Above: The CBS Technology Center, development site and testing-ground for audio hardware, as seen in 1975. An important piece of Connecticut audio history. Any of y’all ever work at this location? Is the building still standing? Drop us a line and let us know.
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7 replies on “The CBS Tech Center, High Ridge Road, Stamford CT”
In 1958 BS Laboratories (now CBS Technology Center) moves from New York City to Stamford, Connecticut:
http://www.tech-notes.tv/History&Trivia/Networks,%20Stations%20&%20Post%20Houses/CBS%20History/cbs_corporation_history.htm
And it closed in 1986:
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/From-the-Archives-The-CBS-Technology-Center-on-2188615.php
According to Wikipedia, the two buildings on High Ridge Rd. were razed and the property sold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS_Laboratories
I worked at CBS Labs around 1982 and 1983. I worked on the RCA Videodisc program. We did video mastering from the tape to cutting mother discs which were sent to various record stamping plants. The Videodisc format was a gamble that help bring down RCA. The technology began in the 1960s and hadn’t become viable until the 1980s and even then, due to the mechanical limitations of the format, operation by the consumer was finicky. Right when the Videodisc had launched to the consumer, the advent of the Compact Disc and digital technology emerged on the scene. Long term investment in an analog and mechanical video storage format was out of the question. That program ended around 1984. CBS Labs hung around for a few more years. CBS was involved in a hostile take over in 1986, which resulted in CBS assets being sold off.
My father, Alan Schoenberg, worked at CBS Labs in the 1970s. He was in broadcasting all of his life. He just passed away 4/4/21 and I’m writing his obituary looking up information about his interesting career.
Coming across this very late in the game. I worked at the Tech Center from 1985 until 1986 when Larry Tisch closed the Tech Center. I worked on many different projects, being in the engineering support group, and the most exciting and fun project was cutting the masters for a new set of stereo test records with Tom Hughes and Gary Levan. I still have one of the first pressings of the set of 5 records we made, and one of the ruby cutting stylus that we used on the lathe to cut those masters. In those days, CBS was in a joint venture along with IBM and Sears in a company called Trintex in White Plains NY, which became Prodigy Services Company in 1989, which predated America Online as a online computer service. I switched into an IT career at Trintex when the tech center closed, but my time at the tech center remains one of my favorite jobs of a long career in audio electronics and IT.
My father, Reinhart Engelmann, worked at CBS Labs as a physicist briefly from 1961 to 1963, before moving on to Hewlett Packard Labs in Palo Alto, CA. I’m not sure what projects he was involved in, though.
I worked there from 1980-1986, in the Audio Systems group. Yes, the center was closed by Chairman Larry Tisch, and the buildings demolished.