News

Rest in Peace, Roger Modjeski

Michael Fremer  |  Dec 16, 2019

Roger Modjeski passed away December 11th 2019 at age 68 after a year long battle with cancer. He was a brilliant audio engineer who, after working at IBM and teaching at Stanford, joined Harold Beveridge in Santa Barbara, CA where he worked on that designer's electrostatic loudspeakers before becoming a reluctant manufacturer whose no-nonsense products have stood the test of time. He favored teaching and mentoring to manufacturing but managed to do both very well.

When the San Francisco Audiophile Society asked me to write something the other day I submitted this:
"I knew Roger for many years, at first only through phone calls and emails. I was fortunate to have met him years later through the San Francisco Audiophile Society and so happy to have shared that time with him. He was always a reluctant manufacturer, as I point out in my review of the RM200 MKII that I own and use as a tube reference, but so generous with his time and knowledge.

" Not surprisingly, the amp measures as well as it sounds, or as John Atkinson concluded: 'As did the original version of the Music Reference RM-200 amplifier, the Mk.II edition offers superb measured performance for a tubed design, particularly in terms of midband distortion and the ability to drive low impedances. And I remain impressed by the quality of its output transformers.' We all knew he had a terminal illness and he talked about it with me when I last visited in the fall. I just didn’t think he’d pass this quickly. He will be missed by all. What a lovely man."

COMMENTS
swimming1's picture
Submitted by swimming1 on Wed, 2019-12-18 09:59

What in the world is going on????The best and the brightest leave us too soon and look around what remains. I owned an RM 200 until I needed money for my kids college tuitions and still use the RM-5 MK 2 as my pre amp -one word for both -SWEET. Sad ...will be missed! But the mellifluous sounds will remind us of RAM every day! Chet

39goose's picture
Submitted by 39goose on Thu, 2019-12-19 08:19

Roger built me a custom pair of Mono-Block Amplifiers in 1995. ( essentially 2 each RM-9 Mk. II's hard-wired for Mono. ) 25 years of bullet-proof, powerful, and terrific sound. Svetlana "Winged C" El-34's and NOS Amperex 6922's. All my equipment has been upgraded, Clearaudio Stradivari V2, Kuzma 11" 4-Point, SOTA Millennium, Audible Illusions new M3B, Soundlab Majestic 945,s Tara labs cabling. I STILL don't feel I need to Upgrade from Rogers amps. A REAL classic by any standard.
Glad I got to speak with him last year.......he liked my story.
Rest In Piece Old Friend.

s_greeneanalog's picture
Submitted by s_greeneanalog on Thu, 2019-12-19 11:50

I met Roger back in 1977 when he was the co-owner of a retail hi fi shop, Audio Art, located in the historic Churchill section of Richmond, Virginia. Roger was preparing for his move to CA to design the crossover for Harold Beveridge's new speaker. I had just been transferred to Richmond by my employer, US Pioneer. Roger was always very friendly, down to earth and cordial and, in fact, bought a Series 20 D-23 Crossover network from us which he later said had helped save him some time while working on the Beveridge project. So very sorry to hear of his illness and passing. He was such a nice person with no big ego or attitude despite his success and accomplishments. He will be missed.

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