On this day (March 6) in 2021. Lou Ottens died at the age of 94. He was an engineer who worked for Phillips throughout his entire career. He started on the factory floor and rose through the ranks into the product development department. There, he invented the audio cassette, changing the way the world listened to music. Then, years later, he played a major role in the development of the compact disc.
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Ottens showed early promise as an engineer when he built a radio for his family during World War II. He attached a directional antenna to the homemade radio to get around jammers used by Nazi Germany. This allowed his family to listen to Radio Oranje. After the war, he attended a technical high school before earning a degree in mechanical engineering. He found employment with Phillips almost immediately after earning his degree, according to TU Delft.
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Ottens started his career with Phillips in 1952 as part of the company’s mechanization department. Five years later, he transferred to a new factory that mostly produced audio equipment. In 1960, he became the head of the new product development department. He led the team that developed Phillips’ first portable tape recorder. This led to the development of a portable cassette recorder and, later, the compact cassette.
Lou Ottens Revolutionized the Music World Twice
Tape technology was already widespread at the time. However, it was limited to reel-to-reel machines, which could be cumbersome. RCA produced the first version of an audio cassette, but it was twice the size of the ones developed by Ottens and his team.
“We were little boys who had fun playing,” Ottens said about the development. “We didn’t feel like we were doing anything big. It was a kind of sport.” This sport led to an audio cassette that would fit in the inside pocket of his jacket.
According to The Guardian, the design didn’t immediately take off when Lou Ottens introduced it at an electronics fair in Berlin. However, Japanese companies started making knock-off cassettes after seeing photos from the fair. As a result, Ottens reached out to Sony and came to an agreement, which helped his invention become the standard in audio recording technology.
Later, Ottens was part of the team that developed the compact disc, which once again changed the way millions of people listened to music.
Anyone who has purchased cassette tapes, CDs, recorded songs from the radio to build mixtapes, or burned music onto CDs from questionable online sources has Lou Ottens to thank for their convenient enjoyment of music.
Featured Image by JERRY LAMPEN/ANP/AFP via Getty Images
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