U.S. Patent Office Grants Patent to Acoustics First

The following is a press release issued by Acoustic First.

Richmond, VA | November 20, 2015 – Acoustics First® has been on the cutting edge of acoustics for a long time.  Nick Colleran, Vice President of Acoustics First®, introduced the world to Sonex® foam back in the 1970’s, built diffusers by hand, and was always looking to find the next best thing.  On November 10^th, 2015, he and the team at Acoustics First® were granted a patent on the Art Diffusor® Model D.

The Art Diffusor® Model D is an acoustic diffuser whose undulating, rippled surface diffuses sound energy by redistributing the focused energy (called specular reflections) over a wide area of space, and by modulating the time and direction in which that energy travels.  The rippling surface masks the complex mathematics that went into the design and optimization of the model D – which was completely designed and visualized virtually, inside of a computer.  Mathematical theories such as Quadratic Residue, Maximum Length Sequence, Bicubic Spline Interpolation, and Boolean logic all merge into a single geometry with a wide functional range – which they refer to as an “Organic Quadratic.”

“Every facet of this design went through many iterations, modifications, and tests before being integrated into the final product,” recalls Jim DeGrandis, lead engineer on the design, “we learned a great many lessons which have improved our product development processes exponentially.”

“The geometry was initially so complex and detailed that it crashed the production computer which was supposed to create the tooling for the prototype,” Jim remembers with amusement, “I think that was the final indicator that we were on the right track.”