I am extremely pleased the Amity, Raven, and Karna designs are having their public debut. The only people who have heard them before were very adventurous DIY builders, but now, thanks to Don and the team at Spatial Audio, we are moving steadily towards production. Don has taken the amplifiers a long way on his own initiative, and it’s been a lot of fun having him as a collaborator.
I look forward to seeing you all at the show, and even more collaborations and products in the future.
People ask me about a phono preamp. Well, no. That’s an entirely different set of skills.
Speakers? My neighbor here in Colorado, Thom Mackris of Galibier Designs (turntables), and myself are completing a high-efficiency large-format 2-way loudspeaker loosely based on the Altec Valencia and Model 19. Will it be manufactured by anyone? I have no idea.
I have a friend in the UK who has built an SQ quadraphonic decoder based on my Shadow Vector patent (1975), except realized in software and with 8 spectral bands operating in parallel. It would be a real blast from the past to hear that again ... I lost track of the handbuilt Audionics prototype in 1976.
I occasionally fantasize about a quadraphonic system using Shadow Vector, a quadraphonic Raven, and four Karna triode amplifiers powering four of my speakers. That would be fun, with sound probably much like Todd-AO 70mm movie theaters from the early Sixties.
It’s been a fun journey. A summer job at NASA in 1969, during the Apollo 11 mission, running 16mm sound projectors, the Altec sound system, and working in the darkroom. Inventing Shadow Vector, which got me the job at Audionics. Going to the UK and meeting the BBC quadraphonic team and Laurie Fincham at KEF. Building the Shadow Vector prototype and designing several speakers at Audionics. Working at Tektronix as a tech writer in the Spectrum Analyzer division, and meeting Rich Cabot, who would go on to found Audio Precision. Landing on my feet after the 1988 mass layoffs and becoming a tech writer and editor for several magazines, designing the Ariel speaker, Amity amplifier, Raven preamp, and Karna amplifier. Moving to Colorado after thirty years in the Northwest, and meeting Thom Mackris, who is my neighbor only a couple miles away.