Lou Ottens in his garden in 2007. -

Jordi Huisman / Jordi Huisman, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, vWikimedia Commons

He changed the lives of a whole generation of music lovers!

The inventor of the audio cassette, Lodewijk Frederik Ottens, known as Lou Ottens, died on March 6 at the age of 94, in Duizel, in the south of the Netherlands, Dutch newspaper

NRC Handelsblad

reported on Wednesday

.

Born in 1926, this Dutch engineer joined the Philips group in 1952. He remained there throughout his career.

In 1960, he became head of the brand's product development department.

In 1961, he presented the brand's first portable tape recorder, EL3585, which sold over a million copies.

Miniaturize the coil

But he finds the latter too cumbersome.

He then tries to miniaturize the coil so that it can fit into the inside pocket of a jacket by inserting it into a holster.

We are in 1963 and the audio cassette was born.

Presented in August 1963 at an electronics fair, his invention attracted the attention of Japanese visitors.

Soon after, Sony launched its version of the K7.

The engineer flies to Tokyo and makes a deal with the Japanese company to make his model the market standard.

The K7, popularized by the Walk-Man

The sound is far from optimal at the start (it will be improved thanks to the work of the American engineer Ray Dolby), marketed in 1965 in Europe, in 1969 in the United States, the K7 will quickly conquer the planet, in particular thanks to to the Walk-Man invented by Sony.

The Dutch engineer is also collaborating, in partnership with the Japanese company, on the invention of the compact-disc.

"Nothing can equal the sound of the CD"

It is estimated that nearly 100 billion K7 have been sold worldwide.

The medium has recently aroused a resurgence in popularity, which he considered absurd: "Nothing can equal the sound of the CD", he confided in 2018 to the Dutch daily.

Same opinion regarding the return of vinyl: “The distortion with vinyl is much higher.

I think people mostly hear what they want to hear.

"

“If there are better products than the tape, you move on.

I don't believe in eternity, ”said Lou Ottens, absolutely not nostalgic.

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