A person I would like to thank/mention in the history of the high end,

Neville Thiele and Richard Small who changed speaker design from guessing to a science and vastly moved development forward and made it more accessible.

Cutler (Bell Labs) who pulled together many of the concepts necessary for sigma Delta ADC and DACs including noise shaping which eventually lead to the far better studio ADCs (and most DACs made today).

Toole for relentless pursuit of what really matters in speakers and has likely influenced most modern speaker designers.

John Mullin who took German WW2 basic magnetic tape technology and "perfected" it to create a giant leap forward in audio recording capability.

Dolby for professional noise reduction.

Nobu Shishido of Wavac

Frank McIntosh and Paul Klipsch.

I believe Frank built the foundation for the company that exists today with his name.  So many of the early audio pioneers built such great companies, but Frank's is one that seems to have kept its place in the industry as time marched on.

I met Paul in 1979 when he visited the audio store I was working at, I found him to be a very "down to earth" person.

J. Gordon Holt.

Henry Kloss whose Model 11 got me into the whole thing years ago.
John Curl for wonderful Parasound equipment.
And Nelson Pass whose equipment I own and enjoy now.