Bob Carver certainly ranks in my book.
Designer Hall of Fame
There are many great designers out there, and especially in the lore from the golden age, but I'm not to familiar with them. I thought it might be interesting to discuss some of the great designers for engineering skill and knowledge, business integrity, and ultimatley quality of their products. My short list a "hall of fame" if you will of designers working today are:
Nelson Pass, Pass Labs
Charles Hansen, Ayre
Roger Modjeski, Music Reference
Ken Stevens, Convergent Audio Technolgy (CAT)
Kevin Hayes, VAC
and how could I leave Jeff Rowland off? Well it is a short list. Who would you nominate?
Nelson Pass, Pass Labs
Charles Hansen, Ayre
Roger Modjeski, Music Reference
Ken Stevens, Convergent Audio Technolgy (CAT)
Kevin Hayes, VAC
and how could I leave Jeff Rowland off? Well it is a short list. Who would you nominate?
319 responses Add your response
Arnie Nudell made some great speakers indeed. Question is, if you had five spots would he make it on the first ballot versus all the other folks mentioned in the thread (I think he was mentioned earlier). Would he make it over Ed Vilchur whose AR3 brought acoustic suspension enclosures to the market? Tough call for five slots. I would be interesting to have an annual election held by Audiogon - five new folks every year honoring the work of the great designers, maybe with some broad categories (Speakers, Amps/Preamps, Digital, Analog,, dare I say Accesories etc. -- proabably need an old timers committe as well for those important folks from the early days who should not be forgotten). Give the awards RMAF, and toast the winners. I for one would attend. Best of all, you have to be a member of Audigon to vote. |
David Berning. A pioneer who has genuinely been leading the way in both vacuum tube and solid state design technologies throughout the ages. The circuit and power supply topologies designed by David Berning have consistently been way ahead of their time. These designs have also proven to be reliable and stable for the long term, resulting in very, very few field service issues. David Berning Co. sonics are also world class to boot. |
I would nominate Robert Fulton of Fulton Audio. Bob designed/pioneered many products that at the time were considered laughable to many people who viewed his efforts as, "part of the lunatic fringe". For instance Bob's blue turntable mat, that when rotated around the spindle of the turntable was tunable for the best sound. (Hey, after experimentation with Oracle mats and others I know this works. Give this a try, it might be just the thing your analog rig needs to put it over the top!) No turntable arm was complete without the addition of Bob's special litz headshell leads. Before Noel Lee was hawking "Monster Cable" there was Bob Fulton, who's Fulton Gold interconnects, "Fulton Brown speaker wire" (I still am using this on the front channels of my home theater system.), and then the almost inconcievable and unbendable "Fulton Gold" set the standard for years in speaker cabling. As I remember the Fulton Gold was so thick and heavy that if one bent it properly, it could almost support a pair of Rogers LS35As as both speaker stands and cables. There were many contented customers and audiophiles who had us mod many a Hafler amp, preamp, Dalquist DQ-10, and Acoustats by rewiring them with Fulton Brown. I'm pretty sure this happened in other areas of the country besides St.Louis too. Bob always had a bag of what then were unlikely tricks to demonstrate as he visited dealers across the country. Today these tweeks are accepted and I suppose millions?, thousands?, hundreds? are raked in by the tweekers today. Bob's lps that he himself recorded and produced, quaint though they often were, would be considered state of the art by today's standards. I know, I still own a couple. He also was a speaker builder and manufacturer of considerable talent and inspiration. He built the "Fulton J" speaker system, which kind of reminds me of some of the earlier Wilson designs (and many others) so applauded today. The man built subwoofers that were the size of washer and dryers and man did they sound great. However installing them in a custy's home was sure a chore. At any rate I'm sure there are others who might remember Bob Fulton better than I, as I was just a kid with a good ear and love of music sending myself through college at the time. Bob Fulton's products could bring out the midrange in your system that was to die for. Today we'd call it analog and tube sounding. I'd bet the catalogs issued by Music Direct, the Cable Company, and Audio Advisor would be filled with Fulton products if he was around today. |
Robert Fulton founded the modern interconnect and speaker cable industry- before him there was no-one. Of course he was thought of as a snake oil salesman, but many of his claims are now borne out by the continued existence of the cable industry itself. Just before he died, Bob had created a new speaker that used a concept he called the 'oval window'. It was some sort of modified Helmholtz resonator- Bob claimed that the oval window cut off one octave below the cutoff of the woofers in the speaker. Whatever you might believe about that, I can tell you that it did play some of the most effortless bass I have heard in a speaker. |
How about Stefan Kudelski? His equipment is in use by almost every radio and TV station on earth. Surely he must be the most famous of all designers mentioned previously. |
Mick Malone from Supratek, although now retired, for the way he worked like an artisan with innovative designs and honest prices. Around its great products many people get knowledge and friendship. The prove is the largest forum here at Audiogon: "The Preamp Deal of the Century" with near 3,500 entries. |
Albert Von Schweikert, because his speakers are among the best in the world and for his innovative concepts like the Acoustic Inverse Replication (A.I.R.) technology that replicate the inverse of the recording microphone signal. Some of his speakers are like musical instruments that one can tune up to the maximum. |
Some of the names on this list are absurd. I would think that anyone in the "Designer Hall of Fame" would not include anyone who calls me for advice. I don't belong in it (even though my peers credit me for one or two notable contributions), so a good handful of the names listed don't belong there either. I don't think that anyone mentioned Dick Sequerra. A sharp guy, who knows more than I do. He qualifies. |
