IEEE Honors Inventor of Stereo Sound Recording With Plaque at Abbey Road Studios

The IEEE unveiled its 154th "milestone plaque" at Abbey Road Studios in London Thursday in a ceremony to honor the work of Alan Dower Blumlein, the inventor of stereo sound recording. The plaque is for the front door of the studio building, alongside a previous memorial to composer Edward Elgar, and steps away from the famous crosswalk where tourists flock daily to take photos that try to re-create the iconic sleeve for the Beatles’ Abbey Road album. The publicly accessible Abbey Road street name sign has been stolen so many times that the local government authority no longer replaces it, but the Blumlein and Elgar plaques are situated well inside the gated studio grounds, which are now owned by Universal Music Group, so they’re secure. The daylong event to honor Blumlein was held in Studio Two, where the Beatles recorded. Presiding over the event were IEEE CEO Howard Michel, Abbey Road Studios Managing Director Isabel Garvey, Blumlein's son Simon and grandson Alan. The ceremony recognized Blumlein’s contributions to telecommunications, TV and airborne radar before his death in 1942 at age 38 in a U.K. aircraft accident while testing the H2S radar system. More than 100 recording industry veterans, along with some young audio engineers and students, got the chance to sample rarely heard or seen audio and video recordings made by Blumlein, including early stereo music tests made with British conductor Thomas Beecham and Ray Noble, the British bandleader, and the world's first-ever stereo sound film, Trains at Hayes Station. Visitors could also observe, but not touch, original ribbon and moving-coil microphones and disc-cutting heads that Blumlein made by hand while working for EMI in the 1930s. During a series of talks and panels, son Simon Blumlein recalled how his mother had told him how his father had described his dream for stereo. During a pre-World War II trip to the cinema, he had asked his wife to imagine a blind man looking at a screen and seeing nothing, but hearing the sound move with the characters, Simon said.