Phono Preamplifiers

A well-known name in the audio industry, Peter Madnick's career now spans over 40 years, beginning in retail where he started working in the stockroom of a local hi-fi store, aged 15, before 'graduating' to the sales team a year later. Following college, Madnick and two colleagues established a new hi-fi store in Massachusetts in 1977, which remains in business today.

In 1979, Madnick joined Francis G Dennesen at Dennesen Electronics, also in Massachusetts, where he developed the famous Geometric Soundtracktor cartridge alignment tool, but he was on the move again six years later to California where he worked for a period as a consultant, before co-founding Audio Alchemy in 1989. AA produced a wide range of audiophile DACs, jitter suppressors, headphone amps, preamps, power amps and phono stages, and was one of the first brands to make widespread use of the I2S digital interface.

The original incarnation of Audio Alchemy lasted until the late 1990s and, after a spell designing video projectors for Runco, Madnick was drawn back to audio as head of Constellation Audio's engineering team. Audio Alchemy rose from the ashes in 2013 before being brought by ELAC in 2016 – Madnick still designs electronics for ELAC, and consults for other brands. He joined MoFi Electronics in 2020 as senior electronics engineer, and the MasterPhono is the first fruit of this appointment.