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?
Coltrane - I guess I missed the posts where people showed close mindedness regarding Chinese products, so I'm not sure what you're referring to. My point was simply that I thought the point of the thread was designers of audio equipment hall of fame. To take an existing design and make it cheaper because you pay cheaper labor just doesn't impress me from a "Designer Hall of Fame" perspective, that's all. I built a 2A3 amp based on Western Electric's WE91A design from the 1930's for a fraction of what it would cost retail, and it sounds superb. Probably for less money than the GF and I bet it sounds every bit as good. But I don't get my vote for the Hall either.
Sebrof - Any designer that can produce a product that produces 'the goods' as the two products I've mentioned definitely gets my vote - for the bottom line is what does it sound like? The two products I've cited deserve mentioning if for nothing other than it's no easy trick to accomplish. I understand how difficult it is for some to get beyond buying labels. I listen to results, not labels.
Do I own more expensive gear, yes to be certain. Do I need to spend X amount of dollars to achieve enjoyable sound? These are but two products I've owned that prove I don't...if that's not a design achievement worth recognition what is!
Of course an open minded person would rather experience the product first hand before passing judgement and categorizing it based upon some obvious bias. It may only be my experience but one can deny themselves so much of what life has to offer by possessing a closed mind.
Coltrane - I believe the OP was referring to great designers of audio equipment, not great designers of a shop floor and workforce to keep costs down. My understanding of just about all the stuff coming out of China is that it was copied from existing designs. Unless I'm mistaken on that point, the 'designers' of the products you mentioned do not get my vote.
I'd nominate any of the builders of Chinese built products that perform way above their market value, i.e., Prima Luna, or the Grant Fidelity 3400B SET integ...toss in a pair of Shuguang Treasure black 300B's into the GF and it will compete with virtually anything mentioned thus far. Before trashing the suggestion try it against your mega dollar setup and you'll hear what I mean. I don't use the integ often, but it's the one component in a system that has a revolving door for components that I've never considered parting with for its performance/price is far too good to part with. Which is a lot more than I can say for many a high priced ticket item I've owned from many manufacturer's on the initial list of this thread.
I would suggest Andy payor of rockport for speakers and turntables , by the way ,i ve never heard them as there is no dealer/importer in holland , its just the way things are made .
For amps and digital mr Yamada from zanden audio , as his amps sound wonderful
Based on what I am hearing from a Magtech amp I just purchased from Roger Sanders (owner of Sanders Sound System), I would think that he probably belongs in the Designer Hall of Fame. An incredible sounding amp with power to drive any speaker. I have a pair of Duntech Speakers that I bought 23 years ago and when I hooked up the Magtech amp I almost fainted. The sound was unbelievable. I've never heard an amp before that just takes complete control of the music. The realism of this amp is scary. It is truly the best sounding amp I have ever heard and I have had quite a few top rank amps in my 52 years as an audiophile. HAPPY DAYS are finally here.
There is something almost Gumpish about this story. Next I expect ot hear that he had a prototype diesel engine that got 200mpg, but somehow did not see the light of day....
Yeah, a Clint Eastwood with lazers!! I understand he demonstrated a high power lazer to a class that he taught, punching a hole through a brick wall. The next day supposedly the FBI showed up and classified it.
Pubul, I actually got to meet him at the 1984 CES, and heard his Eagle 7a/Electro Research/strain gage set up. From what I heard that day, this guy was in a league of his own.
Also the inventor of the superheterodyne method of radio reception (used in nearly all modern tuners, radios, and tv's). And in the early days of radio, the inventor of regeneration and super-regeneration. Truly one of the more remarkable figures in the history of technology.
Alan Dower Blumlein, who devised a practical way to record and play back stereo in the late 1930's while working for EMI. Blumlein came up with the idea of the 45/45 method of cutting stereo records and his Sum/Differnce matrix is what makes FM stereo work.
Georg Neumann for inventing the first practical condenser microphone.
Fletcher, Munson and Snow at Bell Labs and Harry Olsen at RCA for their improvements and innovations in in film sound, where early Hi-Fi has its roots.
Frank McIntosh for his Unity Coupled Transformer circuits.
Looking back over this thread, one is struck by how much this hobby is really dominated by the talent and labor of talented individuals, to some extent more important than companies. Why it is such a good idea to meet so many of them at places like RMAF.
How can one omit the legendary Siegfried Linkwitz of crossover fame. Besides that, he designed probably the best loudspeaker ever, the Linkwitz Orion++. This amazng dipole speaker is a full-range with active analog crossovers that can be adjusted and multichanneled amplifier, such as the ATI AT6012, which is rated at 60 watts/channel with all 12 channels driven simultaneously. This allows each amp channel to separately drive each tweeter, midrange, and woofer. As any knowledgable audiophile knows, active crossovers with separately powered speaker drivers get the most and best out of speaker designs--particularly in dipole designs.
