Home  Hi-Fi Audio Reviews  Audiophile Shows Partner Mags  News       

 

Enjoy the Music.com

HIFICRITIC

Volume 16 Number 1
January / February / March 2022

 

HIFICRITIC Volume 16 Number 1 January / February / March 2022

 

Remembering Max Townshend
Max long held an ambition to design the whole audio chain.
Editorial By Martin Colloms

 

  Apologies to all who suffered from both late- and non-delivery of Vol 15 No 4, October to December 2021. Enduring the tail end of Covid, now thankfully with restrictions lifting in Spring 2022, we endured a perfect storm of distribution difficulties. Europe's imposition of multiple country rates of VAT on printed paper has been a nightmare – applying it, charging for it, accounting for it and not least finding that some continental posties do not understand, leading them to block delivery and surcharge a second time, kindly adding administration charges which had already been paid.

So we subcontracted the VAT mailout to experts and dispatched the shipment of EU magazines to them, but this shipment never got delivered. We reprinted that batch, delivered them successfully and finally they got through – but it was not over yet as we were now getting reports of UK non-deliveries. We canvassed the whole UK subscriber list and found that after four weeks the Post Office had delivered less than 5% of our stock, now lost. So we reprinted and shipped out the UK mailout a second time. Now we aim to weather substantial increases in paper and print costs, both from COVID repercussions and a certain difficulty in Eastern Europe.

 

Max Townshend (1943-2021)
Once encountered, never forgotten, that indefatigable Australian, Max Townshend – who passed away on December 31st, 2021, aged 78 – was a major force in our audio industry for many years. With a long career first in industrial electronics, and then in audio, he could engineer with a broad brush.

Fascinated, even obsessed by music and sound from an early age, he came from a musical family who encouraged his interests, and – aged just 10 – he was helping Guglielmo Marconi's former assistant, Australian Ernest Wishshaw, by reading colour codes on resistors. Ernest was now manufacturing valve audio amplifiers, which were Max's first experience of high-fidelity sound, and he was immediately hooked.

After university (BSc Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Western Australia) Max began his professional career in Australia, working on a diverse range of engineering projects that might notionally seem unconnected with audio, such as anti-submarine reconnaissance instrumentation for the Royal Australian Air Force and developing filter systems for monitoring oil drilling. His diverse activities also included power station control systems, electronic messaging displays and a contribution to radar aircraft landing technology.

 

HIFICRITIC Volume 16 Number 1 January / February / March 2022

 

1975 saw his first foray into audio when he adopted the Garrott Brothers' pioneering parabolic line contact stylus for his Elite MCP555 moving coil cartridge, and Max went on to develop many products including an efficient full range line source loudspeaker founded on EJ Jordan's transducer technology reaching back to Jordan-Watt from the 1960's. However, it was a thesis from a group at Cranfield leading to a patent on an optimised LP disc player, where optical sensing was used to correct tracking geometry, that led to fresh developments.

These including controlling the arm/cartridge resonance at the headshell, lateral and vertical axes, via coupling to a trough charged with a viscous fluid: this was the basis of the Townshend Rock turntable and led to a long association with lecturer, engineer and inventor Jack Dinsdale of the Cranfield Institute of Technology. Vibration isolation was a Max speciality, and he co-developed the Podium series of isolators with Jack, installing them on his recent triumph, the Allegri Reference line control unit. Allegri was his passion, which he laboured long and hard to perfect, and even he was surprised at how well it performed. Allegri embodied many aspects of his research, transformer metallurgy and alloy treatment, linear crystal 'fractal' windings, power supply noise control, transparent sounding switch technology and optimised signal paths. Furthermore, when nearing completion it was fitted with perfected Podium vibration isolating feet.

Max long held an ambition to design the whole audio chain from source to loudspeaker. and at times came close to achieving his goal – including a rebuilt, heavily modified digital audio player. He supported wide audio bandwidth with his accessory ribbon super tweeter, he pioneered Fractal cryogenically treated wire and researched deeply into audio cable impedance and matching.

Max Townsend's contributions to the art will live on as a testament to his many skills. Our condolences go to his family.

 

 

– Martin Colloms
     Editor-In-Chief

 

 

 

Subscribe To HIFICRITIC!


Click here to subscribe to HIFICRITIC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     
 

Quick Links


Premium Audio Review Magazine
High-End Audiophile Equipment Reviews

 

Equipment Review Archives
Turntables, Cartridges, Etc
Digital Source
Do It Yourself (DIY)
Preamplifiers
Amplifiers
Cables, Wires, Etc
Loudspeakers/ Monitors
Headphones, IEMs, Tweaks, Etc
Superior Audio Gear Reviews

 

 


Show Reports
HIGH END Munich 2024
AXPONA 2024 Show Report
Montreal Audiofest 2024 Report

Southwest Audio Fest 2024
Florida Intl. Audio Expo 2024
Capital Audiofest 2023 Report
Toronto Audiofest 2023 Report
UK Audio Show 2023 Report
Pacific Audio Fest 2023 Report
T.H.E. Show 2023 Report
Australian Hi-Fi Show 2023 Report
...More Show Reports

 

Videos
Our Featured Videos

 


Industry & Music News

High-Performance Audio & Music News

 

Partner Print Magazines
audioXpress
Australian Hi-Fi Magazine
hi-fi+ Magazine
Sound Practices
VALVE Magazine

 

For The Press & Industry
About Us
Press Releases
Official Site Graphics

 

 

 

     

Home   |   Hi-Fi Audio Reviews   |   News   |   Press Releases   |   About Us   |   Contact Us

 

All contents copyright©  1995 - 2024  Enjoy the Music.com®
May not be copied or reproduced without permission.  All rights reserved.