Peter J. Baxandall (August 11, 1921,

Kingston upon Thames Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable ...

, Surrey – September 8, 1995, Malvern,

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

) was an English audio engineer and

electronics engineer Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current fl ...

and a pioneer of the use of analog electronics in audio. He is probably best known for what is now called the Baxandall

tone control circuit Tone control is a type of equalization used to make specific pitches or " frequencies" in an audio signal softer or louder. It allows a listener to adjust the tone of the sound produced by an audio system to their liking, for example to compensa ...

, first published in a paper in ''

Wireless World ''Electronics World'' (''Wireless World'', founded in 1913, and in September 1984 renamed ''Electronics & Wireless World'') is a technical magazine in electronics and RF engineering aimed at professional design engineers. It is produced monthly in ...

''.

Biography

Baxandall attended

King's College School King's College School, also known as Wimbledon, KCS, King's and KCS Wimbledon, is a public school in Wimbledon, southwest London, England. The school was founded in 1829 by King George IV, as the junior department of King's College London an ...

in London, then got his BSc in electrical engineering at

Cardiff Technical College Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

(1942). He was a radio instructor for the

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

for two years, and then worked for the

Telecommunications Research Establishment The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organization for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) ...

(at the Circuit Research Division headed by

Frederic Calland Williams Sir Frederic Calland Williams, (26 June 1911 – 11 August 1977), known as F.C. Williams or Freddie Williams, was an English engineer, a pioneer in radar and computer technology. Education Williams was born in Romiley, Stockport, and ed ...

), later renamed and merged to form the

Royal Signals and Radar Establishment The Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) was a scientific research establishment within the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of the United Kingdom. It was located primarily at Malvern in Worcestershire, England. The RSRE motto was ''Ubique ...

, until his retirement in 1971. After retiring he worked as a consultant on various audio projects including loudspeakers, tape duplication, and microphone calibration. During this time he continued to publish, including a "seminal chapter" on

electrostatic loudspeaker An electrostatic loudspeaker (ESL) is a loudspeaker design in which sound is generated by the force exerted on a membrane suspended in an electrostatic field. Design and functionality The speakers use a thin flat diaphragm usually consistin ...

s. The Audio Engineering Society made him a Fellow in 1980, and in 1993 awarded him with a Silver Medal for his contributions to the field.

Baxandall tone control circuit

Baxandall's bass and treble control circuit, when made public in ''Wireless World'' (1952), "swept all others before it". An early version of the design had already won him an award in 1950 (a $25 watch) at the British Sound Recording Association, a predecessor of the Audio Engineering Society. The design is now employed in millions of hi-fi systems (Baxandall received no royalties for his work). It exists in several versions—Baxandall's original had two capacitors per potentiometer, but it is possible to use only one at either the treble or bass potentiometers, or both. It finds an application in hi-fi audio equipment and in amplifiers and effects for musical instruments, erroneously shown in and cited in.

References

External links

Baxandall, "Negative Feedback Tone Control"
(article from ''Wireless World'', October 1952] English audio engineers 1921 births 1995 deaths Signal processing filter Tone, EQ and filter {{UK-engineer-stub