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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
clio09 OP
3,419 posts
 
@soundcheck6, sorry I missed your post. Yes the Cervantes obituary was very touching and was referenced earlier in this thread.

Given the current state of affairs things are running slowly right now on the manufacturing side, but yes, we will be making more of Roger's designs in the future. The RAM online tube store is open 24 x7 though.
clio09 OP
3,419 posts
 

It's been 4 years now since Roger left us. We are still up and running with tube sales and hope to have a new version of the RM-10 out soon, although I have been saying that for a while now. We had some issues with the transformers but now it looks like we have the right ones for the job. A few changes to the top plate and then hopefully to the manufacturing stage. In the mean time I have updated our website at RAM TUBES to include a new section called Roger's Corner. Check it out when you have some time. It contains content from Roger that I have been curating for the last several months, along with all his You Tube videos that he made. In the future I hope to to be able to digitize the interviews he conducted with Saul Marantz, Julius Futterman, and others. This is a big project in that many of the interviews aren't well structured and in some cases Roger and his guest go off on side chats while Roger tries to get his notes together. It's going to take a lot of editing but hopefully it can get done. Enjoy...

arion's avatar
arion
169 posts
 

Great to hear that you are still moving forward. I am still holding out for the OTL monoblocks.

tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,748 posts
 

Thanks for the update ;-) Miss him as you know. Great that you so honor his legacy and contributions - they were many.

Best to you !

lafish3's avatar
lafish3
12 posts
 

Twenty-odd years ago I built a little diy ST35 clone from a board I bought on eBay, and it actually sounded pretty good. But I wanted it to sound better so I called RAM to buy some really good EL84s and Roger answered the phone. I was nobody special and the transaction wasn’t going to pay the rent or anything, but we talked for over an hour, and he had lots of good advice. I vowed I would some day own an RM 10 to drive my Quad 57s, and that finally happened two years ago, when I bought one of the very last ones made, with the special base and cathode bias. Over four decades my Quads have been driven by most of the amps said to be best for the 57, but the Rm10 is in a class of one. Last year I bought an Rm200 Mk2 to drive some large Spendors in our living room, which it does very well. Now I just need to find an RM5…

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