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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
g11657
41 posts
 
YVES BENARD ANDRE Some of the best sounding and best designed gear out there !
parrotbee
103 posts
 
The original Lavardin designer who died in a car accident - the original IT that I had (which went kapput) sounded better than the upgraded version. His papers on memory distortion are fascinating. It's a tragedy that he died before he designed anything else
lancelock
1,094 posts
 
Arthur Janszen (electrostat speakers)
ps
756 posts
 
Bruce Moore and Scott Frankland MFA
Roy Gandy
Jim Winey

I have limited personal experience with most of the great names in audio because I rarely change components. I've loved my MFA Luminescence preamp for well over 20 years. The Lumi has been upgraded twice by Scott. I also have a pair of MFA M120B mono amps- upgraded once by Scott. All pieces are keepers.

Roy Gandy-Rega P5- A heck of a lot of turntable for not a lot of money, although I wish I had not sold my Linn and VPI. :)

Jim Winey- My first high-end speakers were MG1's and I recently restored a pair of MMG's and am, at long last, happily back in the Magnepan fold.
mrdecibel
3,064 posts
 
Surprised, that only 2 mentions, of Stewart Hegeman appeared. He truly pioneered many things, such as wide bandwidth in amplifiers, minimal negative feedback in amplifiers, and, many speaker designs, just to name a few. He was brilliant, with both tube, and solid state, designs. Many, many years ago, I met him at an audio fair, in New Jersey. He was very soft spoken, and, seemed to shy away from all of the marketing hype that was going on.
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