Richard Dunn

[Toontrev]

Very saddened today to learn of Mr Dunn's passing. My condolences to his family and friends.
I only spoke with him a few times over the phone but found him to be extremely polite and helpful. Via this forum, I will be forever grateful to have made his acquaintance. He will be truly missed.

[wiicrackpot]

So sorry to hear the sad news, condolences to Nadia,
my best wishes to the collective groups endeavour to keep NVA alive.

[mules]

Such sad news.

[keepitsimplestupid]

He'll be giving them hell upstairs....

[slinger]

R.I.P. Richard, and my deepest sympathies to Nadia. I only ever spoke to Richard via the telephone, and I probably can't add anything to what's already been said. You will be missed, Richard. Our hobby, his passion, is poorer for his passing.

[herbie07]

Very sad to read about Richard today. My condolences are with his family.
My first exposure to Richard and NVA was at the Huddersfield phono stage bake-off, where the Phono 1 and 2 were the best performers at their respective price points; I bought my Phono 2 and PSUs not long after. R.I.P.

[Chunk McDaniel]

RIP Doc. Heartfelt condolences to Nadia and the family. Will miss his insight and no nonsense approach. The music was always first over anything else.

[karatestu]

I am still finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that he is no longer here to tell me off when i have done something wrong or silly. It is a great loss to our community and the hobby. I agreed with a lot of things he said but not always. And i did not agree with how he went about things sometimes and had to bite my lip on more than one occasion. However he was always very helpful and humorous at times and he always had my respect. I spoke to him on the phone a couple of times and it was a delight.

I will be forever grateful for the help he gave me and for making me see the light. I had known about NVA for a long time before i had the idea to take a look at HFS. I spent hundreds of hours reading the archives over the first 6 months after joining and learned an awful lot. Richard's design philosophy was very refreshing after the usual marketing hype, new speak and general bollocks you find elsewhere.

He led me on a path to musical satisfaction. Sometimes it would be try this or don't do that. Other times his advice would be suck it and see - a gentle nudge which got me experimenting further, possibly in to areas he had not. My present system is mostly due to Richard. I have a BMU, phono 1 and a little AP20 that i am well pleased with.

But it was with the DIY audio aspect that he influenced me the most. I was encouraged to remove the zobel, output inductor and input filter cpacitor from my Avondale amplifier boards. I did it one at a time and made sure the speaker cables were NVA low capacitance ones. Well nothing blew up and i was well pleased. The avondale amp boards now sounded more like my little AP20 which was what i wanted. I removed the output stage from my Naim CDP due to the idea of keeping it simple and trying Richard's philosophy elsewhere. Well blow me down, if i didn't prefer its presentation without.

That led to Richard offering to supply me with NVA amplifier boards. I was (and still am) very honoured to have been given that opportunity. Richard looked on as i put the amps together and waited for the magic smoke. Well none came and i think Richard was a bit surprised at that. Apparently i was providing him with some entertainment. Those amps are still going strong and giving me enormous amounts of pleasure. A while back i asked for another four boards and got the reply "no problem". I still have those boards sitting in their box waiting to be used. I must admit i am sorry that i did not get them up and running before Richard passed away. I would have loved to have given him some more entertainment but i wrongly thought that there was plenty of time for that. Sadly not and i am still beating myself up about that.

My journey with speakers (documented here) is where i established my online relationship with Richard. He helped me along the way to building the 3 way, isobaric semi omni's that still look like they were assembled by a blind man. This was something else that i promised to get finished off in a final aesthetically pleasing build but never got round to it in time. Sorry again Richard. I hope i am not being too full of myself here but i think i inspired Richard to make available his recent 3 way cube design with 12" bass drivers.

Well i promise to finish what i have started and will document it all here. Hopefully it will help to keep Richard's memory and his design philosophy alive. I really do hope that NVA continues and if i can be of any help with that then i would be delighted.

[southall-1998]

ADMIN EDIT - Ad hominem removed

...I do sincerely hope his products live on. Still have a soft spot for the little AP10P.

S.

[Latteman]

So sad and sorry to hear this news.
So sad and sorry to have never met you.
My Condolences to family and close friends.
RIP Richard Dunn