Interviews

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Interviews
Gordon Rankin, Wavelength's Single-Ended Man
Jonathan Scull  |  Apr 04, 2004  |  First Published: Jan 01, 1996  | 
Jonathan Scull: Gordon, please tell us what you see as the basic difference between single-ended and push-pull.
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Interviews
BATmen: Victor Khomenko & Steve Bednarski
Robert Deutsch  |  Dec 02, 1995  | 
Victor Khomenko, the "VK" of Balanced Audio Technology's VK-5 preamp and VK-60 amplifier, was born in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), and grew up two blocks from the Svetlana tube factory. He attended the prestigious Leningrad Polytechnic Institute and received an M.S. in physics and electronics, specializing in electronic emissions. He spent his early working life in the Russian electronics industry, then emigrated to the US in 1979—with $400, a family, no home, and no job.
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Interviews
David Wilson: Speaking the Same Language
Wes Phillips  |  Nov 23, 1995  | 
Wes Phillips: How did you come to design the WATT—and the Puppy?
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Interviews
Rolf Gemein: the Heart of the Matter
Jonathan Scull  |  Aug 16, 2013  |  First Published: Nov 01, 1995  | 
I'm not sure why, but people tell me things. Maybe it's because they realize I listen. They reveal themselves, sometimes in charming and unexpected ways. So I was almost prepared for my three-way conference call with the designer of the Symphonic Line Kraft 400 power amplifier, Rolf Gemein, in Germany and Indianapolis-based importer/distributor Klaus Bunge. I started by asking Rolf about his design philosophy . . .
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Interviews
Ted Denney's Excellent Adventure
Jonathan Scull  |  Sep 05, 2013  |  First Published: Nov 01, 1995  | 
Ted Denney at the 2003 CES. (Photo: John Atkinson)

As I had been impressed with Ted Denney's Synergistic Research cable, I thought that asking him for 25,000 words on his thoughts on cable design and performance would be an appropriate accompaniment to my Symphonic Line Kraft 400 amplifier review.

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Interviews
The Single-Ended Amplifier: Cary's Dennis Had
Robert Harley  |  Sep 26, 1995  | 
Cary Audio Design founder Dennis Had is largely responsible for popularizing single-ended amplifiers in America. Since appearing on the scene in 1989, Cary Audio Design has forged its own niche in the high-end audio industry. I spoke with Dennis Had about how he got started building amplifiers, and why he's so committed to single-ended triode designs.
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HDCD: Keith Johnson, Pflash Pflaumer, Michael Ritter
Robert Harley  |  Jul 10, 2018  |  First Published: May 01, 1995  | 
The men behind HDCD (L–R: Pflash Pflaumer, Michael Ritter, Keith Johnson

High Definition Compatible Digital® (HDCD®), the proprietary process for improving the sound of 16-bit digital audio, has finally arrived. More than a dozen digital processors using the technology are on the market, and the professional encoder used to master HDCD discs is following closely behind.

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Interviews
John Ulrick
John Atkinson  |  Jun 09, 2015  |  First Published: Jan 01, 1995  | 
It was with regret that I heard John Ulrick had passed away on May 20, 2015 due to complications from cancer. With Arnie Nudell and Cary Christie, John was one of the founders of loudspeaker manufacturer Infinity, a company that, with Audio Research, Magnepan, Mark Levinson, and Threshold, epitomized the nascent High End that emerged in the early 1970s. After leaving Infinity, John Ulrick started Spectron, to manufacture class-D amplifiers.

Just by chance, I met with the John Ulrick, in Los Angeles in late 1987, when he was doing some design consultancy on a switch-mode power amplifier to be used with the Sumo Samson subwoofer. As I had my Walkman Pro with me, I took the opportunity to tape some background from John about the birth of Infinity and about switching/pulse-width-modulated/class-D amplifiers—boy, can this man talk about switching amplifiers! The natural kickoff question was, How did Infinity get going?

