• CEPro_logo_blue-new
  • TOPICS
      • News
        • People & Places
        • Product Briefs
      • Projects
      • Events
      • Control
        • Central Vac
        • Energy/Power
        • HVAC/IAQ
        • Interfaces/Devices
        • Lighting
        • Motorized Shades
        • Whole House Systems
      • Audio/Video
        • Audio/Video
        • AV Accessories
        • AV Racks
        • Cabling
        • Displays
        • Furniture
        • Headphones
        • Home Theater
        • Media
        • Mounts/Lifts
        • Multiroom AV
        • Projectors/Screens
        • Speakers/Subwoofers
        • Wireless AV
      • Security
        • Access Control
        • Alarms/Sensors
        • Services/Platforms
        • Surveillance/Cameras
      • Business Support
        • Associations/Buying Groups
        • Cell Phone Boosters
        • Distributors/Reps
        • Operations
        • Recurring Revenue
        • Research
        • Sales/Marketing
        • Software Services
        • Tools/Testers
      • Networking
        • Cellular
        • Devices/Equipment
        • Wireless
        • Wired/Installation
      • Markets
        • Builders
        • Commercial
        • Design
        • Europe
        • Outdoors
        • Resimercial
        • Wellness
      • CE Pro Hub Pages
        • Bose
        • Savant
        • Inside Sound United
  • PRODUCTS
  • RESOURCES
    • Reports/Downloads
    • Buyer’s Guide
    • Webcasts
    • Podcasts
    • Integrator Jobs
    • Digital Edition
    • CE Pro-iQ
  • SUBSCRIBE
    • CEDIA SHOW UPDATES
    • CEPRO PRINT EDITION
    • CEPRO DIGITAL EDITION
    • CEPRO NEWSLETTERS
  • DISCOVER
    • CEDIA Expo
      • September 29 – October 1
        Dallas, TX
      • VISIT SITE
    • KBIS
      • February 8 – 10
        Orlando, FL
      • VISIT SITE
    • Total Tech Summit
      • October 26 – 28
        Orlando, FL
      • VISIT SITE
    • Commercial Integrator
      • VISIT SITE
    • Security Sales
      • VISIT SITE
    • Tech Decisions
      • VISIT SITE
    • Campus Safety
      • VISIT SITE
    • Design Well
      • VISIT SITE
    • KBB Online
      • VISIT SITE
    • AV-iQ
      • VISIT SITE
    • CE Pro-iQ
      • VISIT SITE
  • Search
  • TOPICS
    • News
      • People & Places
      • Product Briefs
    • Projects
    • Events
    • Control
      • Central Vac
      • Energy/Power
      • HVAC/IAQ
      • Interfaces/Devices
      • Lighting
      • Motorized Shades
      • Whole House Systems
    • Audio/Video
      • Audio/Video
      • AV Accessories
      • AV Racks
      • Cabling
      • Displays
      • Furniture
      • Headphones
      • Home Theater
      • Media
      • Mounts/Lifts
      • Multiroom AV
      • Projectors/Screens
      • Speakers/Subwoofers
      • Wireless AV
    • Security
      • Access Control
      • Alarms/Sensors
      • Services/Platforms
      • Surveillance/Cameras
    • Business Support
      • Associations/Buying Groups
      • Cell Phone Boosters
      • Distributors/Reps
      • Operations
      • Recurring Revenue
      • Research
      • Sales/Marketing
      • Software Services
      • Tools/Testers
    • Networking
      • Cellular
      • Devices/Equipment
      • Wireless
      • Wired/Installation
    • Markets
      • Builders
      • Commercial
      • Design
      • Europe
      • Outdoors
      • Resimercial
      • Wellness
    • CE Pro Hub Pages
      • Savant
      • Bose
      • Inside Sound United
  • PRODUCTS
  • RESOURCES
    • Reports/Downloads
    • Buyer’s Guide
    • Webcasts
    • Podcasts
    • Integrator Jobs
    • Digital Edition
    • CE Pro-IQ
  • SUBSCRIBE
    • CEPRO PRINT EDITION
    • CEPRO DIGITAL EDITION
    • CEPRO NEWSLETTERS
    • CEDIA SHOW UPDATES
  • DISCOVER
    • Cedia Expo
      VISIT SITE
    • Commercial Integrator
      VISIT SITE
    • Security Sales
      VISIT SITE
    • Tech Decisions
      VISIT SITE
    • Campus Safety
      VISIT SITE
    • Design Well
      VISIT SITE
    • Total Tech Summit
      VISIT SITE
    • KBB Online
      VISIT SITE
    • AV-iQ
    • CE Pro-iQ
M
POPULAR SEARCHES
News
Projects
Control
Audio Video
Security
Business Support
Markets
SUBSCRIBE CEDIA EXPO CEPro-iQ
News
December 1, 2020

