Eminent Technology

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Eminent Technology was established in 1983 by Bruce Thigpen to create innovative products in the audio field. Eminent Technology's first product was a air bearing straight line tracking tonearm for phonograph playback. This was the first implementation of a captured air bearing for tonearm use. Eminent Technology's second product, dubbed the ET-2, was a more advanced version of the captured air bearing tonearm concept and it went on to become the most successful selling high-end tonearm. In 1985 Eminent Technology began developing planar magnetic loudspeakers and in 1987 introduced the worlds first full range push-pull planar magnetic loudspeaker, the LFT-3. Eminent Technology manufactures most of its products at its own facility. Four U.S. patents have been granted to Eminent Technology products.

The most interesting Eminent product is their new Rotary Woofer invention, so called Thigpen Rotary Woofer (TRW). Typical subwoofer products are inefficient at producing desired sound pressure levels (SPL) at frequencies below 20Hz. The TRW is designed to supplant regular 5.1 sound systems to cover the zero to 20Hz portion of the sound spectrum.

Links:

- Rotary Woofer site
- Stereophile blog
- Ultimate AV Magazine
- Stereophile discussion of Bruce's contribution to turntable tonearm development, the linear-tracking tonearm
- Michael Fremer writeup on Eminent Technology and the Rotary Woofer breakthrough