I met Eva Manley

I've never met Eva, so I cannot offer any further insight.
However, I have met a few equipment designers, and a couple that stand out are Lloyd Walker of Walker Audio and Kevin Hayes of VAC.

Lloyd, in paticular, was very impressive, and invited me into his home to listen to music with his wife Felicia. Both came off as very down to earth and really genuine people.

Cheers,
John

Maybe If the dealers were like her their business would be doing much better.

LOL, Maybe if she had to sell retail and deal directly with the general public she would end up no different than the dealers you have dealt with.... LOL....

Kurt_tank - you must have met Ken Stevens on a good day!

LOL, I got a kick out of reading this thread on AA today.
I think it fits right in.....
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/amp/messages/14/142796.html

Peter_s,

I guess so. (Why, is he usually not so nice?)

Ken Stevens didn't know me from Adam, and yet when I discussed my setup with him @ CES, he was very supportive of the choices I made, and why I did not chose his preamp, (given my requirement of having a remote control, which meant that his unit was not going to fit the bill. I wanted a full function preamp, with a great phono section, and it came down to the CAT SL preamp or the Ayre K-1xe, and the Ayre had a remote, so that was the winner.)

And this next part might interest you, Jea48:

Because we then went on to discuss the merits of the Ayre remote control (as I own the Ayre K-1xe preamp), and how Charles Hansen had given him the remote control mechanism to try out in his preamps. (Apparently he and Charlie are friends, and they have helped each other out many times by sharing different subcomponent designs.)

Charlie (and company), have helped me out several times, with answers to questions, and with upgrades.

So, it seems to me as if both Ken and Charlie are both really nice guys!