How it began
In 1947 Hedley Jones, an audio engineer who had trained as a radar engineer in the British air force, built a high-fidelity amplifier in Kingston to play records outside his shop, Bop City. Tom Wong, who ran the Tom the Great Sebastian sound, heard it overpower a dance he was holding across the road and became the first to buy a Jones amplifier. Research by the Sonic Street Technologies project treats this as the first sound system.
Before it existed
Earlier operators such as Count Goody, Count Nicholas and Tom Wong used RCA public address systems. These were made for speech and had a narrow audio range. They played through steel horns or small cone speakers in unvented wooden boxes hung from whatever structure was at hand.
How it works
Jones's amplifier used two RCA 807 valves in a 120-watt push-pull output stage. Filters split the signal into three overlapping bands, bass, mid and treble, each with its own volume control, covering 15 Hz to 20 kHz. He paired it with 18-inch and 12-inch woofers mounted in bass reflex cabinets. A sound system combines such equipment with a turntable, a selector who chooses records and a deejay who talks over them.
How it spread
In the 1950s Jones built systems for rival operators, including Duke Reid's Trojan, Clement Dodd's Downbeat and King Edwards. Jamaican migrants took sound systems to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. Clive Campbell, who left Jamaica for the Bronx in 1967, drew on them as DJ Kool Herc at the block parties of 1973.
What lasted
Operators needed exclusive records to win crowds, so they began recording local musicians when American rhythm and blues ran short in the late 1950s. That demand helped create Jamaica's recording industry and its later styles. DancehallMag credits the sound system scene with the rise of ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub.