I met John Dunlavy on a few occasions, and did a brief 2 day tour of his factory in Colorado, before he sold the company back when. I also used to sell Dunlavy's, and was impressed with the many things his speaker designs DID RIGHT! It was a pleasure and an honor both meeting John and representing his otherwise excellent products, and I'm very glad for both of those opportunities. He surely was a nice man, and a very keen designer. While I didn't necessarily agree with "all" of John's Philosophies on speaker design, as well as his theories, necessarily, on issues relating to audio system performance as a whole (lol- indeed all the audio engineers I've met over the years believe in their way ONLY, when it comes to designs and theories - lol), one thing is for sure, he knew his stuff and provided many an audiophile (including myself) with superb products, and his unique offerings were not duplicated by many, if any. Actually, from what I did know of John's philosophies on things such as amplifier design technology, interconnect/speaker wire effectiveness and relevance - and, of course, phase correct first order, time aligned array speaker designs - he may not have know much towards audio system tweaking, system matching, and general audiophile preachings, but at least his speakers were otherwise dynamic, coherent, FAST, and focused, and did many things very right. In fact, they made superb HT/music speakers, and could be made to both disappear and also accurately represent the audio signal, when matched properly with good equipment, a good acoustic space, and care. As I have both owned and admired equipment from such Legends as Nelson Pass, Jim Thiel, Bobby P, Dan DAgostino, Paul Klipsch, and others, I will always have a place in my heart for John, for extending his time and opening his facilities to me, to share with me his day to day busines operation, talk theories on audio design philosophies, engineering, and acoustics, etc, and for just being a great guy! (fascinating seeing all the engineering projects he's been involved with over the past century+, even with the Gov't). Anyway, just wanted to take a moment to share my appreciation for having met John Dunlavy, and for also being a part of this great hobby we all get to enjoy. Yes, RIP John. We'll see you in Heaven indeed my friend... |
Wow - lot's of "legends". Hard part with so many worthy candidates is narrowing it down to a group of 10. So I'm updating my first 10 inuagural selections: Nelson Pass, Pass Labs - best SS designer Roger Modjeski, Music Reference/RAM Labs tubes and classic amps Ken Stevens, CAT - best transformer coupled amp Ralph Karsten - Atma-sphere perfecting OTL Richard Vandersteen - 1 million Elvis fans can't be wrong Bobby P, Merlin - designer of my favourite and most well sorted speaker. Ed Meitner - for Digital wizardry David Hafler - see Richard Vandersteen |
| Post removed |
| Post removed |
Top 5 in no particular order: Henry Kloss, William Z Johnson, Peter Walker, Nelson Pass, Saul Marantz/Sid Smith. Kloss was well known in his day to be a genius. His inventions had wide applications, even outside audio. Bill Johnson is most responsible for the renaissance of tube gear starting in the early 70s. Peter Walker belongs just because of the Quad 57 and 63. Nelson Pass is possibly the smartest of the many excellent designers of solid state gear. (Honorable mention to John Curl, Dick Sequerra, et al.) Saul Marantz was Saul Marantz. Some of the guys that have been mentioned are indeed associated with great products, but not all of them were truly great innovators and designers. There are a lot of young very bright guys, but they have not yet had the major impact of those listed above and may never do so, since we are now seeing the decline of high end, 2-channel audio as an art form. Vilchur belongs in the above list too, but I left him out in favor of Kloss. Hey, and my personal favorite, Julius Futterman, who designed, patented, and marketed the first OTL amplifiers and was a wonderful human being. |
He disappeared one year when he was supposed to be going to CES. The FBI got involved and was watching his home and had his phone redirected. There were a lot of weird rumors (faked his death, went into hiding, weird inventions, paranoia, that sort of thing), but there has been no official story to my knowledge. |
There are many, but my for me its a 3 way tie between: Victor Khomenko of BAT Luke Manley of VTL William Z. Johnson of Audio Research Though all three of these men take different approaches, their gear is always well built and provides a rich sonic experience. Whether or not you like the sound of their designs, they all have contributed greatly to the resurgence of tube based technologies as being the real deal. If you suffered through the chintzy, edgy sound, of Solid-State offerings of the 70s and 80s you will appreciate the current popularity of tube gear. |
Arthur Loesch In the 1980's, he was principally responsible for resurrecting the low-powered, single-ended triode (SET) amp and high-efficiency speaker from obscurity. When many designers were simply reworking classic circuits from the 1930's-50's, he was one of the few people to actually come up with an an original concept for phono reproduction using the WE417A (or Nuvistor) front end. Art's still active, but is not as well known today as he was when Joe Roberts was publishing Sound Practices, where his designs were regularly discussed. |
Maybe I'm not reading close enough, but I don't see Mr. Marantz on the list and he certainly should be. There isn't a tube circuit designer out there that doesn't owe some portion of their success to him and his work in amplifier design. You might be able to say the same for someone like Avery Fisher or Hermon Scott as well. It's these gentlemen's circuit designs and innovations that have driven most of the electronics in the modern audio world. You could certainly make a case for some of the early circuit designers that came before these, but their work appears to me to be the focal point between what some consider "electronic hobby", and the high end we understand today... |
Ikeda-san for the Fidelity Research cartridges and pickup arms. Ikeda-san for the Mark Levinson cartridge (MLAS) before he went EMT. Ikeda-san for the Rowland Complement cartridges. Ikeda-san for his own line of "moving coil Deccas" and pick up arms. If he is no longer with us I wish him well. He made the best cartridges, a cantilever-less moving coil! |
