Larry
Heard that Jim Thiel passed away, we shall miss him.
Heard that Jim Thiel passed away, we shall miss him.
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
Don Garber. The X amp (and all the others, too): the Y pre and Yph, the WE421A, the mono's...all of them classics, and affordable. Art meets science. Listen to his work. Look at it while listening. There's a message there, although I still haven't figured out what it is. From Bauhaus to your house. For a song (and a six month wait). |
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02-19-09: Plutos Nelson Pass from Pass Labs is clearly most notorious but it seems that none have mentioned Flemming E. Rasmussen - Gryphon Plutos, I'm sure that this was a slip of the tongue, but I would not exactly say that Nelson Pass is notorious; Hitler was notorious, but I would call Nelson Pass noteworthy, an icon, one of the fathers of modern amplifiers, god-like...well maybe not godlike, but close to it. |
A.Stewart Hegeman (Stu) . H-K Citation 1 and 2 ,Dynaco Fm-1 and 3 ,Stromberg Carson labrynth speakers,some outstanding and even affordable speakers under the Hegeman Labs banner,but - mostly -he should be remembered for proposing that musical reproduction requires wide bandwidth - beyond the classic 20-20kHz hearing limit. |
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! |
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... |
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. |
There are many, but my for me itÂ’s 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 70Â’s and 80Â’s you will appreciate the current popularity of tube gear. |
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. |
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. |
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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 |
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... |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
