Bill Whitlock Introduction

[Mr CMRR]

Hello all from beautiful Ventura, California! I turned 81 this year (2025). I have a long history in analog electronics for professional audio, starting at recording console-maker Quad-Eight in 1972, where I replaced Deane Jensen who was leaving to start Jensen Transformers. After conceiving and designing the Compumix automated mixdown system there, I was hired to design an automated laser light show system at Laserium®​ when it had 3 employees and did a light show manually, using a borrowed krypton laser, at Griffith Park planetarium in Los Angeles. They grew to over 100 employees and 20 locations around the world. In 1980, I was hired to head electronic development at Capitol Records/EMI, where my main work was making Capitol's 64x duplicated pre-recorded XDR cassettes the highest performance available (routinely 30 Hz - 18 kHz ±2 dB). I left Capitol in 1988 to collaborate with Deane Jensen, which we did until he died in 1989, leaving the company to me.

I operated Jensen for 25 years, improving designs of catalog parts and making custom parts like the zero-distortion output transformer in Audio Precision analyzers. I designed and standardized the most comprehensive data sheets and application notes. In 1994, I started doing seminars at trade shows to introduce our new ISO-MAX transformers-in-a-box products. That seminar expanded over the next 20 years and I presented it at colleges and AES conventions - and as an invited lecture at MIT in 2007. I was made a fellow of the AES in 2012 for my work in revealing the truth about balanced interfaces and the influences of grounding systems. In 2014, I sold Jensen to our single biggest customer, Radial Engineering (for their famous JDI direct box). Along the way, I've written the Audio Transformers chapter for Ballou's "Handbook for Sound Engineers" 3rd through 6th editions. My landmark paper on balanced interfaces appears in the June 1995 AES Journal, which has become the best-selling issue ever printed. Other writing includes trade magazine columns and articles.

My five patents include the InGenius®​ balanced input IC made by THAT Corporation and the ExactPower®​ waveform-correcting AC voltage regulator. I'm a Life Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, a Life Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and member of UL's Pro Audio Advisory Panel. Now semi-retired, I still do circuit and product designs plus writing and lecturing as time permits. If I have the time, I participate in a few forums like this one. Many others are so filled with hype and outright misinformation that it's overwhelming!

 

[Deleted member 157]

Hello Bill, Good to see you over here.

Cheers

Ian

 

[barfle]

That’s pretty impressive! I’m another retired engineer who tried the self-employment route, but my products did everything they were supposed to do except make a profit.

Still dabbling in circuitry, but in retirement, it seems like I have so many other interests that electronics is not at the top of the pile very often.

Glad you’re here, and let’s see if we can figure out the next better mousetrap!

 

[oldgeek]

Bill Whitlock?! I had no idea I was joining such an auspicious group. You have been on my Amazing Guys short list since I first heard your name in the early '80s.

 

[BrianB]

Greetings, Bill. Many years ago I had the privilege of attending one of your seminars on noise and grounding. From my first cat's whisker detector radio kit in the 50's I was hooked on electronics and grew up studying the Allied Radio catalog and taking old TVs apart. I etched and drilled my first PCBs to build Marshall Leach's low TIM amplifier design in 1976. I ended up with a career in product and systems design spanning 40 years that included consumer, commercial and professional audio, video and control systems.

When I retired 10+ years ago I decided to get back into my first love, hi-fi audio. I built a number of DIY preamps (both tube and solid state), power amps and loudspeakers. I settled on a DIY amplifier design by Nelson Pass, the F6. You might be interested to note that this circuit uses a Jensen JT-123-FLPCH in the heart of the design to provide the required push-pull signal to the output devices.

 

[Alan]

Wow, what an interesting life! It's so cool that you've been into electronics and audio stuff since you were a kid messing with cat's whisker radios, and now you're building fancy amps yourself.