He also became an accomplished musician, playing accordion, drums and fiddle, and performing as a well-known square dance caller with a country music band called "The Ranch Boys".
By the time he got to graduate school at MIT, Cliff was playing regularly with a Boston-based cover band while still managing to make it to his 8 a.m. engineering lectures.
In the course of that work he met and became friends with Bill Putnam and Allen Sides, both of whom became important inspirations for achieving a balance between audio aesthetics and engineering excellence.
Putnam's work on the UREI Time Align studio monitor loudspeaker, and Side's work through his Ocean Way studio business (then operating out of a garage in Santa Monica CA) were fundamental and profound influences in showing Cliff how to listen diagnostically to the audio qualities of speakers, microphones and music electronics generally.
Because of this code of work and his experience as a performing musician, Cliff is one of the few audio professionals able to voice major arena sound systems by ear and to develop L1 and T1 "Tone Match" presets for Bose Corporation strictly by listening.
As an MIT-educated scientist and engineer he has also made it his life's work to bring innovation to the technology associated with the business of professional audio and musical performance.
Engineered systems were installed, first, in the OMNI Arena (Atlanta) and later at Madison Square Garden (New York City) and used for many years for normal MSG events of all kinds.
And so, they formed a "strategic alliance" defined by a personal contract, which is in place as of this writing (8/4/2021) Today, Cliff also remains active as a recording and performing musician/composer with his band Wachadoo (www.wachadoo.com).
3: 90 x 90 degree fullrange high-fidelity high-efficiency directivity-control systems each cover the entire room/balcony for stereo everywhere (a first in large-venue sound) Basic acoustic design.
Ocean Way Audio, Director, New Technology: heading up the new products development team, building on the platform established with the No Limits HR series.
Co-inventor of the basic electroacoustic technology and means of creating flexible, scalable sound systems using parametric n/c machining and related business-system techniques and unique assembly methods.
Universal Islands of Adventure, Orlando FL (for Bose) : Inspired dock-piling-themed line array systems and voiced all sound zones by ear, with Bruce Myers, on startup of this facility.
Fender Musical Instruments Passport PD150 and PD250 systems: Basic electroacoustic concept invention and development of first working prototypes (Part of a Bose/Fender collaboration) Audio Analysts/Bruce Springsteen Systems – Collaboration with co-owner Albert Leccesse on a very high acoustic output, exceptionally clear monitor speaker for the artist, based on the US Sound CZ44 (now Bose LT4402).
US Sound Coherent Zone Loudspeaker family: Invention, component and system design, production engineering, technical support.
Electro Voice MT™ Manifold Technology sound reinforcement system: Basic research and invention leading to this breakthrough, multiple manifolded-driver product design.
Electro Voice HP horns, DL woofer family, DH1 compression driver: Engineering management of the team to produce these component series, contributed many innovations.
Community M4™ midrange driver: Developed basic equations of operation including the phase plug and motor design, co-developed the product, authored several technical and technical/marketing papers and articles.
Altec Lansing Tangerine Phase plug family : Invention, patenting, design, prototype building and production engineering of 3 phaseplugs for 2.83”, 1.75” and 1.75” piezo-driven diaphragms (“LZT” driver for consumer systems).