ive always been curious on the history of electronic horns and the earliest variants, but i cant find what the oldest one(s) are.
I think something like the Wheelock EH- series would be some of the earliest electronic horns.
The Wheelock ES series came before the EH series (from around 1984), and I suspect it might be the oldest. The System Sensor MASS was introduced in 1987, and then the Wheelock EH was introduced in 1989/1990.
Another distinction worth considering is the type of electronic horn. It’s often speculated that the ES series used a magnet speaker similar to the ET-1070, but I have not found any concrete evidence of this. I believe the EH series used a piezo horn, but I do not know what the MASS used.
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What do you define as an electronic horn? Like, a speaker or piezo with a driver? I believe there was a patent filed by napco for something like that in the 70s:
I believe this may be one of the first of such patents - I’ve noticed it’s often cited by other patents for things that generate electronic alarm tones.
i define any horn that generates its own tone and doesnt use a striker against a big, metal diaphram a electronic horn
At some point they are mostly glorified speakers, it’s just some are more like horn tweeters (compression drivers, piezos, etc).
it’s honestly almost a question of when solid-state tech became cheap enough that you could build a basic tone oscillator circuit into a speaker at a price that wasn’t completely crazy - mid-late 70s sounds about right for that.
Probably the FS 450E? 