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Roger Alan Modjeski (RAM) 1951 - 2019

It is with great sadness that I announce Roger A. Modjeski passed away peacefully in his home in San Pablo, CA after an 12 month battle with cancer. Roger started Music Reference in 1981 and later RAM Tubes, The Tube Audio Store, and The Berkeley HiFi School. For more than 38 years he tirelessly ran his business and designed some of the most unique and well received audio components in the industry. Right until the near end Roger was working, designing, and teaching until he physically was unable to continue.

The link below will take you my playground where I have posted my tribute to Roger (click ENTER after the page loads):

http://www.electrafidelity.com/

Fare thee well my friend.
clio09
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,705 posts
 
@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....
clio09 OP
3,413 posts
 
@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.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,487 posts
 

To read lots of Roger’s thoughts on all things hi-fi (and some musical. I remember him mentioning Emmylou Harris’ and Beethoven’s names, two favorites of mine as well), head over to the Music Reference forum on Audiocircle. His Circle has been closed since 2014 (apparently after a complaint from Ted Denney of Synergistic Research ;-), but is still acessable. Lots of info and ideas to be found there, including Roger’s "informed" opinion on hi-fi reviewing and tweaks. Prepare to have your conceived notions challenged!

For a song I find particularly fitting, give a listen to "No Time To Cry" by Iris Dement. Iris and Emmylou are mutual-admirers, the latter appearing in one of the former’s early music videos. And speaking of videos, let me reiterate that the videos viewable on You Tube of Roger's seminars at a few of the annual Burning Amp Festival events in San Francisco (in 2015 and 2018, iirc) are REALLY something you want to watch. A free education in tubes and tube amp design! Tape them, as you will want to watch them more than once.

ndevamp
55 posts
 
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.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,487 posts
 

Wonderful remembrances @ndevamp, thank you. I would occasionally drive up to Santa Barbara from L.A. for the weekend in the 1980’s and 90’s, before I knew about Roger and Music Reference. I of course now regret missing my opportunity to drop by his place there. Beautiful city, lots of music and record company business honchos have houses there.

Reading your words just reinforces my opinion that Roger understood tubes and amplifier design like few living engineers. Just as a master composer or songwriter sees the weakness in another’s work, so too did Roger in his competitor’s products. His comments about a few of them in his Burning Amp Festival presentations are delightful ;-) .

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