Pioneers in the history of higher end/accurate sounding components....and you..

I would guess we all know that this is also a generational question.  The influences of each decade from the 1940s on would be different people with some overlap of the people that were productive for a long time.  A major thank you to those designers and business people that have helped me have so much pleasure from their efforts. 

tvad, please help my knowledge of Mr. Staples and his work.  Thanks.

Now, these were not "entry level" but Jim Thiel and his company made beautiful music with their speakers.  I will need to write down my "audio gear" history...but either Thiel or Magnepan will probably be the most owned speaker brands of mine. 
Ours is a very small part of what is consumed for music playback.  I would guess there are some boombox models that sold more than most high end speaker models.  In my youth through my middle age, I realized that many have a jukebox in a bar for their "reference" point for the sound they desire....which is fine, but does not have much to do with most of us on AudiogoN. 

A very firm yes to Mr. Vandersteen.  In the last 20+ years perhaps the biggest speaker influence to introducing people to "real" fidelity.  The 1, 1B, 1C. 1Ci....and the bigger models, but the one series must be the modern day "welcome to high fidelity" that the original Advent was for many of a slightly older generation.  Mr. Kloss and Mr. Vandersteen were/are as an album was once titled, "Twin Sons of Different Mothers".

Miller, I know what you mean.  I raced at Road America in a race that Mr. Newman was at.  Ate with Henry Kloss, and just happened to be in some place for some reason when a "known" person was there.  None of it made me any better/different than that fanfare for that "common man". .. As a sidelight.... Steve McQueen and Paul Newman were actually very good drivers and their fame may have made some people think it was their fame...but no, the were good drivers.  McQueen won his class at Sebring driving with Peter Revson.  From Bullitt, the the film Le Mans, McQueen did every bit of driving the insurance companies would allow and then he would do a bit more. 

The fact that Dick Van Dyke is a distant cousin doesn't help me as he has no idea I exist.  But you can't help but envy a guy that was in a show with a young, beautiful Mary Tyler Moore.

Isn't it sad when you have done somethings in your life that included some people that others might recognize that it becomes "name dropping" to the insecure?  

I guess that some of my studies, travels and business experience that happened to include some people that did some very good work is seen as name dropping (Paul Land...?)....guess I shouldn't mention two of my parents friends....Roy Rogers and Ed Sullivan....but not the ones you think, but men that had those names.  I wonder how many men in the world have the name, James Bond, that have lived the encounters you can imagine.  I was at a restaurant in Chicago when they called out that the table was ready for James Bond. 

I am tempted to say something about James Van Allen...but....

I can see why you say that. 

My parents had a "charge account" at Wards, so James Cash Penny stores were not on their radar. 

David Hafler was, in some ways, like Henry Kloss....as in, it did not have to be expensive to be very good and a part of a wonderful system for playback of music.