- Legacy Audio
Bill Dudleston
President and Founder of Legacy Audio
Bill Dudleston is the President and Founder of Legacy Audio.
A graduate of the University of Illinois with degrees in chemical engineering and mathematics, Dudleston has pioneered controlled directivity loudspeaker designs, wave-launch coherence in low frequency radiators, dynamic braking in active speaker design, selectable directivity multi-way microphone arrays, feedback eliminating stage monitors, and isolated wall-mounting methods for in-wall/on-wall speaker systems. He is an inventor/patent holder of numerous circuit topologies and acoustic alignments.
His innovation in business practice, customer service and technology is noted in Tom Pettsinger’s The New Pioneers. Dudleston has published numerous articles on acoustics and loudspeaker design. He also authored Reinforcement, Resonance, and Reverberation: Fundamentals in Sound Control. Dudleston was recently inducted into a regional Hall of Fame, taking his place among mid-western Nobel scientists and statesman.
Dudleston’s fascination with audio began at an early age. By age 12, he received a science award for constructing a working radio and headset from a block of wood, 100 feet of wire, a Germanium diode, and a magnet. By age 16, his enthusiasm led to the creation of soundtracks for radio theater. High school presentations included an elaborate lens loaded coaxial loudspeaker design utilizing a custom built bucket-brigade time delay for rear channel applications. After university, Dudleston served as a process design engineer in the technology department for U.S. Industrial Chemicals, a major polymer manufacturer. Dudleston later supervised a digital research and calibrations laboratory before co-founding Legacy Audio in 1983.
Dudleston has now designed and provided Legacy speaker monitors for SONY, EPIC, Arista, Universal Music Group (UMG) and archival organizations such as the Stradivari Violin Society. Multi-GRAMMY award-winning producers Rick Rubin, Antonio “L.A.” Reid, and renowned mastering engineer, Herb Powers Jr., have utilized and publicly touted the Legacy designs as assisting in producing artists Sheryl Crowe, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mariah Carey and Usher. Re-mastering engineer Steve Hoffman has utilized Legacy speakers on re-issues of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole.
Legacy Audio and its founder have been cited in publications such as Billboard, The Wall Street Journal, The Illinois Times, Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, Home Theater Magazine, Sound & Vision, The Robb Report and more.
Dudleston continues as an innovator in the areas of DSP, digital amplification and wave-launch reconstruction.
“I am fortunate to have chosen loudspeaker development as my life’s work. It has utilized my chemical engineering, physics and mathematics background almost daily. It has offered moments of both humility and glory, but most gratifying is the reward of continual, stair-stepped successes even after 30 years. I sense that this is a never ending staircase to be followed for generations as we asymptotically approach unattainable perfection.”
Learn more about Bill’s design philosophy on the Engineer’s Perspective blog.
Read more industry interviews with Bill Dudleston here:
10 Questions for High-End Audio Manufacturers, EnjoytheMusic.com
Is Your System 24-bit Ready? Executive Q&A with Bill Dudleston, Secrets of Home Theater
Legacy Audio Interview with Bill Dudleston, Audioholics.com
