“The industry has lost a true innovator.”
That’s the perspective from Orban Labs on the death of Eric Small, who died in a vehicle accident in Florida last week.
Small’s work with the company in the 1970s is a notable item on his list of career accomplishments. Orban has seen several ownership changes since that time, but its lineage is direct; and founder Bob Orban remains with the firm as vice president and chief engineer. David Day is president.
“Eric Small was an innovative broadcast engineer who helped move broadcast technology forward in consulting, technical marketing and manufacturing roles,” the company stated Tuesday.
“He was involved with Orban in the mid-’70s in a marketing and technical consulting capacity. When Bob Orban showed him the prototype of the Optimod 8000A with its non-overshooting low-pass filters, he immediately grasped its potential as an industry game-changer and helped commercialize it by showing Orban, then a studio products company, how to do bullet-proof EMI-resistant packaging and how to get the processor/stereo generator package approved by the FCC by making it look like a composite STL, which the commission had just sanctioned.”
[Read: Eric Small Dies in Florida Accident]
According to Orban, Small made innovative technical measurements using the original CBS Loudness Meter to prove that it could increase loudness by up to 3 dB over prior approaches, and placed early production units with important industry influencers. He also presented technical papers on the concept at industry conferences.
“Orban is forever grateful to Eric for his tireless efforts to make the 8000A successful, and Orban with it. With his senseless death, the industry has lost a true innovator.”
