I am sad to write to write about a dear friend Max Townshend who left this world yesterday at the age of 78, I spoke with his wife and daughter Harriot this morning and encouraged me to write a few words. I first knew off Max over 40 years ago, when my father owned a Cranfield Rock, I first met max when i was 10 years old and was using a Rock (one of my dads) from this age. Over the years we developed a strong friendship. His sheer dedication and passion and knowledge of engineering and production was truly breathtaking. Townshend was set up in 1975 in Sydney. Max came to England in 1978 and launched the parabolic stylus and then met professorJack Dinsdale at an early Penta show, max understood that Professor dinsdales approach was truly unique, and decided to make the approach widely available this was the beginning on what became a truly iconic turntable. The majority of rock turntables were manufactured in Walton upon thames in the uk and with the launch of the Rock reference max had moved operations to Malta and for a three years he moved to Texas. The Rock reference had many wonderful reviews with the likes of REG from absolute sounds using it as his reference turntable together with John Bamford of Hifi answers together with many others. Max was a remarkable individual who really believed in his approaches and what could be achieved and provided a huge amount of enjoyment to thousands of Rock owners over the world especially with the Elite rock. Max went through the audio chain producing Speakers, amplification, cables and off course his well respected isolation systems. I spent many hours listening to his ground up systems always being more than impressed. The most impressive speaker he produced with the late John Bamford was the Sir Galahad a truly spectacular line source design this never went into commercial production.It was quite an experience no doubt listening to them at John's house in his basement listening room with the Rock Reference at the front end.
Max was a friend to me and we had many hours of interesting conversations on analogue replay, and came to my wedding over 15 years ago. In 2007 Max introduced the Rock V after many years of not making turntables I actually received an early sample on the day of my wedding max had the turntable in the car, later he introduced a simplified turntable the rock 7 which meant he could manufacture the rock again at a more reasonable cost still with all the wonderful merits. I will say it there was only one Max Townshend a true legend and a contributed vastly to our industry in his 78 years on this planet he was born in 1943 in Australia. He leaves behind his dear wife sue and his three daughters and grand child. and will be missed by many I will most certainly miss Max end of and era for many. It shows us life is so precious and the importance of valuing each other.