Ray Dolby, the engineer who pioneered the noise reduction in audio recordings that produced clearer sound for music and cinema, died on Thursday at home in San Francisco at the age 80.
Ray Dolby establish Dolby Laboratories in London in 1965. In 1976, he moved to San Francisco, where his company started further offices. He retired from the board of Dolby Laboratories, in 2011.
The 1980s singer Thomas Robertson changed his name to Thomas Dolby in honor of the real Dolby's techno-wizardry, and recorded the hit "She Blinded Me with Science.
Mr. Dolby's son, filmmaker and novelist Tom Dolby, said: "Though he was an engineer at heart, my father's achievements in technology grew out of a love of music and the arts.
"He brought his appreciation of the artistic process to all of his work in film and audio recording."
