Ray Dolby

Ray Milton Dolby (; January 18, 1933 – September 12, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor of the noise reduction system known as Dolby NR, which has been said to have "transformed sound reproduction". As a teenager in the decade following World War II, he held part-time and summer jobs at Ampex in Redwood City, working with their first audio tape recorder in 1949. While at San Jose State College and later at Stanford University (interrupted by two years of Army service), he worked on early prototypes of video tape recorder technologies for Alexander M. Poniatoff and Charlie Ginsburg.

In 1957, Dolby received his B.Sc. in electrical engineering from Stanford. He subsequently won a Marshall Scholarship for a Ph.D (1961) in physics from the University of Cambridge, England, where he was a Research Fellow at Pembroke College and completed his PhD, "Long wavelength X-ray microanalysis" under the supervision of Ellis Cosslett.

Career As a non degree-holding "consultant",

The Dolby B consumer noise-reduction system works by compressing (boosting) low-level high-frequency sounds during recording and expanding (decreasing) them symmetrically during playback, which also decreases inherent tape noise. This reduces the audible level of tape hiss.

Dolby was a Fellow and past president of the Audio Engineering Society.

Death and legacy Dolby died of leukemia on September 12, 2013, at his home in San Francisco at the age of 80. Dolby was survived by his wife Dagmar, two sons, Tom and David, and four grandchildren. Kevin Yeaman, president and chief executive of Dolby Laboratories, said, "Today we lost a friend, mentor and true visionary."

In his will, Dolby bequeathed £35 million to Pembroke College, Cambridge, reportedly the largest single donation received by any college in the university's history. In December 2017 it was announced that his family had donated a further £85m from his estate to Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory which funded a physics professorship and the building of the Ray Dolby Centre. Funding for the new building was supplemented with £75m from the UK government, and it was completed in 2024; its facilities include lecture halls and 173 laboratories.

In 2022, the Dolby Family Fund for Excellence in Physics was expected to fund further academic posts and PhD studentships, as well as an annual symposium.

Awards and honors 1971 — AES Silver Medal 1979 — 51st Academy Awards — Academy Award, Scientific or Technical (Scientific and Engineering Award) [plaque] 1983 — SMPTE Progress Medal For his contributions to theater sound and his continuing work in noise reduction and quality improvements in audio and video systems and as a prime inventor of the videotape recorder 1985 — SMPTE Alexander M. Poniatoff Gold Medal 1986 — honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) 1988 — Eduard Rhein Ring of Honor from the German Eduard Rhein Foundation 1989 — 61st Academy Awards — Academy Award, Scientific or Technical (Academy Award of Merit) [statuette] 1997 — U.S. National Medal of Technology 1997 — IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award 1999 — honorary Doctor degree by the University of York 2000 — honorary Doctor of Science degree from Cambridge University 2003 — Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences 2004 — inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame 2004 — elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering 2010 — IEEE Edison Medal 2012 — Berlin International Film Festival Berlinale Kamera 2014 — Induction into the Television Hall of Fame 2015 — Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

U.S. patents , Frequency selective, symmetric signal compressor/expander (Dolby noise reduction); application filed October 20, 1969, patent granted December 28, 1971