Remembering Arnie Nudell (1937-2017) founder of high-end audio
- Thread starter garylkoh
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It is really a fascinating and enjoyable chapter on Arnie Nudell beginnings at Infinity and a very interesting interview from 2013, currently freely accessible.
From the TAS site http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/infinity-co-founder-arnie-nudell-19372017/
To celebrate the Arnie's life and share with you his remarkable story, we've provided the chapter on Infinity Systems as a PDF from The Absolute Sound's Illustrated History of High-End Audio, Volume One: Loudspeakers. Please download the PDF here. https://www.dropbox.com/s/9sl6ndfi76o19dg/Infinity%20profile%20from%20TAS%20Illustrated%20History%20of%20High-End%20Audio.pdf?dl=0
From the TAS site http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/infinity-co-founder-arnie-nudell-19372017/
To celebrate the Arnie's life and share with you his remarkable story, we've provided the chapter on Infinity Systems as a PDF from The Absolute Sound's Illustrated History of High-End Audio, Volume One: Loudspeakers. Please download the PDF here. https://www.dropbox.com/s/9sl6ndfi76o19dg/Infinity%20profile%20from%20TAS%20Illustrated%20History%20of%20High-End%20Audio.pdf?dl=0
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
Having worked for over a decade for Mike Kay I must say that Mike was extremely generous to many in the audio Industry including Arnie and Mark. We were the largest High End dealer for Infinity and at one time were exclusive for the IRS and also for Mark Levinson.
Lyric had a lot of things going for it. It was in the largest market and Mike ran a business that made money. Most audio stores then were just getting their feet wet with High End while Lyric was the temple of the high end and everyone from around the world came there to see and hear the products that were being represented and actually stocked. Lyric was offered everything first and Mike always tried to help new companies. The list is endless and his place in my opinion in the pantheon of the HE is very unknown and understated.
Arnie, Harry P and Mike Kay were my mentors and I was privileged to get to hang and drink with them as well as learn a ton about listening and music. My fondest memories come from that time .I always will remember going to Carnegie Hall at Christmas time to hear Beethoven's 9 with the LA Philharmonic with full chorus directed by Gullini with the 3 wise men of Audio . The dinners were legendary and for a kid from LI who never before had caviar or great wine they became memories that have lasted my entire life.
RIP to Arnie, Harry and to my second father Mike Kay
Peace.
Yesterday I just happen to pick a copy of TAS at random out of my TAS library. It was the December 1980 issue. Inside I noticed the second installment of HP's first review of the IRS, along with Arnie's manufacturer's comments - still relevant 37 years later, and the subjects of countless postings on internet forums, so I thought some of you might be interested in reading the comments.
Although I have one of Arnie’s loudspeakers in house (Genesis 1.1) I hesitated to join this thread because I never met Arnie. When we distributed Genesis loudspeakers in the Benelux many, many moons ago we used to have contact with Paul. The touching contribution of Elliot regarding Arnie, Harry Pearson and Mike Kay bring back fond memories, for example when Paul joined one of our hifi shows in Amsterdam. Some of my friends and I showed Paul some interesting sites in Amsterdam and of course we talked in depth about the various Genesis loudspeakers that were available at the time and the people involved.
Time flies and since our meeting in Amsterdam quite some ‘audio heroes’ have left us. It is really sad to hear that Arnie joined this list of my ‘audio heroes’. To remember him I listen at the moment to the very moving Passacaille of Ravel’s piano trio in A minor. May Arnie rest in peace.
Last week, I bumped into an old friend during the local Hi Fi Show and he immediately alerted me that there was an IRS Beta in one of the room exhibits. He knew that I was a fan of that series of loudspeakers from Infinity and he himself is no stranger to Infinity products and more specially, to Arnie Nudell. His name is Robert Tan. Gary, you may have met him or talked to him, as he was the importer of Arnie's Genesis line of speakers, at the infancy of the company established by Arnie and Paul McGowen. He brought in many Genesis models in the 90s, and to this day, still has not one but 2 units of New Old Stock Genesis Model 2 in his warehouse. He was also the man behind importation of the only model 1.1 in the Philippines, sold via a dealer. And to my surprise, he only knew about the passing of Arnie during the Manila HiFi Show, via that same exhibitor of the vintage IRS Beta. He showed me a picture of him with Arnie, and family, plus Paul's family members, in his visit to Arnie's factory in Denver while was importing the Genesis line of speakers. He told me how much he treasure those moments, of being in the home of a late great audio legend, and the main thing that has impressed in his mind is that is in one room, in all walls were photos of Albert Einstein.
Thanks, Phil. There are quite a few of the large Genesis and Infinity speakers in the Philippines. I do hope to make another visit one day.
https://www.psaudio.com/article/arnie-nudell-rip/
An audio pioneer. I still wish I had purchased that demo pair of IRS Beta.
An audio pioneer. I still wish I had purchased that demo pair of IRS Beta.
carolkoh
[Industry Expert] Member Sponsor
Wow. They are still working on it? Here's a photo of the Genesis 3 with Gary setting them up at Alexis Park at CES 2006. We had to use two pairs of Gary's new monoblock tube amps (no longer available) in parallel to run them because the impedance was so low, they shorted out all of Gary's solid state amps. Gary designed the cabinet. The curvature is modeled after Claudia Schiffer's *ahem* booty. 
Everybody - men and women both - could not resist petting them and speculated they were modeled on J-Lo but Gary thinks Claudia has a nicer booty.
Everybody - men and women both - could not resist petting them and speculated they were modeled on J-Lo but Gary thinks Claudia has a nicer booty. 
Thank you Bodhi for the video. Many of Arnie's creations are still in use over 40 years into their lives. Here's one I recently visited, an older IRS-IV that would be celebrating its 30th birthday this year.
I hope that in 30 years time, I'll still see some of my creations still loved by their owners! In contrast, this one is just 3 years old
I hope that in 30 years time, I'll still see some of my creations still loved by their owners! In contrast, this one is just 3 years old
Wow. They are still working on it? Here's a photo of the Genesis 3 with Gary setting them up at Alexis Park at CES 2006. We had to use two pairs of Gary's new monoblock tube amps (no longer available) in parallel to run them because the impedance was so low, they shorted out all of Gary's solid state amps. Gary designed the cabinet. The curvature is modeled after Claudia Schiffer's *ahem* booty.
View attachment 45711
Haha I completely missed this. We had women coming up stroking them and asking their husbands "Honey, why don't you buy these instead of Darth Vader you have in our living room."
Unfortunately, we never finished this - Arnie retired shortly after CES2006 and he wanted them as his retirement present. The company that made the 30-inch planar midrange stopped selling them to OEM customers. The crossovers had a low impedance of 0.8 ohms around 500Hz - exactly where lots of power would be drawn, and as Carol said, testing them before we shipped to Las Vegas, these beauties blew up all the solid-state amps that I had.
I would have loved to put that cabinet into production, but the cost would have been prohibitive. The CNC shop complained that I was trying to get them to CNC an egg.
Here's a nicer perspective on the G3's booty - with my daughter messing around during the photo shoot.
I’ve owned four main speaker pair systems in my lifetime. A set of AR12 bought in high school and killed in college (NOT a good party speaker - tweeters would blow if you looked at them wrong). Then it was all Nudell after that beginning with the oddly shaped Infinity RS2.5, through the superb RS1b and since about 2001 the sublime Genesis 200/201.
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