. This diaphragm was made from mylar plastic material and proved to be excellent at translating sound waves into electrical signals.
In 1950 EV came out with three revolutionary omni-directional dynamics that caused quite a stir in the audio industry. These mikes were one inch in diameter, which was much smaller than previous dynamic units. [2] As we related in our previous article on the American Microphone Company…American came out with their one inch diameter mikes at about this same time.
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KMPC’s long time midday personality, Ira Cook, used an EV model 655 in his studio. This was another station I was able to visit while attending broadcasting school in Hollywood. KMPC was another 50,000 watt station that was owned by Gene Autry for many years and featured some top name radio personalities like Gary Owens, Robert W. Morgan, Johnny Grant, Dick Whittinghill, Roger Carroll [4A,4B] and many others.
Electro Voice became a major factor in the sound industry as the years went on and even down to the present day. In addition to mikes…EV designed and built phonograph pickups, amplifiers, loudspeakers, and many other electronic products. [9]
In upcoming articles we will look into EV’s unique cardioid microphone units that highly impacted the broadcast industry.