Savant’s Cary Christie Enters 2020 CE Pro Masters

The audio industry owes a debt of gratitude to Cary Christie for his decades of dedicated service to his craft. He has rightfully earned a spot in the CE Pro Masters.
Jason Knott  
Article:
News
December 1, 2020

Savant’s Cary Christie Enters 2020 CE Pro Masters

If a Mount Rushmore-type monument is ever created for the audio industry, Cary Christie’s likeness will likely be sculpted into Hi-Fi Mountain. Indeed, the industry owes him a lot. His list of industry firsts includes: electrostatic speaker, an adjustable-length soundbar, servo-controlled subwoofer, affordable high-performance planar speaker, electromagnetic induction tweeter, speaker using neodymium magnet, Class D amplifier, and high-compliance tone arm for turntables. Yes — Christie had a hand in creating all those pieces of equipment that many integrators probably take for granted today.

A Navy brat growing up, Christie spent his high school years in Hawaii, mostly surfing and playing guitar occasionally. In the late 1960s, he moved to Southern California to attend UCLA and was working three jobs on the side.

“My goal was to be a high-paid beach bum. But I looked around and I couldn’t find any jobs that were listed under high- paying beach bum,” he chuckles. At the same time, Christie was pursuing his hobbies of learning to fly airplanes and making loudspeakers.

“I started fiddling around with electrostatics for fun because they were interesting and relatively cheap to make. When you don’t have money, you can’t afford to buy expensive audio. So what do you do? You make it yourself,” he recalls.

During that time, Christie wandered into a small hi-fi shop in Woodland Hills, and it was there he had a chance encounter with another customer Arnie Nudell. Nudell and his colleague John Ulrick were both working for defense contractor Litton Industries and experimenting on their own with a speaker design.

2022 Wage & Salary Study: How High Did Wages Spike in 2021?

In this updated Wage & Salary Report, you'll find out results for salaried occupational categories broken down by 14 regions of the U.S. & Canada. Uncover valuable information about where your company stacks up when it comes to paying your important people by downloading your free copy today!

“They had come up with the idea to measure the feedback from the woofer and then differentiate the information with the input signal and put the transducer in the feedback loop for making bass. And that was the origin of the world’s first servo-controlled subwoofer,” remarks Christie, who was soon helping them design the speaker cabinet and the electrostats.

Thus, Infinity Systems was incorporated in 1968, with Christie as CEO and co-founder. The first speakers were $2,000 and the trio sold them out of that same hi-fi store.

“As a reference, a Porsche cost $3,000 in those days, so it was an expensive system to say the least,” comments Christie, who was literally building electrostatics on the dining room table of his apartment at that time.

He continued tinkering with electrostats, even using some technology he adapted from a waterbed heater, to reduce the size of the diaphragm but still improve the performance by 12dB to 15dB. All that experimentation eventually led to the launch of the affordable Infinity 2000, a $600 speaker with a hybrid woofer for the midrange and a line array of electrostats.

“At one point we were selling 10,000 of those per month,” says Christie.

From there, the inventions just kept rolling, including the use rare earth magnets, originally samarium cobalt, and later the first company to ever use neodymium magnets. Later, the company developed the first Class D amplifier and the lightweight Black Widow tone arm for turntables.

“My entire career has been a combination of guys doing what they want to do, and having enough of an idea about how to improve something that could add value,” he says. “What I have been working on my entire career is creating high performance that ‘disappears’ and appeals to the senses, both sight and sound.”


Related: CE Pro Masters Are Top of the Class for 2020

That guiding principle is one reason Christie cites his two heroes as Jules Verne and Gene Roddenberry.

“Verne invented the nuclear power submarine before they even existed. Gene Roddenberry invented the holodeck in ‘Star Trek’ … we are at the point now where we can actually create the holodeck from an audio perspective with immersive audio, and we are close from a video perspective,” he muses.

