William P. Lear's Earliest Efforts in Sound Recording Technology
Years before he set down to work on the famous Learjet, William Powell Lear had made a name for himself developing instruments and communications equipment for airplanes. In 1945, Lear Inc. was moving into the consumer electronics field. The company became a licensee of a Chicago-based R&D laboratory called the Armour Research Foundation allowing Bill Lear access to Armour's successful wire recording technology, bits of which made their way into his own design for an endless loop wire recorder.
For more information on the history of wire recording technology, click here.
William Lear posing with his Lear radio-phono-wire recorder combination. In his hand is a large cartridge that holds the recording wire.
Close up of another Lear wire recorder, this one a combination phonograph-wire recorder adapted from a design by the Armour Research Foundation.