One of the great and informative audio sites is linkwitzlab.com Besides containing a plethora of auido knowledge, it also has the speakers he offers, from the plans, to partially built models, to completely finished models. This allows those that are very handy to save considerable money for one of the top 2 or 3 speakers in the world. This is probably why one never sees an Orion on sale in the used marketplace. People just never want to part with them.
Prdprez, Victor's first prototype was essentially an OTL, using a set of our Z-Music autoformers as the output transformer. In production he used a toroidal device similar to the ZERO.
Victor's partner, Steve Bednarski, was a customer of ours. His sister was/is a block from me, so Steve came to visit since he was in the area. According to him, Victor was inspired when he saw the MA-1s, enough to borrow a set from Steve (Steve had 2 pair and one of our very first MP-1 preamps, to this day we still have his warranty form on file) to see how it worked. Later. Victor called me asking me a lot of questions regarding its operation, as he had been trying to simulate it in P-Spice on his computer- hence my comments from an earlier post. Seriously, that does not sound like he had any plans of going in the Circlotron direction until that time, else he would have had no need to create the schematic from our amps to see how it all worked.
I think though that he was cognizant that an outright copy of the amp would be a bad move, so for example he used a different voltage amplifier/driver topology, that of a differential cascade circuit. He did not know this but we had also used that approach (there are only a few ways of driving a Circlotron if you want a fully-differential circuit) and abandoned it in 1985.
But I was not referring to BAT at all in my comment regarding OTL manufacturers and transistors. I was addressing a comment by Beerdraft- 'no, we don't make transistor amps and here is why'.
More to the point of the thread..... I'd have to agree with Vicdamone on this one. Too many people on this list who were merely clever at marketing.
It's a surprise that no one has mentioned John Curl yet. His diversity and agility include.... Ampex tape recorders SOTA head amplifier Mark Levinson JC-2 CTC Blowtorch
And I doubt any other designer can beat the "cool factor" of having designed the sound system for the Greatful Dead's road show. ;)
For the record...... BAT amps are not OTL. So I'm not quite sure what implication Atmasphere is trying to make regarding any OTL manufacturer going out of business once trying to make transistor or hybrid amps. Secondly, BAT's first transistor offering was introduced within the first year of their company which was over ten years ago. So they've essentially had both tube and solid state from the very beginning and still no signs of it having any negative impact on them.
Further, and this is the biggest point...... When Victor decided to begin building HiFi equipment he came to it already with a very solid set of ideas from not only his days designing electronics in the former Soviet military but also quite a fair amount of time designing precision test equipment for HP. In other words, his design philosophies were pretty much already set. The fact that he took the time to survey who in the HiFi industry may have already been implementing ideas that he intended to use is a far cry from imitating them. I find it incredibly presumptuous to make such an assertion in a public forum such as this. One of the other brands that VK surveyed at the time happened to be Jeff Rowland Design and yet I dont see Jeff going around claiming HE was the inspiration for BAT. Just Sayin.
Beerdraft, no, we don't make transistor amps. We're known for making OTLs but we've been in business nearly 34 years and in that time seen a lot of OTL manufacturers come and go. One of the signs that an OTL manufacturer is going to go out of business is when they introduce either a transistor or hybrid amp. At least, that's been the history so far...
does atma-sphere even make solid state amps. I don't see any on there web page. I have a hard time believing that they copied anything but maybe tried to take a amp or pre that they liked and see what is inside and how they can improve upon it, people do that all the time in every line of work not just hifi. just tells me that both are quality products.
Atmasphere, I'd love to hear you guys stuff as I've become a fan suddenly of the simplicity. I checked and didn't see a dealer in GA. Your stuff looks nice and I'm sure it is wonderful. Maybe I will get to hear at rmaf this year.
Indeed it does and I know lots of manufacturers that test others to find out what they like and or dislike about a unit and will test it in the design stages. Its good to test your competition and see how you compare. I also remember reading a review wrote where Victor met his partner and listened to his system and told him he could build a better amp, so his not then partner said prove it, I think he did. From what I understand he had been building stuff like that for years for himself tinkering with things as a hobby but never did it to make money till he met his partner.
