AKG Acoustics WMS 40 - Manual (Page 4)

How it all started …
A word to skeptics from the outset: the
history of AKG is simply too good to have been
just made up!
1945: In a setting reminiscent of “The Third
Man”, two men who had occasionally done
business with one another before World War II
met up again. They discovered that people
sought distraction from the ruins around them
at the movies, but that most of Vienna’s movie
theaters had either been bombed or plundered.
Thus there was a pressing need for good thea-
ter equipment. And so it was that Rudolf Görike
and Ernst Pless conceived a new idea: “Let us
go into business together.” This was the begin-
ning of a success story that has already lasted
over 50 years.
Rudolf Görike started manufacturing movie pro-
jectors and loudspeakers, whilst Ernst Pless
delivered their growing customer base by bicy-
cle and rucksack. As the volume of orders grew,
they even resorted to using a good old-fashioned
wheelbarrow! Their first customers did not have
any hard currency to pay them with, but they
did have pork, butter and cigarettes – fresh from
the black market and in great demand.
1947: The two pioneers decided to set up a
company. Once all the preparations had been
made, the company set up office in a basement
in a suburb of Vienna and hired a staff of five
employees.
Initially the range included products such as
exposure meters, car horns, intercom systems,
carbon capsules and auxiliary handsets for tele-
phones, pillow loudspeakers, and many other
appliances that seem curious to us today. The
product range was continually adapted to meet
demand.
Meanwhile Rudolf Görike, a gifted drawer
and painter, created a logo for the company. It
was he who designed the products, bubbling
over with new ideas and applying for several
patents in quick succession. Before World War
II, he had been involved with microphones as
development manager with the firm of “Henry
Radio”. His hobby remained his profession, and
he was finally able to put his ideas for new tech-
nologies into practice.
The first AKG microphones went into service
the same year, mainly with radio stations, at
theaters, cabarets and jazz clubs. The AKG Dyn
Series, for example, was one such development:
painstakingly assembled by hand, it would be
simply unaffordable today.
A P
IONEER IN
A
COUSTICS FOR OVER
50 Y
EARS
AKG - A LEGENDARY BRAND
2 www.akg.com
The logo
The first AKG logo with three overlapping rings (symboli-
zing the typical omnidirectional polar pattern of the time)
was designed by company founder Rudolf Görike. With the
introduction of the AKG D 12 – the first microphone with a
cardioid polar pattern – in 1953, the three rings were
replaced with three cardioids. Apart from slight modifica-
tions, this logo has remained in use to this day, and is the
guarantee of AKG’s legendary quality the world over.
Die DYN Series
AKG developed its first dynamic microphones in 1946. With an
annual production of 500 to 600 units, every single component
was manufactured by hand and a wide variety of designs pro-
duced in the “DYN” series – DYN 60, DYN 60 G, DYN 60 K (see
illustration), DYN 60 Studio, etc. The original microphones in
this series have since become collectors’ items.
K 120 DYN
The first AKG headphones bearing the designation K 120 DYN
were launched in 1949. They were equipped with a Trolitul dia-
phragm of molded granulate, since foils were not yet available.
At the time AKG had only one winding machine and one gluing
machine.
The founders: Dr. Rudolf Görike and Ing. Ernst Pless
“The past is of no interest to me. I always look ahead – to the
future…” commented AKG co-founder Rudolf Görike some years
ago. At the time he was already over 80 years old!
AKG HISTORY