So sorry to hear of Mr. Bongiorno's passing. I still have my original Rectilinear III speakers bought in 1976. The story I heard was that the owners of Rectilinear were interested in producing a traditional speaker that had the qualities of electrostatics. Apparently he drew the plan for the speaker on a napkin and the Rectilinear III was born. I always loved them for their neutrality and with a friend's great help, I upgraded them with extra damping, new wiring and new crossovers. They sound fantastic so I've kept them. Thanks Jim.
Death of Jim Bongiorno
I was informed yesterday that Jim Bongiorno, long time influential audio engineer, has passed from this life. It looks like he had problems from his liver disease that took him. From what I can gather, he died on January 10th, 2013. I did a search on Audiogon and saw no mention of it.
James was a legend having a hand in engineering products from Hadley Laboratories, Marantz, Dynaco, Scientific Audio Electronics (SAE), Great American Sound (GAS), Sumo, and Spread Spectrum Technologies.
For me, it was the GAS equipment that was my first introduction into high end audio. How could you forget the names: Ampzilla, Thaedra, Charlie The Tuner? (Charlie had a name change to just "Charlie" due to the conflict with Starkist Tuna and their marketing campaign in the '60's and '70's with "Charlie, The Tuna".)
I still have my Son of Ampzilla and matching Thoebe preamp.
Thanks, James, and all who were with him during his career.
James was a legend having a hand in engineering products from Hadley Laboratories, Marantz, Dynaco, Scientific Audio Electronics (SAE), Great American Sound (GAS), Sumo, and Spread Spectrum Technologies.
For me, it was the GAS equipment that was my first introduction into high end audio. How could you forget the names: Ampzilla, Thaedra, Charlie The Tuner? (Charlie had a name change to just "Charlie" due to the conflict with Starkist Tuna and their marketing campaign in the '60's and '70's with "Charlie, The Tuna".)
I still have my Son of Ampzilla and matching Thoebe preamp.
Thanks, James, and all who were with him during his career.