Today, we’re starting a new segment highlighting some of the incredible people we have working here at HARMAN. We’re going to begin by looking at one of the longest-working HARMANites in the Professional Solutions division, Gerald Stanley, who has been working here for 51 years. Gerald got his start working for Crown part time while an undergraduate at Michigan State University back in 1964. He later went on to get his Master’s in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan before starting work at Crown full time in 1966.

Gerald5When Gerald started work, he helped design tape recorder electronics and the first generation of Crown’s solid state amplifiers, which were considered tape recorder accessories.
However, Gerald is perhaps best known as the father of the modern high-powered solid state amplifier. Gerald was the primary inventor behind the Crown DC300, the world’s first solid state (that is, non-tube) amplifier that was sufficiently reliable and suitably high-powered. Before the Crown DC300, high-power amplifiers were almost entirely tube, with the existing solid state amplifiers at the time being, in Gerald’s words, “long on the promise of solid, but short on substance.”

You can read more on the history of the DC300 in Gerald’s own words in this article he wrote for ProSoundWeb back in 2013.

Gerald has been hard at work here at HARMAN ever since as the Director of Amplifier Research, where he has been a primary engineer behind every Crown amplifier since the DC300. In fact, Gerald’s name appears on 49 families of patents, most of which have multiple nation versions. Even at home, Gerald’s passion for amplifiers is evident. He maintains a large laboratory at his house, where he studies amplifiers and their component parts. He’s also a fellow of the Audio Engineering Society.

Of course, Gerald has a range of other interests besides amplifiers. He enjoys reading and stays active with hiking, biking and disc golf. Having just turned 72, Gerald has ramped his work at HARMAN down to 60 percent time, allowing him more time for some R&R with his wife Ellen, with whom he’ll be celebrating 50 years of marriage later this year. Gerald and Ellen have two sons, both of whom have followed their father in scientific pursuits. Their eldest son, Randy, is an acoustician working for the National Park Service, and their younger son, Mark, is a lightning researcher who studies storms, sprites and other atmospherics.

HARMAN is honored to have a brilliant and inspiring individual like Gerald Stanley working with us! Thanks for all the years of service, Gerald!

3 comments

  1. Pingback: HARMAN Innovator Spotlight: Ralph Hyde, JBL Speaker Engineer | HARMAN Professional Solutions Insights

  2. Chris Mentis

    Congratulations Mr. Stanley for your remarkable career with Crown (Harmon). I came into three DC300 units, maybe 30 years ago, more (early 70’s) used one of the poorer condition amps to repair the other two, which still work today, in my home stereo now, rather than on the road (used many a DC300 out there too, back in the ‘day’)
    Learned a lot about amps fixing those up, and slightly similar to you, just not at your level, I continue to repair amps, Tube styles welcome too! I’m 63, yes, I know what a beam power pentode does…lol
    Great article, good read, thanks for your marvelous ‘invention’!

    -1
  3. Pingback: HARMAN Innovator Spotlight: Jeremy Bules, Associate Director of Engineering – Amplifiers | HARMAN Professional Solutions Insights

Comments are closed.