In the late 1970’s Roger Modjeski worked at Harold Beveridge, Inc. (HBI) as Chief Engineer. While he enjoyed the work, Roger found he preferred to spend more time on research and less on manufacturing. Since Harold Beveridge appreciated Roger’s talents, he offered him space in the HBI facility to set up his own research lab while he continued in his role of Chief Engineer. However, Roger decided that it was time to make a clean break, so he set up a lab in Santa Barbara, CA and thus RAM Labs was born. During this period Roger dedicated his time exclusively to vacuum tube research. This included designing what would become the first computerized tube tester that could test signal tubes, and later power tubes, based on multiple parameters, some of which were proprietary to RAM Labs, and thus RAM Tubes was born.
Having completed his initial research Roger set out to design vacuum tube circuits to apply what he learned. Some of these circuits made it to the production stage and were marketed under the brand Music Reference. As Music Reference began to expand their product line, Roger took it upon himself to tour several tube factories both here in the US and abroad. At one point Roger found himself in Eastern Europe at the Ei Factory in what was once known as Yugoslavia. He developed a reseller relationship with Ei and helped their team with vacuum tube design, learning a few things in the process as well. To this day we still sell Yugo Ei EL-84 and 12AX7 tubes that are very popular with Music Reference RM-10 owners.
While Roger was well known as a circuit designer, his knowledge of vacuum tubes is often overlooked. I would listen attentively each time Roger came back from the tube shack on his property in San Pablo with tube in hand and tell me the history of the tube he stumbled upon, as well as circuit design concepts he would use the tube in. In addition, Roger was known to get into serious and even heated discussions with his peers on the topic of vacuum tubes. Case in point, David Manley of Vacuum Tube Logic (VTL). While each of these men had already established themselves as industry experts and enjoyed success with their respective companies, they had a unique relationship. Part-time mutual respect, but mostly adversarial.
So, for this month’s Roger’s Corner, we have a historical treat. While sorting through Roger’s documents I found a letter to the editor sent to Stereophile in 1991. In it he addressed comments by David Manley on the topic of vacuum tubes previously published in the magazine. Reading the letter, I realized this was part of the exchange between the two men known as the Manley-Modjeski Letters. This debate between two industry luminaries got so nasty Kevin Hayes of Valve Amplification Corporation (VAC) felt compelled to jump in and referee by writing his own letter to the editor piece. I was hoping to reference Mr. Haye’s letter but sadly the letter has been removed from the VAC website. I also came up empty handed in my efforts to find any letters written by Mr. Manley. At least for now we have this letter from Roger.
Click on the link to access a digital copy of this letters:
https://www.ramtubes.com/manley-modjeski