In December 2023, I took the train from New York to Los Angeles to attend the Los Angeles & Orange County Audiophile Society’s 30th annual Gala. I took the trip because it is both stimulating and satisfying to spend an afternoon in the company of more than 200 audiophiles and music lovers; I also wanted to see John Curl presented with the Society’s fourth Innovation Award, by George and Carolyn Counnas of Zesto. John was given the award “for his groundbreaking contributions to the field of solid-state audio amplifiers, circuit innovation, mastering recorders and much more.”
I first met John more than 40 years ago, at a Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, where I was blown away by John’s intuitive and innovative approach to circuit design. As J. Gordon Holt wrote in his 1988 review of John’s Vendetta phono preamplifier,1 “In the pursuit of audio perfection, Curl little comprehends the meaning of ‘compromise.’ His designs tend to be truly no-holds-barred, using the best components money can buy to produce the best sound and highest reliability the state of the art allows.”
Along with Nelson Pass, Keith Johnson, Dan D’Agostino, and Bob Cordell, all of whom are still with us, and Charley Hansen, Bascom King, and James Bongiorno, who have passed on, John is up there in the pantheon of American designers of solid state amplification products.
After working on video recorder design at Ampex, John Curl designed and built the sound systems for The Grateful Dead’s road shows, then designed the legendary Mark Levinson JC-2 preamplifier and the electronics for David Wilson’s UltraMaster tape recorder. John Curl met Parasound founder Richard Schram in 1989, and since then Curl has designed all of the Bay Area company’s high-power amplifiers as well as consulting on the design of the low-level circuits of many of the company’s other components. I enjoyed a beer with John in the Buena Park Hilton’s bar after the Gala. I also chatted with Parasound’s new owner, David Sheriff, who had acquired the company in December 2022 following
