PAUL MESSENGER (1949–2024)
Stereophile Staff
As last month’s issue went to press, we learned the sad news that longtime Stereophile contributing editor Paul Messenger had died after a long illness. Messenger also wrote for and edited Stereophile sibling publications Hi-Fi News and Hi-Fi Choice and for Martin Colloms’s HiFiCritic, among others. He was Stereophile’s UK correspondent for the Industry Update section from 1998 until his death on March 6, 2024; in that role, he eulogized in these pages many important figures in British and European hi-fi including Dieter Burmester, Audio Research’s William Zane Johnson, Naim’s Julian Vereker, and John Wright, who developed the first commercial transmission-line loudspeakers.
While serving as editor, Messenger hired John Atkinson at Hi-Fi News, in 1976, setting JA’s career on its course and indirectly impacting the future success of Stereophile.
Much loved, with a disarming smile and a captivating twinkle in his eye, Paul was generous of spirit and thought. With a gift for expressive reporting, he was a prodigious audio-review journalist and editor. Creating his best output in the early hours, he generally could not be roused before 11am and then only after an outstanding coffee made with his pioneering imported continental apparatus. He would dance the night away at gigs and parties with his wife, Pam. He had a fondness for race-tuned Jaguars, often acquiring those discarded by Naim boss Julian Vereker when he replaced his own customized versions.
When, in 2007, Colloms invited Messenger to become editor of HiFiCritic, Paul sent a short biography for the masthead, quoted here with permission.
“Born in 1949, I grew up in a household that had very little interest in music or its reproduction, though a maiden aunt played piano and organ and also gave piano lessons. While that suggests there must have been some musical genes in the family, I proved a thoroughly inept pupil.
“Attending boarding school exposed me to music of all kinds, and by the time I reached my teens, I had decided my musical instruments would be the radio, record player, and tape recorder instead. My passion for music and its reproduction continued to grow over the next decade, stimulated by the acquisition, through a