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Interviews
Cary Christie: from Infinity to Artison
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 16, 2015  |  First Published: Jan 01, 1995  | 
95christie.250.jpgWhen Cary Christie, Arnie Nudell, and John Ulrick founded Infinity Systems more than 25 years ago, high-end audio as we know it today didn't exist. Hi-fi was audio, though the reverse wasn't necessarily true.

Through the growth years, Infinity became a major force in the High End. Cary Christie is the only one of the original players still associated with Infinity in 1995, now part of Harman International. His relationship, however, is now as an independent designer and consultant with Christie Designs, Inc. (footnote 1). I corralled him by phone on a clear fall day in Santa Fe, and a snowy one at his home near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. I asked him how Infinity had started.

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Interviews
Arnie Nudell: From Infinity to Genesis
Robert Harley  |  Aug 24, 2015  |  First Published: Jan 01, 1995  | 
Arnie Nudell is one of a handful of designers who could justifiably be called founding members of the high-end audio industry. With Cary Christie, and John Ulrick, Arnie co-founded Infinity in his garage in 1968 and recently joined forces with Paul McGowan, the co-founder of PS Audio, to create Genesis Technologies, the Colorado-based company formed to build ultra–high-end loudspeaker systems.

I visited the Genesis factory in September 1994 and spent some time with Arnie and Paul discussing loudspeaker and amplifier design, and high-quality music reproduction. I asked Arnie how he became involved in high-end audio.

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Interviews
A Wee Dram of Scotch: Linn Products' Ivor Tiefenbrun
John Atkinson  |  Oct 25, 1994  | 
More than 20 years ago, when the turntable was considered a perfectly neutral component in the playback chain, Ivor Tiefenbrun single-handedly demonstrated to the world that the turntable was not only an important part of a hi-fi system, but perhaps the most important part. That radical idea was the basis for the legendary Linn Sondek LP12 turntable, the product that launched Linn, and which is still in production 22 years later.
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Interviews
William Z. Johnson of Audio Research: High Definition
Robert Harley  |  Jan 03, 2008  |  First Published: Aug 03, 1994  | 
"You've set the audio industry back 20 years!"
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Interviews
John Tchilinguirian: Energetic Speakers
Robert Deutsch  |  Jun 07, 1994  | 
Canadian speakers from such companies as Mirage, PSB, and Paradigm have acquired international reputations for offering good sound at more-than-competitive prices. The latest Canadian speaker manufacturer to hit the big time might well be Energy, which has actually been around for about 15 years, but has only recently introduced a flagship speaker. Energy's $6000/pair Veritas v2.8 earned Tom Norton's commendation for having produced one of the best sounds at the 1993 Las Vegas WCES. [TJN's review appears in this issue.—Ed.]
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Interviews
Ed Meitner: Audio Maverick
Robert Harley  |  Apr 27, 2012  |  First Published: Mar 01, 1993  | 
Ed Meitner is one of those rare individuals who charts his own course in audio product design. From his platterless turntable of the mid-1980s to his new Intelligent Digital Audio Translator (IDAT, reviewed elsewhere in this issue), Ed Meitner's products have been distinguished by original thinking and innovative engineering. Although not all his designs have been commercially successful, in each he has attempted to advance the state of the art by rethinking fundamental principles.

Ed is also pursuing an ambitious project that would radically change the way recordings are made. It began when he recorded an electric guitar through a 10" guitar-amp loudspeaker and was dismayed that it was impossible to even come close to capturing and realistically reproducing this apparently simple sound through another 10" speaker. This experience launched his investigation into why reproduced sound is never mistaken for live music, a quest that may result in a radically new recording technique.

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Interviews
Mike Moffat: Re-Creating the Musical Event
Robert Harley  |  Jun 13, 2019  |  First Published: Oct 01, 1992  | 
His background may have been in tubed audio product design, but Theta Digital's Mike Moffat is now at the forefront of computer-based digital processor development. His Theta D/A processors are among a handful of products that use Digital Signal Processing (DSP) chips and custom filtering software instead of off-the-shelf filter chips (footnote 1). I recently visited Mike at the Theta factory to get his current ideas on digital audio reproduction and what goes into designing a good-sounding processor. I began by asking Mike if he had always been an audiophile.
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