Whither the Great Designers?

Ralph Karsten of Atma-sphere
Lloyd Walker of Walker Audio
Mick Maloney of Supratek
Harry Weisfeld of VPI

These gentlemen all get my vote as world class designers with a lot of great ideas and future products yet to be seen.

some of my favorite younger designers (some older but i can't resist to mention):

Vladimir Lamm (US)
EveAnna Manley (US)
Jeff Rowland (US)
Dan Babineau of Running Springs Audio (US)
Alvin Lloyd of Grand Prix Audio (US)

Hiroyasu Kondo San of Audio Note Japan (Japan)
Kazutoshi Yamada of Zanden (Japan)
Kazou Kiuchi of Harmonix Reimyo (Japan)
Junji Kimura of 47 Lab (Japan)

André Calmettes of Jadis (France)

as i was writing, i felt like i was taking a test of my knowledge of audio gear, which i have spent hundreds of hours learning in the past 2 years into this hobby. i just realized that i have never spent so much time and effort learning anything else (besides going through high school and college) ^ o ^

but i still think i am a newbie!

Michael Elliot at altavistaaudio,real good,Bob

Excellent responses, guys. By "etc." I in addition meant, of course, people like Nelson Pass, etc. Unfortunately, Karsten, Weisfield, both Mike Sanders, Rowland, etc. have all been around for more than 20 years. I think Go and Dan Wright might be good examples but only because I've seen their pics in the last couple years - they look more than a bit younger than me! Can't speak for the rest of those mentioned but I'll check their websites. Just for curiosity's sake!