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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?
pubul57
geoffmslater
4 posts
 
Niro Nakamichi, Don't think he has been mentioned yet, many will sight the dragon tape decks no doubt,true dedication to perfection, if your unsure then check out the tp-1200 car preamp, i have 2 and it is breathtaking.
walkertm
42 posts
 
There are many, but my for me it’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 70’s and 80’s you will appreciate the current popularity of tube gear.
mmarvin19
157 posts
 
J. B. Lansing

Peter Jensen (reportedly, the inventor of the loudspeaker)

Scott Nixon -first US tube DAC

Peter Daniels - Audio Sector

Steve Nugent - Empirical Audio

plutos
224 posts
 
Nelson Pass from Pass Labs is clearly most notorious but it seems that none have mentioned
Flemming E. Rasmussen - Gryphon
Jacques Mahul - JM Lab
Ken Ishiwata – Marantz Signature
ed_merchant
3 posts
 
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.
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