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The Best Audio Engineers

I guess I've jumped on those two because I cannot see how they have advanced audio replay, in fact I feel they acheived quite the opposite in the UK. I would categorise both of them as wonderful marketing gurus - not as significant audio engineers. Both took existing designs and built them to a higher standard. To my knowledge, no one has taken their work and used it as the basis for their designs since which suggests to me that others found better solutions. Happy to be proved wrong on that one though.

My personal belief is that their marketing alliance set the UK hifi industry back in relation to the rest of the world. We are only now coming out of the dark ages but, just like the British car industry, our audio companies are fighting a rear guard action against the might of global competition. To believe we still lead the world is simply nostalgia I'm afraid, as my recent trip to Tokyo demonstrated all to clearly. Rant over!
 
ivor was certainly a pioneer and innovator, the idea that the front end comes first flew in the face of accepted theory and ivor had to fight very ingrained and established ideas.

that said compared to my first vote (les paul) and the likes of alan blumlein he does pale in to insignificance.

that said the true pioneers of audio did their work when there was much still to be discovered. These days it seems that most roads have already been well trodden.
 
Nobody did it all on their own. The successful ones all had a group of talented people helping to get them there. Sometimes the background people actually did all the work. Take the case of Mr. Yves Bernard Andre of YBA. He claims to have designed everything the company has ever produced, but people behind the scenes will tell you differently. Apparently he has designed precious little, but is a control freak and won't give any credit to any of his (ex) staff, most of whom have left to start other companies like Audiomat, Vecteur, and a few others.
 
"how have their acheivments shaped competitor's products over the past quarter of a century?"

Ask Les. Who'd have cared about a application-book circuit, as some might put it, if someone couldn't coax something extraordinary out of it...?
 
Why haven’t anybody mentioned Stig Carlsson?
His ortho-acoustic speakers (example OA50, 51 and 52) must render a place on this thread. :)
 
John Curl.

Engineer. Designer of the Mark Levinson ML2 and JC1-AC, that's maybe why the JC1 is called JC1 :) Tom Colangelo modified John's designed, so the names changed from JC to ML1. John Curl designed for Levinson, Dennisen, Parasound & others. Take a look at his bio.

http://www.marklev.com/history/CURL_BIO.jpg

He owns the US patent US4035737: Low noise amplifier

Now at Parasound.

He was the man that Bob (now Robert) Stuart told me in 1976 was one of the few audio engineers that he true admired and respected.
 
A vote for Richard Shahinian. Musician and phisisc, who designed the legendary Harman Citation speaker and later he was the founder of the Shahinian Acoustics.
One of the greatest designer of the audio history!
 
Paul Klipsch - inventor of the corner horn and basically efficient speakers.

The KlipschHorn is actually the oldest speaker in production - its first iteration was, I think, in 1949 give or take a couple of years.

The Heresy - which is being discussed in another part of this forum was developed a couple of years later - originally as a centre channel between a stereo pair.

You could, therefore add the idea of surround sound to his many achievements - in 1951!!!

Also invented a little button with "BullShit" written on it - gotta like a man that thinks like that.

"what this country needs is a good 5 watt amp."

A famous paraphrase of the old 5 cent cigar line - and a marvelous marketing device.
 
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I vote for the Baron,Tim de Paravicini.An allround genius involved in audio research and design. The " balanced bridge mode " and the " enhanced triode
mode " circuits are just two of a host of innovative ideas attributed to him ! His EAR products are truly original and are proof his theories !!
 
The Heresy - which is being discussed in another part of this forum was developed a couple of years later - originally as a centre channel between a stereo pair.
Click to expand...

I have understood that very many "Heresy" where sold to American churches!

The original Klipchorns is one of the speakers I would buy if I was filthy rich.

JohanR
 
Linnik said:
His name was Tapio M. Köykkä. This man invented (I cannot translate this word correctly!) the counterphaseamplifier (please correct!) in 1953 which was later applied throughout the world. Electro-Voice was the first asking for a licence and Westinghouse invited the man to work with them in U.S. with no success.

Mr. Köykkä also used a specific amp design curing transient distortion from 1955 (no feedback over many amp stages) and he wrote an article about the crucial transient distortion in 1969 taking heavy critics from scientific engineers as the idea was against the accepted dogms.

Oz
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This tube amplifier invented by mr. Köykkä is called in english PPP or parallel-push-pull amplifier, which is completely different than normal push-pull amplifier made by electron tubes.

The circuit schematic principle is also called circlotron in which you can find more information here:

http://circlotron.tripod.com/

Please notice also that in this page you can find original finnish patents made by mr. Köykkä in the middle of 1950's. Also in this page you can find original schematics from Electro-Voice which is not same like the original VOIMA PPP tube amplifiers, because Electro Voice used global 'long' negative feedback which was not used in mr. Köykkä's amplifiers.
 
Thanks very much Yrjomaki for your correcting the word! I did not know what to use but much later and did not go back and fill it in.

Now it's done. Perhaps I should go and correct it..

So, Mr. Köykkä handled the TIM distorsion already in the mid-50's by shortening the global feedback.

Oz
 
Linnik said:
So, Mr. Köykkä handled the TIM distorsion already in the mid-50's by shortening the global feedback.

Oz
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Yes. This is interesting. You can just imagine how difficult it was on those times to find something so difficult distortion mechanism in tube amplifiers. Without any computers or measuring instruments what we can use today.
 
I'm going to suggest Denis Morecroft - his approach is certainly unique and the sound of his products is generally at the cutting edge of amp designs (not to mention the weird and wacky design).
 
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