By far one of my favorite designers passed away January 10th. Through my earlier years interested in audio I had a tendency to follow designers more so than brand names. I have always preferred tubes to solid state, the notable exception being James Bongiorno's designs. From his earliest work with Marantz and Dynaco to his very last Ampzilla offerings,he was one of the most talented amp designers known to the industry. Even his earliest solid state stuff sounded good!
The Dynaco Stereo 400 -one of the first and best high powered amps in its day.
He was one of the chief designers for SAE (see my entry on SAE in my earlier posts), the MK III C/ CM was one of his most popular designs at the time.
The Ampzilla- One of the first products from a company GAS (Great American Sound) that was owned by Jim himself. Famous for putting some fun and humor in HiFi.
This later spawned more products- Son of Ampzilla, Grandson, 100 and 50 watts respectively. The Sleeping Beauty phono cartridge (which I still use, see my earlier posts), Thoebe and Thalia preamps, and other cool and fun american made products.
After GAS came Sumo, with models like the Andromeda, Polaris, and Charlie the Tuner. The fun continued.
Jim's last company, Spread Spectrum Technologies saw the reissue of the Ampzilla moniker- the Ampzilla 2000, a two kilowatt beast that revolutionized the audio world once again.
Jim will be sadly missed by the industry, keep these pictures in your mind the next time you walk through your local Best Buy. HiFi just doesn't look or sound like this there!
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