Floorstanding Loudspeakers

Peter Snell, president of Snell Acoustics, died Thursday, September 20, 1984 from a heart attack. He was 38 years old and lived in Merrimac, Massachusetts.

Peter Snell, born in 1946 in Bar Harbor, Maine, graduated in 1969 from Marlboro College with a BS in physics. He did graduate work at Brown University before joining EPI in 1970 as a principal engineer. There he was responsible for production and new product development. He left EPI in 1974 to devote himself to the development of the Type A loudspeaker. In 1976, he began Snell Acoustics on Prince Street in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The company remained there and flourished until the move to larger factory space in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1982. Snell had just completed the research development and production procedures for the Snell Type A/III loudspeaker, reviewed elsewhere in this issue.

Mr. Snell is survived by his father, Dr. George Snell, who shared the Nobel prize for medicine in 1982, his mother Rhoda Snell, and his brothers, Roy and Tom. On Thursday, September 27, 1984 the board of directors voted to continue Snell Acoustic Incorporated under the leadership of Dr. William Osgood, who will serve as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Osgood served as treasurer and senior vice president for the past two and one half years.

Peter Snell was a tall, thin man with classic features, blue eyes, and blond hair. When I first met him in 1978, he wore his hair long, neatly tied in a short pony tail. He liked vans, big dogs, and long listening sessions. He was soft spoken, but very enthusiastic and verbal about his love for natural sounding analog records and loudspeakers.

He visited my listening room on four occasions during the review of the Type A speaker. He always arrived with a van packed with audio gear an extra set of Type A speakers, his ARC SP 6B preamp, Sony turntable, Haitian cotton sound panels, and a set of favorite records and CDs. Each time the listening session took hours, and he ended up staying in the family's guest room. He got to know my children, who found him very easy to talk to. Even though he was devoted to audio, he enjoyed people and loved animals. He loved to "jazz up" my family's large, black Labrador, who would run circles round him in the listening room. He was a warm, easy person and a good friend. I shall miss him.—Larry Greenhill