Brown Innovations, Inc.

Brown Innovations is a company that makes directional speakers. Their engineering and manufacturing department is located in Boston. I interned there from May 2009 to December 2009. I fulfilled my 120 hour internship requirement for my Bachelor's degree at Brown Innovations.

During my internship, I learned all sorts of cool stuff. Some of my tasks included testing frequency response and polar patterns of new designs, assembling and testing speakers and amplifiers, packaging and shipping out orders, soldering components, and also some woodworking. I used the Gold Line TEF software to test the frequency response and polar plots of various speaker designs and helped determine the best solution for focusing stereo sound to the listener. In the wood shop, I helped mostly in drilling holes for the speaker enclosures, but I also did some sanding and sawing as well.

I learned a lot about speaker focus at Brown Innovations. It was a fun and friendly place to intern for people who are interested in taking things apart and examining the sonic characteristics of speaker designs. My background with electronics and soldering was greatly improved by interning there also. All in all, I'd have to say Brown Innovations was a great place to expand my knowledge of audio and electronics. I really enjoyed it.

Below are some images of the work that I did at Brown Innovations. It includes a new design of stereo focus speaker in which the listener hears a stereo image when the speaker is centered on them, but as you walk away or get behind the speaker, the sound significantly drops off.

Here are some dispersion maps of the Super 16 Focus Maestro.

Here are some polar plots of the Super 16 Focus Maestro. Each is tested with a different woofer level.
Notice that the first image has more cancellation at the sides and back than the second does.