Designer Hall of Fame

does atma-sphere even make solid state amps. I don't see any on there web page. I have a hard time believing that they copied anything but maybe tried to take a amp or pre that they liked and see what is inside and how they can improve upon it, people do that all the time in every line of work not just hifi. just tells me that both are quality products.

Beerdraft, no, we don't make transistor amps. We're known for making OTLs but we've been in business nearly 34 years and in that time seen a lot of OTL manufacturers come and go. One of the signs that an OTL manufacturer is going to go out of business is when they introduce either a transistor or hybrid amp. At least, that's been the history so far...

For the record......
BAT amps are not OTL. So I'm not quite sure what implication Atmasphere is trying to make regarding any OTL manufacturer going out of business once trying to make transistor or hybrid amps. Secondly, BAT's first transistor offering was introduced within the first year of their company which was over ten years ago. So they've essentially had both tube and solid state from the very beginning and still no signs of it having any negative impact on them.

Further, and this is the biggest point......
When Victor decided to begin building HiFi equipment he came to it already with a very solid set of ideas from not only his days designing electronics in the former Soviet military but also quite a fair amount of time designing precision test equipment for HP. In other words, his design philosophies were pretty much already set. The fact that he took the time to survey who in the HiFi industry may have already been implementing ideas that he intended to use is a far cry from imitating them. I find it incredibly presumptuous to make such an assertion in a public forum such as this.
One of the other brands that VK surveyed at the time happened to be Jeff Rowland Design and yet I dont see Jeff going around claiming HE was the inspiration for BAT.
Just Sayin.

More to the point of the thread.....
I'd have to agree with Vicdamone on this one. Too many people on this list who were merely clever at marketing.

It's a surprise that no one has mentioned John Curl yet.
His diversity and agility include....
Ampex tape recorders
SOTA head amplifier
Mark Levinson JC-2
CTC Blowtorch

And I doubt any other designer can beat the "cool factor" of having designed the sound system for the Greatful Dead's road show. ;)

John Curl has to be listed somewhere on this list - one of the greats (and cool). Oh, and that fella Williamson too.