As the author of scientific journal articles about the organ construction details, he published the results of his research and experiments.

[citation needed] Born in Montpellier, France, to Dominique, one in a line of organ builders, he showed early talent in mechanical innovation.

These allowed the use of higher wind pressures and for each manual's anches (reed stops) to be added or subtracted as a group by means of a pedal.

Sometimes he placed the treble part of the compass on a higher pressure than the bass, to emphasize melody lines and counteract the natural tendency of small pipes (especially reeds) to be softer.

It is he [Cavaillé-Coll] who conceived the diverse wind pressures, the divided windchests, the pedal systems and the combination registers; he who applied for the first time Barker's pneumatic motors, created the family of harmonic stops, reformed and perfected the mechanics to such a point that each pipe—low or high, loud or soft—instantly obeys the touch of the finger… From this result: the possibility of confining an entire division in a sonorous prison—opened or closed at will—the freedom of mixing timbres, the means of intensifying them or gradually tempering them, the freedom of tempos, the sureness of attacks, the balance of contrasts, and, finally, a whole blossoming of wonderful colors—a rich palette of the most diverse shades: harmonic flutes, gambas, bassoons, English horns, trumpets, celestes, flue stops and reed stops of a quality and variety unknown before.For a mechanical tracker action and its couplers to operate under these higher wind pressures, pneumatic assistance provided by the Barker lever was required, which Cavaillé-Coll included in his larger instruments.

This device made it possible to couple all the manuals together and play on the full organ without expending a great deal of effort.

His organ at the Basilique Ste-Clotilde, Paris (proclaimed a basilica by Pope Leo XIII in 1897) was one of the first to be built with several of these new features.

[4] Featuring 102 stops and five manuals, the Saint-Sulpice instrument, which unlike many others remains practically unaltered, is a candidate to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

"[citation needed] Almost a century beforehand, César Franck had ecstatically said of the modest Cavaillé-Coll instrument at l'Église St.-Jean-St.-François in Paris with words that summed up everything the builder was trying to do: "Mon nouvel orgue ?