Thanks for creating the thread Tim. It is a great idea for people who choose to participate. Here is my story.
My name is Amir Majidimehr. I grew up with electronics being my hobby which I shared with my two older brothers. We are talking 1960s here. My oldest brother was heavily into it, taking everything in the home apart and making something else out of it, much to chagrin of my dad.
I was fascinated with that and would always try to learn from him. I don't recall how I got the HiFi bug. It may have been from building our own 10 watt stereo amplifier with my middle brother. But he and I just woke up one day and started to pester our parents to buy us a full stereo system. We finally got one and it was an Aiwa (owned by Panasonic) all-in-one cassette, AM/FM radio, amplifier and speakers. While a step above a transistor radio, it was pretty deficient in fidelity. We moved up to separates after that including a Reel-to-Reel deck (it was Akai or Teac). This is all in 1970s.
By late 1970s I naturally go to get my electrical engineering degree. Went to school in south florida and while there, my oldest brother decided to set up shop to fix all manners of electronics from audio gear to marine and Ham radios. At that time electronics was not throw away so there was good money there to fix them. On weekends I would go there and he would have a pile of gear set aside for me to fix. It was fantastic learning experience, cementing my knowledge of analog electronics, resulting in not learning almost anything useful in school to surpass it!
By then CD format was launched. I put aside all of my records and turntable and jumped right in, buying the Technics (Panasonic) CD player. Loved the clean, static-free, random access format. Content was a problem though. The rack at local Record shop had just a few dozens. I think I bought everything that was there whether I liked it or not! I got into some new music though such as New Age stuff by Windham Hill and George Winston.
My day time career though was managing hardware and software development of computer system. As much as I loved computers, I wanted a way to get into audio as a profession some how. Went to work for Sony but that turned out to be managing design and development of operating system and computer hardware down to chip level. Left to go work for a company called Abakas Video systems. There I managed the development of very high-end video products designed for editing and special effects for high-end post production (editing) of TV programming. Learned a ton about what it takes to make video really right at standards well above prosumers. Helped sell that company and then moved to another in the same business called Pinnacle Systems which is now part of Avid.
Around that time the World Wide Web came to existence with Netscape forming and creating its famous browser. I was itching to get onto that new trend and opportunity came in the form of a start up that was trying to stream video on the internet. This was in the era of 28 kilobit/sec dial-up modes. Compression rates for video was 10,000 to 1. In other words, impossible. But with a ton of clever programming and advanced audio and video compression, we got there with a postage stamped video. This got the attention of Microsoft and in 1997 they acquired our company and I moved from California to Seattle where I still live.
There, my audio experience took center stage with my first job being managing a dozen PhD researchers and engineers aiming to beat MP3 fidelity by a factor of two. That is, where MP3 was limited to 22 KHz sampling, we wanted CD sampling of 44 on the same dial-up modem link. Long story short, we managed to do that more or less. This got the attention of Bill Gates who had a special passion for what we were doing. I rose up in ranks, eventually managing everything that made sound, video or images in Windows. I ran the full division including marketing, business development, etc. It was a pretty large division numbering around 1,000 employees but I still stayed hands on with core audio/video technologies.
I also built strong relationships with all the major CE companies, getting our technologies licensed in every audio/video products. An example is our video compression technology being mandatory in Blu-ray format. All in all, billions of devices are in play today with technology developed in my group in that era.
I decided to retire from Microsoft in 2007 with all the changes coming (started with BillG retiring). Did a start up with my partner in LA that we sold to major companies a few years ago. In parallel, I started a company called Madrona Digital which specializes in mid to high-end of the residential and commercial market. The work is custom integration of everything from audio to video and security, shades, lighting, networking, etc. The company has grown successfully and has given me great access to audio technology. It has provided a path for me to interact with the industry behind the scenes, learning the ins and outs of the business and motivations behind the products.
Today I have my dream audio system which other than some minor changes, I will go to grave with
. It is far more than I deserve to own, but I don't complain
. Being mostly retired, I spend a lot of time listening to it and enjoying it immensely.
My approach to audio is of course relying on audio research, and engineering. I balance that though with desire for excellence in execution. I am not an extreme objectivist in that regard, saying everything sounds the same. At the same time, having participated in hundreds of audio tests, no way do I go by sighted evaluations of small differences. I pride myself in having critical listening abilities, able to usually find faults that others can't. That ability however has degraded with age but I think I still do OK
.
Teaching and interacting online is also my passion. So much so that when my doctor asks if there is any stress in my life, I confess to being on forums and arguing with folks
.
As you can see, I also type too much. Hopefully you found it useful and gave you a bit more perspective on who I am.
