Where do we start, with a designer who has achieved as much as Tim de Paravacini, without writing a book.

No, fellow South Africans, he was not born in South Africa. Sorry! He was born in the UK but moved to South Africa where he worked until 1972. From there he went work for Luxman in Japan as their chief designer and was responsible for some of the equipment that made them famous in their day.. Tim started designing equipment in 1965. Not only has he become one of the foremost authorities on transformer design but, on one occasion, he actually designed the power valve, the 8045, himself for the Luxman 3045 monoblock amplifier which he also designed. He has been responsible for some of the most respected equipment introduced under brand names which hid the fact that he designed them. He designed for Michaelson and Austin, Musical Fidelity and others. He is scathing about some so-called ‘designs’ which have been lifted from magazines and have resulted in poor sounding and unreliable equipment.

Tim founded Esoteric Audio Research, EAR, on his return to the UK from Japan in 1976. He developed the famed EAR 509 which is still around in mkII form and, in his view, has not been surpassed by anyone including himself. Given that this amplifier is built for the professional market, to professional standards and uses his unique ‘balanced bridge mode’ output transformer/tube interface circuit incorporating a thirteen-section, bifilar wound output transformer, providing each electrode with a separate winding, it is not surprising that it beat all opposition in the home audio market when it was introduced. The power bandwidth is a stunning 9 to 85000 Hz. 

Tim has recently introduced speakers, claimed to combine the strengths of electrostatics and moving coil dynamic drivers, a turntable with a unique slip less, opposing magnet isolation/drive system and a CD player with a valve, output transformer analogue section and analogue remote volume control. As always, unique solutions and unique achievements.

Tim is equally well-known in the professional audio market having refurbished classic reel-to-reel master tape recorders for professional studio use. Tim’s microphones, preamplifiers and analogue master recorders are used by the famous Waterlily LP label for their master tape recordings. In 1985 Tim introduced his 1000 watt valve powered record cutting system based on the EAR 509 amplifier. The cutter head is capable of getting truly as close to the original master tape as it is possible to go whereas LP pressings are usually some way behind in fidelity.