RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA — Within a maze of cubicles at a Hughes Aircraft Co. division here is a laboratory that employees have nicknamed Arnold's Sandbox. Inside, Arnold Klayman has been playing with his invention, the AK-100.
The AK-100 conjures up visions of a new assault rifle from a company whose reputation was built over four decades as a manufacturer of sophisticated weapons ranging from radar systems to missiles.
But the AK-100, which bears Klayman's initials, has nothing to do with the weapons industry. It is a stereo component that deceives the human ear into hearing recorded sound in three dimensions, instead of the normal two.
It also represents the defense firm's latest thrust into commercial diversification.
"Our corporate goal is to become 50% commercial and 50% defense," said Salvatore A. Piraino, director of commercial products for Hughes Microelectronic Systems. "This division is taking the lead on that (diversification) drive with this system."
Hughes officials say the so-called "sound-retrieval system" used in the AK-100 could improve state-of-the-art audio as much as two-speaker stereos improved upon hi-fi sets. The AK-100 will make its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago in June.
"It improves on a two-speaker stereo system by creating an illusion that you just brought a band into the room," said Klayman, 64, a Hughes senior scientist who has been picking out "sweet spots," or ideal listening positions in stereo rooms, and tinkering with audio equipment for 25 years. "It creates greater realism."
Indeed, as Klayman cranks up the Big Band sound in the Sandbox--Piraino's nickname for the sophisticated soundproof laboratory--the AK-100 component tricks the human ear into thinking that sound waves are beaming to the listener from different directions, much like natural sound or an expensive arrangement of a half-dozen speakers used in movie theaters. The component works with any two-speaker stereo system.
The system creates the illusion of listening to a live performance by "retrieving" the characteristics of natural sound--spatial cues that distinguish the directions that different sounds are coming from--which are picked up by recording microphones yet masked in the recording process.
"Microphones are not shaped like the human ear and so they cannot distinguish direction," Klayman said. "This sound-retrieval system picks up the information and restores it--it wraps you in sound."
With the patented sound-retrieval system, or SRS, the listener is not constrained in a particular sweet spot, and it maintains the sound quality when the listener moves or turns his head, turning a den into a concert hall.
Audio industry observers who have seen the product said the new technology could create some excitement in consumer electronics but they expressed some reservation.
"It will be tough going at first to build the name, but they have a unique product," said Len Feldman, senior editor at Audio magazine in New York. "For the person who doesn't want to go all the way with a home theater, this offers a nice and cheaper alternative."
The price of the AK-100 component will be $449, far less than the several thousand dollar price for an equivalent surround-sound system, Piraino said. The systems will be built in Canada.
Ron Goldberg, a contributing editor to Video Review magazine in New York who has listened to the Hughes system, said stereo aficionados will still prefer a true surround-sound system, a multiple-speaker system often used in movie theaters. He also said the Hughes system will face tough competition from a host of other surround-sound substitute technologies from companies such as Toshiba Corp.
"People think of Hughes and they think aircraft," he said. "Selling yet another digital toy to the public is going to be tough, especially for something that offers an illusion and not a true advantage."
Piraino says Hughes people stumbled onto Klayman at a small Costa Mesa start-up while searching for a way to improve the company's passenger entertainment systems for airliners. They bought his patents and hired him at the division in 1987 with the idea of bringing his product to market.
Development of the product took four years, longer than Hughes originally expected because the rapid miniaturization of computer electronics components continually forced Hughes to redesign Klayman's invention until it could be reduced to a single semiconductor chip.
The company already receives royalties for licensing its sound-retrieval system technology to Sony Corp. for its high-end television sets. In June, Thomson CSF, the France-based owner of RCA, will introduce a line of TVs that use the technology.
Sales of the sound-retrieval system won't be Hughes' cure-all for the defense downturn. Piraino said he expects it to account for about 10,000 units in the first year.
