8 replies to this topic

[Carlspeak]

Zilch's quick wit and cryptic posts will no longer grace the pages of CSP. He passed away last Friday.

Personally, I always enjoyed his posts and was impressed with his unwavering devotion to the teachings of Toole and others.
A couple of weeks back, I initiated an innocent thread at Audiokarma.org's speakers forum titled "Where's Zilch". I did it because I hadn't seen anything from this prolific poster at AK or PE sites for a few weeks prior. What ensued was an outpouring of hundreds of posts from well wishers. He had quite a following at those two, mostly DIY'r sites. His development of econo-waving as a methodology for reviving old speakers and making something new out of them at relatively low cost utilizing waveguides and modern compression drivers led both myself and Roy C. here to give e-waving a try. His e-wave thread at AK has over 1 million views and 12,000 posts and has been pinned as his legacy.
I, for one, will miss him.....

Here's a link to more information on his passing.
Carl

http://techtalk.part...ad.php?t=222909

[RoyC]

Zilch's quick wit and cryptic posts will no longer grace the pages of CSP. He passed away last Friday.

Personally, I always enjoyed his posts and was impressed with his unwaverubg devotion to the teachings of Toole and others.
A couple of weeks back, I initiated an innocent thread at Audiokarma.org's speakers forum titled "Where's Zilch". I did it because I hadn't seen anything from this prolific poster at AK or PE sites for a few weeks prior. What ensued was an outpouring of hundreds of posts from well wishers. He had quite a following at those two, mostly DIY'r sites. His development of econo-waving as a methodology for reviving old speakers and making something new out of them at relatively low cost utilizing waveguides and modern compression drivers led both myself and Roy C. here to give e-waving a try. His e-wave thread at AK has over 1 million views and 12,000 posts and has been pinned as his legacy.
I, for one, will miss him.....

Here's a link to more information on his passing.
Carl

http://techtalk.parts-express.com/showthread.php?t=222909

Sad news...Despite his somewhat controversial image in this forum, personal messages and emails I exchanged with him could not have been more friendly, insightful, and helpful. His real name was Evan Flavell, and his passing is a significant loss to the speaker hobbyist community.

Roy

[Carlspeak]

For those of you who wondered what he looked like, here's a link to a youtube video of Evan demoing his e-wave Delux models at a Calif. DIY event last year. I understand he was 68 yrs old at the time of his passing.

[Steve F]

Sad news...Despite his somewhat controversial image in this forum, personal messages and emails I exchanged with him could not have been more friendly, insightful, and helpful. His real name was Evan Flavell, and his passing is a significant loss to the speaker hobbyist community.

Roy

When Zilch first burst on the CSP scene a few years ago with his AR-3a measurements and comments, you could feel the collective shudder and recoil of rejection from the CSP community.

“Who is this outsider, and who is he to be making these measurements, the point of which seems only to cast aspersions on our favorite old speakers and their designers?”

Thus ensued an extremely long and winding, often tortuous, relationship with the CSP crowd and its more prolific posters. One poster in particular could not resist going at it hammer and tong with Zilch, taking what should be a passionate hobby and instead turning it into an intensely personal, vitriolic struggle. It was most uncomfortable to witness.

But despite Zilch’s obvious lack of reverence (justified or not—that’s another discussion) towards the classic ARs, their designers, and their marketing (the Villchur ads, the L v R concerts, etc.), he did indeed impact these Pages and change the way we think of the Classic AR speakers.

Directly attributable to Zilch’s influence is the manner in which even our most ardent Classic AR supporters (myself included) now qualify their description of the 3a’s/5’s wide dispersion intentions with acknowledgement of their very real near-field complications, brought about by intrusive cabinet molding, non flush-mounted drivers, non-vertical M-T’s, etc. His phrase about the 3a—“near-field cacophony”—is a classic.

He was a lively contributor, and I looked forward to his posts. I had to ‘raise my game’ to answer some of his contentions, and when someone pushes you to do that, it’s a good thing. We’ll miss him.

Steve F.

[Pete B]

Very sad news, rest in peace Evan ...

[Robert_S]

Truly sad news. His own words, below, spring to mind:

Rare, indeed, and delicious; I'm damn glad I was there for the duration.

"I am your nemesis; I am life, sweet life, itself...." - David Gray

Robert_S

[speaker dave]

Yes, I only found out about this recently. Very sad news. I know he made same waves here, but I feel he was never far off base. At DIY Audio and AudioKarma he was a prolific poster and put great effort into educating the beginning speaker designers with infinite patience. For a non-industry-insider he had a great understanding of the nuances of loudspeaker design.

RIP Zilch

David Smith

[LST Dreamer]

I just saw this on Classic Speaker.
Man, I am really sorry to hear about this. He knew what he was doing, and what he was talking about. I never really knew him, but I will miss his red, wax logo on his posts. He answered a LOT of questions around here, including a couple of mine. Once again, VERY sorry.

[fran604g]

I, among so many others, will truly miss him and his endless help...RIP Zilch