Allen Boothroyd

Allen Boothroyd (1943–2020) was a British industrial designer.

Career

Boothroyd trained as a mechanical engineer and went on to study industrial design at the Royal College of Art. He was the co-founder and Design Director of Meridian Audio (Previously known as Boothroyd-Stuart) and founded Cambridge Product Design Ltd.[1] Meridian, established in 1977, won the Design Council Award for Outstanding British Product an unprecedented three times.[2]

Allen Boothroyd’s contributions to the world of Hi-Fi and industrial design are immense. World renowned, the audio designer was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in 2018, passing in June 2020.[3][4]

Designs

Early landmarks in Boothroyd's career were his cabinet designs for the Lecson AC1 pre-amp and AP1 power amplifier which he produced in 1974.[5] The Lecson hi-fi is now in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.[6][7] The Lecson Audio System was selected as one of the important representations of British technological and design innovation to have taken place between two London-hosted Olympic Games.[7]

In 1981, he provided the case design for the BBC Micro, the computer used in the BBC’s Computer Literacy Project.[6][8] He also worked on the design for the RiscPC computer.[9]

Pioneer commissioned Boothroyd to produce a unique appearance for its new surround-sound speaker system. His design was used in the Pioneer Elite Reference speaker system.[10]

Acorn products

References
  1. RV Veera (21 July 1999). "Continuous Quality Boost at Meridian". New Straits Times. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  2. "Premier Products from Britain". New Straits Times. 6 May 2004. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  3. May, Steve (9 June 2020). "Allen Boothroyd, co-founder of Meridian Audio, dies". Inside CI.
  4. "Allen Boothroyd 1943-2020". Meridian Audio. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  5. "Lecson". www.thevintageknob.org. July 2008. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  6. Warman, Matt (21 April 2012). "The great sound of Britain". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  7. Osborn, George (3 April 2012). "Meridian founders and Sinclair graduate to the V&A". cabume.co.uk. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  8. Erol Gelenbe and Jean-Pierre Kahane (16 March 2009). "Fundamental Concepts in Computer Science". Imperial College Press. ISBN 9781848162914. Retrieved 29 April 2010.
  9. Burley, Ian (June 1994). "Acorn RISC PC 600" (PDF). Personal Computer World. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
  10. Thomas J. Norton (19 March 1999). "Pioneer Elite Reference Loudspeaker System". Stereophile. Retrieved 25 April 2012.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.