John M. Eargle

Who was John M. Eargle?

John Morgan Eargle was an Oscar and Grammy-winning audio engineer and a musician. He was the Chief Engineer for Delos International, author of seminal textbooks on audio, a consultant for 31 years at JBL, and past president and fellow of the Audio Engineering Society.

Eargle and his colleague, Mark E. Engebretsen, can be directly credited for the revolution in cinema sound reproduction after 1980. They presented a paper to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers demonstrating new concepts in cinema loudspeaker design. This led directly to developments culminating in the THX sound system developed by Tomlinson Holman. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded the two, and a third colleague, D. B. Keele, Jr., a Scientific and Technical Award in 2001:

... for the concept, design and engineering of the modern constant-directivity, direct radiator style motion picture loudspeaker systems. The work of John M. Eargle, D.B. 'Don' Keele and Mark E. Engebretson has resulted in the over 20-year dominance of constant-directivity, direct radiator bass style cinema loudspeaker systems.