Benjamin Baumzweiger was born in war-born Odessa, Ukraine, in 1913, and endured a chaotic childhood. His family owned a lumberyard in Sevastopol, Ukraine, during the Russian Revolution, and his family was forced to turn ownership over to communists. Baumzweiger’s great-grandfather protested the acquisition and was allegedly gunned down on the spot (other versions of the story involve his great-grandfather being killed on the way to synagogue).
Baumzweiger’s childhood involved fleeing from country to country to escape war and anti-Semitism, and he had lived in four different countries by the age of 12. His family eventually settled in Havana, Cuba, which had a large Jewish immigrant population in the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, the United States had set a quota on the number of Jewish immigrants allowed to enter, and the overflow often went to Havana. While in Cuba, Baumzweiger constructed a crystal-powered radio to pick up broadcasts from the United States and began to absorb the English language by listening to the American radio programs.
In 1930, at the age of 17, Baumzweiger traveled to New York to earn an industrial-electrical engineering certificate from the Pratt Institute’s School of Science and Technology. He returned to Havana and worked for the Giralt Radio Company for two years.
In 1934, Baumzweiger matriculated at the University of Cincinnati, pursuing an Electrical Engineering degree. The chief engineer at Shure, a UC alumnus, asked the UC faculty for the name of a bright electrical engineering student for a co-op position at the company. The engineering faculty thought Baumzweiger would be perfect for the job. Baumzweiger chose a five-year work/study program and began working as an intern at Shure, in Oak Park, Illinois; he would alternate between 8-week periods of work at Shure in Chicago, and a full-time schedule of classes. During his co-op experience at Shure, Baumzweiger received $15 per week.
Impressed by Baumzweiger’s work ethic and creativity, company founder Sidney Shure offered Baumzweiger a permanent position as a transducer development engineer. Throughout his career, Baumzweiger would earn more than 100 patents in acoustics and audio. However, at 25, Baumzweiger developed an acoustical method that produced a directional microphone using only one microphone element.
When sound is transmitted though a medium, the sound must be detected by an object capable of converting the sound waves into an electrical signal. The human ear accomplishes the conversion via the organs of the middle ear together with the hair cells and endolymph of the inner ear. In the Uniphase microphone, sound acts upon the outside of the acoustic diaphragm while simultaneously entering a phase-shifting acoustic network within the microphone and acts upon the inside of the diaphragm. The diaphragm actuates a transducer converting the diaphragm motions into equivalent electrical waves, which can be transmitted through electrical wires. In the Uniphase, as sound arrives from the front of the microphone, the inner pressure reinforces the outer pressure, allowing significant reduction in noise picked up by the microphone.
The Shure Unidyne Microphone was introduced in 1939, and was instantly an enduring success, due to its high quality, affordability, and reduced audio issues. For the physical aesthetic of the microphone, Bauer settled on a design inspired by the glistening silver grilles of late 1930s cars, such as the 1937 Oldsmobile Six convertible coupe.
Upon naturalization in 1941, Baumzweiger changed his last name to “Bauer.” During World War II, Bauer worked on acoustic equipment for the U.S. Navy, helping to develop a type of microphone called a Controlled Reluctance or Controlled Magnetic Microphone, known as a “battle-announcer,” because the microphone could be used reliably in extreme weather conditions.
In 1957, Bauer joined CBS, where he helped develop the SQ matrix system stereo quadraphonic sound. Bauer went on to become the vice president and general manager of the CBS Technology Center in Stamford, Connecticut.
Bauer also found time to build a family with his wife, Ida, who he met on a ferry in the Florida Keys, while Bauer was traveling from Cincinatti to Havana to visit family. They had two sons, William and Philip, who both became doctors. Bauer’s sons recall him as an intense, impossibly brilliant workhorse, who would come home after a long day, eat dinner with his family, take a four-hour nap, and return to inventing and creating.
In 2014, the Shure Unidyne Microphone was granted the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (“IEEE”) Milestone Award. Achievements of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Guglielmo Marconi have also earned the award. Members of the Bauer family attended Shure’s ceremony celebrating the award.
Use of the Shure Unidyne Microphone continues. President Barack Obama favors the SM57, which is the grandson of the original Unidyne models. Shure keeps a list of contemporary recording artists who depend on Bauer’s uniphase principle, including Tegan and Sara, Panic! At the Disco, Ingrid Michaelson, Tove Lo, and Twenty One Pilots. The Unidyne has also appeared in moves, such as Walk the Line and Good Morning Vietnam.
Bauer died in 1979, a year after he retired from a career of over 40 years. His son William recalled that Bauer thought communication was key to a peaceful world, and people would be kinder to each other if able to communicate easily and effectively. “It was my dad’s hope that if he could invent a microphone, and a communication system, it would teach people to be human beings, and maybe he could make things better.”
University of Cincinatti’s College of Engineering & Applied Science plans to create a permanent display in honor of Bauer’s invention of the Unidyne.