2024 marks the 50th year of existence for PS Audio. Fifty years of designing, building, and servicing our HiFi Family.
Just writing those words seems strange enough....fifty years since Stan and I started building our little phono preamplifier. Just the two of us—soon to be three—when Bill Abplanalp joined the team.
In those days, back in 1974, Stan and I were renting space from a Santa Maria, California company called AV Alarm. They made loud sonic bird frightening devices (for which I was the repair tech in trade for our rent).
Bill was AV Alarm's foreman in charge of everything required to make enough irritating noise to frighten away birds, from speaker building to shipping finished goods out the door. He was getting tired of AV Alarm products and chose instead to join our little iffy duo to make it a three-some.
Bill's been with us ever since. He's held just about every position possible in the company, from production manager to industrial designer.
Here's a picture of Bill and team member number two, Lowell, dip soldering a preamp board (mind the fingers, Lowell!).
And here is a photo of Bill holding our newest preamp of the day, the PSIV.
Yesterday was Bill's last day at PS Audio. He had always said when he turned 80 years old he was done.
What a long and wonderful run from our friend, our colleague, and the first to join the PS team.
We'll miss you, Billy. Have fun!
