Back in the 1980s, when Infinity founder Arnie Nudell had lived in a beautiful home high atop the barren California hills just outside of Los Angeles, reluctant medical doctor—and excited audio designer—Bob Odell and I said our goodbyes after an evening of drinks, music, and HiFi listening on Arnie's Infinity IRS system.
We made a date to meet back in PS Audio territory in a few weeks for an amplifier shoot out. Bob had spent years working on his project of a state-of-the-art solid state 200 watt per channel power amplifier, and he would be traveling the 200 miles between his Pasadena, California home and ours in the hills of Atascadero.
In those days we had no reference system at PS Audio's San Luis Obispo facility. Instead, any design and evaluation work was done at either my home or the home of our production manager, and a part owner in the company, Rick Cullen. Rick had the better of our two systems—a pair of Infinity RS1B 4-piece speaker setup with a SOTA turntable and the latest, greatest PS Audio electronics.
The deal was a simple one. Rick and I had been working on a new amplifier design that would replace the aging PS Audio 2C Plus power amplifier. It was a major step up from the existing amplifier which was no slouch in the first place. Bob would participate in an all day ampathon shoot out. His design versus our design.
The winner would become the next PS Audio product.*
*As well, Bob wanted to join PS Audio as an investor and a designer. He was a very gifted engineer who had designed a few of the better sounding Harmon Kardon amplifiers but after that gig had ended, he had no outlet for his design thirst. Buying a piece of PS Audio would solve that.
Bob would have to prove himself and no better way than to simply compare the best of his work with that of our own.
Came the big day, Rick and I welcomed Bob to Rick's home in Atascadero. Bob was clearly nervous. I noticed him trying his best to quiet his hands from trembling as he lifted out his prototype beast. This was a big deal and the stakes were high.
We spent the morning listening to Rick's system and letting Bob adjust to the sound so he was familiar with what it did and did not do. Rick's system was quite good though it was not optimized for reference listening in the same way one might imagine having in a reference room. Instead, Rick's system shared the family living room with two small boys, a dog, and his wife Chris.
A problem not unfamiliar to anyone reading this blog post.
After lunch out on Rick's little deck overlooking the Paso Robles oaks that proliferated in our town, we went back to work and let Bob connect his amp (we had already measured and then gain adjusted the system so the total amplitude matched).
It didn't take more than a few notes of music before Rick and I looked at each other with a big smile.