Beerdraft, it might interest you that Victor's partner was a customer of ours and had bought 2 sets of our amps and a preamp. I spent a few hours on the phone with Victor while he had one of the amps open on his bench, trying to model it in P-Spice (that required a schematic and that was why the amp was being examined). Victor was trying to tell me that the amp did not work (in P-Spice) and I was asking him 'did you listen to it?'. Back then (1993 or thereabouts) P-Spice had terrible models for vacuum tubes :)
I can't say after his reverse-engineering our amp that he copied it- clearly he did not as he used a different driver circuit so neither our patent nor copyrights were violated. But it was obviously an influence- minimal number of gain stages (our amp has only one), no feedback, Circlotron output section, triode operation, fully differential and balanced throughout... sound familiar?
Victor Khomenko and BAT for making simple harder to build circuits with minimal gain stages and no global feedback. My system is 600 watts per channel and has 3 gain stages per channel, well four including the gain stage in source I suppose. That is keeping to the basics of what is best for circuits IMO keeping a short signal path and keeping it straight forward. Too many companies are putting multiple gain stages and feedback in there equipment and when you hear one without all that you realize how much timing, detail, and just raw quick power is affected.
While well known for their low end response, VMPS speakers have the most natural (neutral) sounding midrange of any product my ears have laid eyes on. They shine with demanding material (female voices / piano).
Lincoln Walsh, who lived from 1903 to 1971, and whose Brook Amplifier Company produced legendary high quality 300B and 2A3 amplifiers in the early 1950's. Brook amplifiers are now highly collectible, btw, and command extremely high prices on the rare occasions when they appear for sale.
He also developed the Walsh driver, which was further developed and marketed by Ohm Acoustics.
Anybody who takes that precarious plunge into the business that is Audio deserves recognition. The majority of designers and manufactures mentioned have some degree of notoriety and business success which makes them more recognizable from those who actually provided us with a substantial advancement yet were only able to market a few products before becoming victims of trends and economics.
At my advanced age these advancements are mostly small tweaks to a conventional technology within the audio chain while the few truly giant step advancements are the very few who've developed new or improved media. Recording an LP onto an 8 track and being able to play it in your car was huge. He's not mentioned here. Or the corporations who developed the Compact Cassette, Compact Disk, and for now, the iPod. For us these medias were mostly giant steps backwards in fidelity but, along with Playboy Magazine, they helped to bring the average schmuck into the hobby.
For me the de Vinci of audio, and many other things electric, is NIKOLA TESLA who's many idea's and innovations have yet to come to fruition. Designers who actually helped me with their products and ideas are: SAUL MARANTZ who's 7C/8B were my first upgrade from my Fisher receiver which powered EDGAR VILLCHUR'S / H. Kloss AR-1's. CHARLES HANSEN and NEIL PATEL for taking the idea of an acoustic suspension speaker and making a speaker, and one of the few, that can actually play music with their Avalon Eclipse.
Aside from an Italian violin maker who died over 170 years ago ANDREW SCHNITZER's Contra (Double) Bass craftsmanship is becoming Masterful very quickly. On the musician side of audio JAMES BUNGIORNO and GENE CZERWINSKI's work in developing and producing high powered solid state amplification at an affordable price and an 18" driver that actually went bellow 30Hz changed the audio quality of the live performance as we know it today. I used the 18" Cerwin-Vega driver in a modified JBL 4530 Scoop enclosure. The first loud deep bass rig I'd ever used. This rig was quickly over shadowed by the now legendary, and as yet never surpassed, 200 watt folded horn "acoustic Control 360 Bass Amplifier" designed by RUSS ALLEE. Of all the electronic equipment I've bought and sold the 360 is my most regrettable loss.
As long as this has become a list of practically everyone associated with the development and maturation of high-end audio, I've got to add Michael Kelly of Aerial Acoustics. He combines true design talent with marketing savy.
And IMO he played a big part in directing high-end speaker companies into multichannel. I know some of you think that was a giant step backwards, but it surely helped establish that audiophile quality sound was an essential part of good home theater.
Whoever is in charge of design for Focal / JM Lab. They design and produce absolutely great speakers. The same goes for Sonus Faber and Usher. Also, Kevin Voecks at Revel as of now. While I don't care for the sound of his products, some of them are models of engineering excellence.
There are several listed that I don't believe belong. Others that were geniuses but made bad sounding equipment that do belong, and a group that stole their ideas from others.
My short list but not complete list is:
Peter Snell David Berning Dale Pitcher of Essence and Intuitive Design Alex from FMS Dr. Hill of Hill Plasma John Hillig of Musical Design, Rockford, Hafler And last but not least our Military where several designs came from.
I agree 300 % with Richard Brown. A individual in a herd of individuals who walked his own path, avoided the collective thinking of the day, and probably died poor but with purity of a man who walked his own path and made a simple, musical amplifier, which costs far too little.
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