Roger Alan Modjeski (RAM) 1951 - 2019

Thank you @bdp24 for providing that information. While we mourn the loss of our founder and friend I will only add at this time Roger did make plans for the future of Music Reference/RAM Tubes. For now, tube sales will continue as normal and can be ordered via the Tube Audio Store website. Prior to his death Roger identified a couple additional vendors to provide service while the company transitioned. He settled on the following:

Scott Frankland Associates in San Jose, CA
Audio Classics in Vestal, NY

Scott has already been performing service work for us and has all relevant schematics and access to parts to do repairs. Audio Classics was referred to Roger by one of his loyal customers who lives in the area. They are quite a busy shop and as such you can expect a lengthy wait time, but Roger was very pleased with how they run their operation and the level of expertise their techs have.

As mentioned Tom at Brooks Berdan performs repair work in an expert and timely manner. We refer most of our SoCal customers there. Roger and Brooks were very good friends and both Sheila and Brian Berdan were shocked and saddened at the news of Roger's passing.

@high mu , Eric and Cleo thanks so much for the heartfelt posts, Roger helped me select study books and test equipment and I regret not attending a Burning Amp he participated in...

good to know RAM will continue!!!

Clio can you post up some of Rogers fave music, I would like to remember him by playing it....

@tomic601 for his service Roger specifically requested Lyle Lovett and Linda Ronstadt songs be performed. He was also a big fan of Billie Holliday, Willie Neslon, Emmy Lou Harris, and Keith Jarrett. He also listened to classical programming on KQED while working.

Here is an interesting story. Roger receives a call from someone who asks him why he made the fuses so hard to access on the RM-9 MkI. Turns out this guy had a couple of them and he had to change the fuse in one and found it to be a pain to have to remove the bottom plate to do so. During the conversation it turns out that it was Keith Jarrett who owned the amps and per Roger he was the influence behind the decision to mount the fuses on the top plate in the MkII edition of the amp.

Shocked and very saddened to hear of his passing. We were only chatting a few weeks ago but he didn’t mention anything amiss. I’ve known Roger since about 1991 and he has been an inspiration to me ever since. We were always chatting about things like EL84 loadlines, coupling capacitor charge pumping, a good current to run a 6dj8, EI vs toroidal (‘Ugh!’) output transformers, biasing, even automatic biasing, jfet and bipolar linearity, tube noise, etc etc! Having stayed at his in Santa Barbara way back then it was fun to have been driven around in the Jensen Healey and come back to be educated about the tempered tuning of pianos. We had a very close friendship, almost a relationship. He was always keeping an eye on the stock market on a tiny B&W TV. One day we were chatting and he had just received boards for the then new RM200. I sat and looked at it. LM394s for the input stage?, I said, dismayed. He was shocked and a little awed I had worked out the circuit from looking at the unmade circuit board. From then on he didn’t hold back from the engineering aspect of our discussions. Why use heated jfets? he said. One of many discussions about MC headamps. Another... ‘But that’s too much power for the screen grid!’ he retorted, disappointed that I’d neglected to work it out, unfolding a well worn chart of curves for the EL34 he’d made on his computerized valve tester, all written in Basic language. Another year, we went to Borders in SB where he gleefully pulled out a Class A review from Stereophile for the RM200. ‘Yessss!!’, he jolted excitedly. It really meant a lot to him, to be validated for all the hard work that went into it. We had a great time touring the countryside in southern Australia together, and he really considered moving there as he ‘didn’t like the way the US was going’. ‘Those mad Australians!’, a reference from his talk at the Burning Amp 2018 possibly referring to me..? A sad week this week. RIP my friend Roger. I am missing you already.

P.S. I live in the UK now and if you have one of Roger’s amps here I might be able to help service it. I used to service them down under.