I just saw Chip Stern's article "Do You Believe In Ghosts?" on positive-feeback.com, and was intrigued since John and I had traded quite a bit of e-mail back in years ago. As I read on, the penny dropped: John had died!
I did not know John well, but he enriched my life. For me he was a friendly, knowledgeable, generous, good humored, down-to-earth, humbly self-assured man who freely gave of himself. I can only imagine how much he added to the lives of those close to him, and of the magnitude of their loss.
Back in 2001 I was back into a speaker building phase, which transitioned to a budget audiophile jag. Having read some of John's reviews, I dropped him a note with some questions regarding one of his articles, also fishing for recommendations on receivers. Rather than a brief response, John overwhelmed me with the friendly replay and rich detail he gave. Over the brief course of our correspondence, he provided friendly feedback, alternatives, advice and the occasional whack in the head when I'd wandered too far from audio reality.
John patiently provided the occasional reality check as I sorted through the results off my great receiver audition (three Harman-Kardons, a Denon, a Rotel and an Outlaw make for an impressive stack, a lot of listening and a whole bunch of notes).
At one point when I was working out amplification for some NHT passive subs I'd picked up, he said "you know, I have a spare sub amp I'm not using. Why don't you try that out?" John sent me the amp, with a note that said just keep it! Of course, the amp was a nice piece of kit, not a cast-off. He declined my offer to pay him, cover shipping or even send a decent bottle of wine. Needless to say I shared some of my observations on the positive results. I still use the amp.
After a few years, I changed jobs, then bought a sailboat, and my excess energy was channeled into those rather than audio. I'd drop John a note from time to time, but got wrapped up in my own stuff and stopped.
This year, around Christmas, I realized that it had been years since I'd conversed with John, and figured once things settled down I'd drop him a line.
I should not have waited.
I don't know details of John's cancer, except that it was fatal. I had cancer in the mid-90s. Fortunately, it was curable. My sister-in-law is more than a decade into stage IV breast cancer (unheard of). With the support John had from his family and many friends, I doubt there's anything I could have shared with him that would have been helpful or comforting, but I'm left with a sense of loss at his passing, and of failure for not having stayed in touch enough to know that he was ill.
Tonight I'll listen to music and think of John.
