I know BIF, Roger doesn’t look any different than a regular guy, but damn! It’s humbling to listen to him talk about amplifier design; I wonder how anyone can have so much knowledge in a normal-sized head. I talked to Bill Johnson a few times, and to Tim de Paravicini (EAR-Yoshino), David Manley, Keith Herron, Ralph Karsten, Frank Van Alstine, Max Townshend, and numerous other really good Hi-Fi engineers. They are all very interesting of course, but I have the distinct impression that Roger Modjeski understands amplifier design as well as any human in history. That he and his products aren’t more well known and widely owned actually doesn’t surprise me any more than the fact that most of my favorite music is made by artists known to only the hardest-core music lovers, like we here on AudiogoN.
The late Brooks Berdan was my Hi-Fi dealer for many years. He sold me Hi-Fi, I sold him vintage drums. He was a Music Reference dealer, and loved Roger and his amps. He told me his wealthier clients would pass up MR products because they didn’t cost enough (no bragging rights), or weren’t being reviewed or talked about enough in TAS and Stereophile, didn’t have the High End cashe’ of ARC, VTL, Jadis (Brooks sold a lot of Jadis), etc. Brooks had a LOT of used ARC amps in his pre-owned racks, their owners tired of the breakdowns, repairs, frequent tube replacement, updates, etc. His tech Tom Carione showed me all the burned circuit boards in the ARC amps he had repaired every time a tube blew. He had never seen a Music Reference amp come back for repairs---never. That’s my kinda amp!---Eric.
