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RE: TAS Legacy: Vendetta Research SCP-2 Phonostage

Posted by Charles Hansen (M) on September 5, 2017 at 17:02:33

In Reply to: RE: TAS Legacy: Vendetta Research SCP-2 Phonostage posted by FSonicSmith on September 5, 2017 at 10:09:25:

Hello -

John is too circumspect to name names, but you know me - a born trouble-maker... :-)

1) Mark Levinson (the man) stopped paying royalties to John for the JC-1 (MC head amp), JC-2 (preamp including phono stage), and JC-3 (power amp). In fact ML went so far as to have Tom Colangelo make some minor revision to the JC-3 and renamed it the ML-3.

Curl had his revenge by printing the schematics of the theretofore secret circuitry hidden in potted epoxy modules in The Audio Amateur magazine in 1977. I'm sure I'm not the only designer that was heavily influenced by that single page of simplified schematics (no power supplies or anything).

2) After Levinson when John was doing consulting work in Switzerland he happened to have dinner in London with Bob Stuart. John sketched out an input stage he had developed in 1966 (and still uses a variant of to this day). Stuart tried to patent John's idea in the UK. Fortunately the UK patent office refused to issue Stuart a patent.

3) Curl designed the JC-80 phono stage for Dennesen (world's first air-bearing tonearm), but they never were financially viable and never paid any royalties. There wasn't anything to sue - you can't get water from a stone.

4) Saul Marantz found some investors and showed at a CES a brand new line of electronics called "Lineage". There were prototypes of a preamp and power amp. The funding never came through and Curl was out all of the time and money it took to build the prototypes.

While John has been paid money for his work for Constellation, the only company to ever treat him properly has been Parasound. Yes, John could have done a lot better if he had a smart attorney friend advising him before making any deals, so some of the blame can be laid at John's feet.

But that doesn't change the fact that he has been "cheated, defrauded, and ripped off by some of the best-known names in audio". When you have a really nice, good-hearted guy, it's not unusual for greedy people to take advantage of them.

Hope this helps,
Charles Hansen

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