A mysterious genius audio engineer "NwAvGuy" suddenly disappeared while attracting many fans

ByRantes Aguirre

Suddenly appeared in overseas audio forums around 2011 "NwAvGuy"People who claim to be based on their high technical capabilities show off the precise instrument evaluation capability and even cheap audio equipment developed by themselves gathers a lot of followers, It's been a while since I was caught in a glance at some point, and in my fans I am in a situation to call out various mysteries.

NwAvGuy: The Audio Genius Who Vanished - IEEE Spectrum
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/nwavguy-the-audio-genius-who-vanished

Like a beat like a microphone, a blog entitled NwAvGuy (Northwest Audio & Video Guy) who started out in February 2011 with an audio engineer-like start saying "Ton Ton, Ton Ton, is this switch in?" It is aimed at picking up the performance evaluation of equipment, especially handling equipment with cost and size constraints, such as portable audio, desktop audio, and headphones, which are cheap in price, so that "objective measurement results Actively continued activities with emphasis on "to connect subjective listening impressions."

NwAvGuy: Introduction
http://nwavguy.blogspot.jp/2011/02/introduction.html


NwAvGuy argued that the only appropriate way to evaluate audio equipment is the "quantitative blind test", and carried out the evaluation incorporating numerical verification even in the blog. As a result, it became clear that expensive audio equipment that had been highly evaluated by subjective evaluation had only a lower ability than lower-priced equipment in fact, and it caused a big ripple in the audio industry It was.


Although NwAvGuy is presumed to have high technical force and ability from the evaluation method etc., the scope of activity is not limited to the evaluation of existing equipment. We also started to develop our own audio equipment, and we will complete the objective 2 (O 2) headphone amplifier which made all design open source. "For those who are using headphones with portable audio devices originally designed to sound small earbuds", the headphone amp made for about 10,000 yen is incredibly high sound quality The name has been spreading at a stretch, calling for reputation to be equipped with.


As the design drawing has been made open-source, the number of people who make O2 is rapidly increasing. Finally the AmericanJDS LabsCompany or the UKEpiphany AcousticsCompanies such as companies that commercialize and sell in licensed production have emerged. Mr. John Seaber, President of JDS Labs, said, "I decided to handle it soon", including a good deal of good sound, talking about the situation at that time.

Even when Seaber contacted the license agreement, Mr. NwAvGuy's identity was not revealed. And surprisingly, NwAvGuy did not receive any money from the sales of O2, and as a sole requirement, "to respect the state of the original" is requested by Mr. NwAvGuy. In his blog, he said that "I would like you to respect licenses including design attribution,Creative Commons LicenseLicense is given as "Alteration prohibited" in. This meant that many open source projects prohibited the creation of any modifications or derivative products, unlike those that allowed participants free modification.

In addition, as of March 2014 the design drawing of O2 can be obtained from the net.

Nwavguy O2 V11 Docs 30 Nov 2011.pdf - Google Drive
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B52Awjeyc5zKMjRlYjlhNGItNGJlNC00ODlmLWIwM2MtNDI4ZWU4YWRjY2Y4/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1


After that, Mr. NwAvGuy also based in CanadaYoyodyne ConsultingIn collaboration with George Boudreau leading the company "ODACWe will develop. At that time NwAvGuy continued through his own secret and did not reveal its identity.


Although Mr. NwAvGuy who was continuing to receive high evaluations of the developed equipment will suddenly stop working in July 2012. The reasons and circumstances have not been disclosed at all, and everything remains a mystery and his condition has not been able to be reported at all since then.

The equipment developed by Mr. NwAvGuy has been manufactured without changing its shape even afterwards, but the disappearance of Mr. NwAvGuy caused a small problem. Manufacturer of the power terminal used for the headphone amplifier "O 2" went bankrupt and it was necessary to update the electronic board because it was supposed to install alternative parts, but NwAvGuy set here The license of "no alteration prohibited" that I was doing was a challenge. Measures were taken to enlarge the diameter of the hole drilled in the board in order to solder the parts as "it does not deviate from the original product concept" after various twists and turns, the production of O2 It is to be continued.


The theory that it was in a traffic accident and in some cases to the theory of death, and NwAvGuy's cause of disappearance is calling various speculations, but behind it there are interesting incidents. The registration of the domain NwAvGuy's name "NwAvGuy.com" has been continued to be updated even after Mr. Hwa disappeared, and as of March 2013March 10, 2014It has also been updated.


It seems that updating is not easy if it is involved in some problems or incidents, but considering the circumstances under which it has been updated several times, Mr. is often in a situation that is not subject to such restrictions The media presumes, but what about the renewal of the domain when genius engineers are about 20 months after entering a mysterious silence state, what is meaning of domain renewal? Is his activity resumed, in overseas audio community The situation that people's attention is gathered continues.

Please note that Amazon can also purchase J2 Labs' O2 because it is on sale.

Amazon.co.jp: Domestic Genuine JDSLABS Objective 2 By NwAvGuy Headphone Amplifier JDS LABS: Home Appliances · Camera
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B007RVW43Q