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Top Audio Designers Of All Time?

We have all had fun and world of info have spilled forth from Audiogon members. Lets give ourselves a round of applause. From me a sincere "Well Done" to all members that have participated. I have learned a great deal. In this thread,which may be a little esoteric for some,lets hear from members that support certain designers. After all if not for their dedication and genius,we would not have the topic or equipment. Ill start the thread for the inventor Thomas Alva Edison.For it was his revolution,that we now find ourselves here. In the more contemporary era I vote for Nelson Pass. His white paper on Cascode/Stasis toplogy was and is truly ground breaking. In my opinion since 1975,other designs are a variation on a theme of Pass.
ferrari
tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
Can't single out one but they include several already mentioned - William Z. Johnson who was directly responsible for the rennissance of tube gear in the early 70's; Saul Marantz, one of the great pioneers of quality audio gear and certainly Nelson Pass for the best solid state designs I am aware of. I would also concur with some of the pioneers mentioned above.
john_l
782 posts
 
Pass - for elegant and impossibly simple designs, Conrad-Johnson for directively building lush sounding components, Johnson (audio research) for building the most natural sounding high resolution amps I've heard, Vandersteen for building affordable speakers (and keeping it that way), McCormack for an inspired design that he chose to keep affordable, Fisher for building wonderful tube electronics back in the 60's, Winey for spending years refining and finally perfecting (just about!) the magneplanar speaker. I have to stop! Too many great people! We also need to remember their dedicated staff engineers who have done much of the work too.
brulee
564 posts
 
Dr West of sound lab. Mrs West of sound lab
jasman8ad3
8 posts
 
I tip my hat to Nelson Pass, some of the best solid state made!
whatjd
1,139 posts
 
I am in firm agreement on all of the above,...Bravo to them all! I would add two gentleman that greatly helped a generation, or two, of us to get into this adventure. First Mr. Henry Kloss. From AR and KLH to Advent...and esp. the large Advent he opened thousands of ears to the world of more accurate sounding hifi. Second would be Jon Dahlquist. I am not sure if the Wilsons, Thiels and many others would be where they are without the pioneering efforts of Mr. Dahlquist. Of course Harold Scott, Avery Fisher, Saul Marantz and others paved the way for many. However if there were a gun to my head and the person said "name one", it would be Henry Kloss. Myself and four of my closest audio friends all got our start with either single or double large Advents. Bravo to you Mr. Kloss....I kinda think you may have had a bit of impact on the world of big TV's as well....aka: Videobeam. (again Ferrari, great thread.... thanks!)
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