John E. Volkmann (1905 in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

– July 9, 1980 in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

) was a sound engineer and architect. Volkmann received a BS degree in 1927 and an MS in 1928. He worked his entire professional career at

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

, working on

acoustics Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...

, large scale

loudspeaker A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or " ...

s and

stereophony Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

, writing numerous technical papers and receiving several patents. He was the architect of historical

RCA Studio A RCA Studio A is a music recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee built and founded in 1964 by Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley and Harold Bradley. Originally known simply by the name " RCA Victor Nashville Sound Studios" (or “RCA Studios” for short ...

located on

Music Row Music Row is a historic district located southwest of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Widely considered the heart of Nashville's entertainment industry, Music Row has also become a metonymous nickname for the music industry as a w ...

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...

. The building was designed specifically to incorporate the musical techniques of the

Nashville Sound The Nashville Sound originated during the mid-1950s as a subgenre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of the rough honky tonk music, which was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s, with "smooth strings and choruses", "sophist ...

. It also is the last remaining gym sized facility of three that he was a principal architect on. He is cited as receiving an additional professional degree from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

in 1940.Obituary in the AES Journal, Oct. 1980
/ref> He transferred to RCA Laboratories in 1964 and retired from there in 1970. He was, amongst others, responsible for the development and design of the sound systems for the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. He was a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the m ...

(SMPTE), the

Acoustical Society of America The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is an international scientific society founded in 1929 dedicated to generating, disseminating and promoting the knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications. The Society is primarily a voluntary orga ...

(ASA), and the

Audio Engineering Society The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is a professional body for engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or products ...

(AES). He received the AES Gold Medal in 1966.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Volkmann, John E. American audio engineers 1980 deaths 1905 births 20th-century American engineers