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We lost one of the greatest today, James passing away here on the Central Coast of California.
The girlfriend of a close of friend of mine was his personal medical caregiver, and now we are all very sad about his departure.
This is the abolute truth: James had spent the past several weeks setting up and tweaking a top end system. I am not sure if this was for a friend or for a customer (Perhaps both?)
I told my buddy that is exactly what he lived for. We can have some feeling of joy, knowing that James had gone out 100% being James.
May God rest you easy, Mr.B
Follow Ups:
I had called him to inquire about service on a Sumo Andromeda amp one of my customers has. James said he had known Brian Cheney for about 40 years. Toward the end of the conversation I asked if he would be attending CES/THE Show, and he said no, that his health wasn't good. That turned out to be an understatement.
RIP, James "Bongo" Bongiorno.
Brian Walsh
Brian Cheney and James Bongiorno with Tech-TV CES Hi-end Product of the Year, CES 2003.
I'll miss those guys.
-Rod
c
happen to james?
info
may the bridges I burn light the way...
Last time I saw him he looked like a character out of Warren Beatty's film Dick Tracy. Rest in Peace
a retort asking if he would be buried in a lime-green or lemon-yellow casket? But I didn't want to sound disrespectful. Now with this introduction I'm more comfortable asking.
For those who may not have seen Bongiorno in the past several years, either in person at audio shows or from pictures in audio mags, he managed to find some pretty outrageous suits and fedoras. Aside from the fore-mentioned colors I saw him one year in a dapper tomato-soup colored outfit. Mike B's description had him pegged. These outfits just personified his personality as I experienced it, certainly a guy who marched to a different drummer and didn't care a bit if others liked it or not.
"You can’t know what the “best” is unless you have heard everything, and keep in mind that given individual tastes, there really isn’t any such thing." HP
"Last time I saw him he looked like a character out of Warren Beatty's film Dick Tracy."
You've got a good wit. Yes he loved colorful outfits. If you're going to be noticed in the crowd make sure you stand out.
My Son is GASWorks I modded, and had outputs repaired twice since 1977.
Wonderful sound, lots of power, etc. Daily use in the office. See profile.
...what a class A amp sounded like, and how it differed from AB.
Onward and upward,
Steve
I bought a GAS Son of Ampzilla power amp and Thalia preamp to team with my ads L-710's back in 1978. Very nice. I still have the Son, although it lost a channel about a decade ago. Maybe someday .......
RIP James Bongiorno. You will be missed.
As a member of a performing group in the early sixties the advent of Gene Cerwinski's solid state, sound reinforcement began to evolve rapidly. Bob Carver's Phase Linear, and James Bongiorno's Great American Sound provided the power to shrink the cabinet size making things sound better and easier to move.
Looking back after purchasing this stuff from Leo's Music and beating the shit out of it on the road, the only failure we incurred was one of the Phase Linear 400's dropped off the back of a bobtail truck.
Especially "Charlie". A tuner, of course...[g]
-RW-
-RW-
I had an original pair of Son of Ampzilla power amps with the bridging unit, and I still have a Thaedra pre amp which is stored away.
Reading this inspired me to dig out that preamp and clean it up
and go through it and see if it still performs well.
One of the Son of Ampzillas needs caps and the other one still works after
almost 30 years of use.
They have no power switch. You plug them in and they are "ON"
Was his SAE IVDM amplifier, along with an Audio Research SP3-A-1 preamp, used to drive a pair of Ohm F 's. Those were soon replaced with Dahlquist DQ-10 speakers.
I met James briefly at my local hi-fi dealership, in probably 1976. He had moved on to form Ampzilla at that point.
I still have the SAE in mothballs. I need to dig it out and have it gone over / upgraded after I re-cap it.
RIP Mr. Bongiorno
May the loved ones find strength in sweet memories and the burden of loss
be lightened with passage of time. Those of the analog age are rapidly passing on and one day too shall those born of the digital age. The wheel of life ever turning.
.
Beatnik's stuff http://web.me.com/jnr1/Site/Beatniks_Pictures.html
RIP indeed one of the true characters of the Hi End Industry--I spent many a fun time with
him when I worked in the US in the Late 70's
Enjoy Rock & Roll Heaven my friend
Des
Brian and now James. Sad day indeed. We talked several weeks ago and his health was really bad. The cancer had spread and he was confined to a wheel chair. One of the great audio designers. I wonder what will happen to Spread Spectrum Technologies now?
the Audio world lost another great audio designer!RIP James!
Maybe the best reasonably-priced solid state designer I've encountered...... RIP.
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