Over the years, Infinity was sold a number of times, and Christie remained at the company for over a quarter-century, including a decade after it was sold to Harman.

In the mid-1990s, he was recruited by a long since Henry Kloss-less Acoustic Research (then owned by accessories mega brand compiler Recoton) to create some magic for the stagnating company. There, he created a line of soundbar products dubbed the Phantom Series that came out under the AR brand name, just before Recoton went bankrupt.

But that offering set the foundation for the creation of Artison in 2003, a mostly speaker company dedicated to bringing old hi-fi know how to the world of home theater.

His ideas and reputation caught the attention of emerging CE power player Savant about 10 years later when it bought Artison and wisely insisted Christie stick around as CTO/chief audio officer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Knott
Follow
Jason Knott:
Jason Knott is Chief Content Officer for Emerald's Connected Brands. Jason has covered low-voltage electronics as an editor since 1990, serving as editor and publisher of Security Sales & Integration. He joined CE Pro in 2000 and serves as Editor-in-Chief of that brand. He served as chairman of the Security Industry Association’s Education Committee from 2000-2004 and sat on the board of that association from 1998-2002. He is also a former board member of the Alarm Industry Research and Educational Foundation. He has been a member of the CEDIA Business Working Group since 2010. Jason graduated from the University of Southern California.
View Jason Knott's complete profile

ARTICLE TOPICS

News

ARTICLE TAGS

Masters • Savant

SHARE

Share On Facebook
Share On Twitter
Share On Linkedin
Share On Whatsapp
Share Via Email
Copy URL
← Previous Article Next Article →
Article Audio/VideoCommercialControlDesignEventsISELightingMarketsOutdoorsPress ReleasesProductsResimercialWellnessWhole-House Systems

KSCAPE RAIL Lighting/Audio Solution to Debut at ISE 2023

KSCAPE notes that its new model of RAIL integrates Casambi for the ultimate ‘plug-and-play’ light audio system solution.
Article Business SupportNewsSoftware/Services

Portal API Integrates with iPoint

Portal.io opens its API to other business management software solutions, and announces its first integration is with iPoint.
Article Audio/VideoCommercialControlDesignEventsISELightingMarketsOutdoorsPress ReleasesProductsResimercialWellnessWhole-House Systems

KSCAPE RAIL Lighting/Audio Solution to Debut at ISE 2023

KSCAPE notes that its new model of RAIL integrates Casambi for the ultimate ‘plug-and-play’ light audio system solution.
Article Audio/VideoDesignLightingMotorized ShadesProjectors/ScreensSpeakers/Subwoofers

Technology Has Become an Interior Design Statement All Its Own

From LED light fixtures to loudspeakers to shades, access control and keypads, to solutions used as ways to conceal technology, design was on everyone’s minds at the recent CEDIA Expo in Dallas.

SHOW NEWSLETTER

Sign Up

CE Pro

Subscribe Sign Up

Content Types

News
Products
Projects
Companies
Downloads
Webcasts
Podcasts
Events

Specials

IntegratorJobs
CEDIA EXPO
CE Pro 100
CE Pro Summit
Awards Programs

Company Info

About
Contact Us
Customer Service
Media Solutions & Advertising

Subscribe

Magazine
Newsletters
Digital Edition

Connect

Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
YouTube
RSS Feed

Categories

AUDIO/VIDEO
AV Accessories
AV Racks
Amplifiers/Receivers
Cabling
Displays
Furniture
Mounts/Lifts
Multiroom AV
Projector Screens
Speakers/Subwoofers
Wireless AV
CONTROL
Central Vac
Energy/Power
Interfaces/Devices
HVAC/IAQ
Lighting
Motorized Shades
Whole-House Systems
NETWORKING
Cellular
Devices/Equipment
Wireless
Wiring/Installation
SECURITY
Access Control
Alarms/Sensors
Services/Platforms
Surveillance Cameras
BUSINESS SUPPORT
Associations/Buying Groups
Distributors/Reps
Operations
Recurring Revenue
Research
Sales/Marketing
Software/Services
Tools/Testers
MARKETS
Builders
Commercial
Design
Europe
Outdoors
Wellness
FOLLOW US ON
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow

© 2023 Emerald X, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

  • ABOUT
  • CAREERS
  • TERMS OF USE
  • PRIVACY POLICY