Randall is the master at eliminating free market competition by patenting improvements or circuits to switch between two of the same circuits (for example to with between a silicon rectifier or a vacuum tube rectifier) Almost half of his patents revolve around "improving" someone else's' design (he has even wrote that in the patents). Taking two circuits that was someone else idea and putting them in the same device is not a patent. And almost every patent of his is something a 1st year electronics student could think of simply reading a fundamentals of analog circuits book.
I think that he is a coward who is afraid of having a fair free market competition, every single one of his patents does not fit the mold for a patentable material (must not be an improvement of someone else's design, patented or not, and MUST NOT BE AN OBVIOUS DESIGN). Because of this he is able to comfortably choose how expensive he wants to have his amps because no one else can compete with him, he has monopolized the system to prevent competition (which is ILLEGAL in the US, just ask Bill Gates), which explains the ridiculous prices of their amps. I am pretty sure if there were not patents he would be blown out of the water by EE's who could take what he patented and make it better AND cheaper.
Just a list of somethings he calls a patent
-Switchable rectifiers (silicon or valve)
-Switchable clean boost between the preamp and poweramp
-Simultaneous use of a different class amplifiers (class A blended with class AB)
-Digital Potentiometer for Audio use (a digital potentiometer has been around forever, he just patented the use of one in ALL audio applications)
-Mains Voltage reduction aka variac (manufacturer of transformers have put multiple taps on primaries to switch from US to EU voltages, he was the first to patent the use of the central taps to be 70.7% of the designed mains voltage (it was actually done before him many times before, he was just the first to patent it, which means SOMEONE ELSE ALREADY DID THAT AND HE STILL PATENTED IT)
-Switchable amplifier (from single ended to push-pull)
-Poweramp power reduction (the ability to turn off pairs of tubes to get half power, or turn off three tubes to have one tube in class A to get quarter power)
-Footswitchable volume boost
-Adjustable Parallel FX loop (he was the FIRST to patent the use of an FX loop that had a blend knob between wet and dry (those designs have been in FX units for years prior, he was just the first to put it in an FX loop of an amp))
Like I said every single one of those is something you could easily think up of by simply reading a basic electronics theory book, and considering that most of his designs are "improvements" of someone else design, I have no respect for the man, IMO he is a coward afraid of fair competition. How the US patent office granted all of them is beyond me, apparently they can't follow their own rules/guidelines for what is a patent.
I think I'll grab one too, I swore to never buy anything Mesa, but I'd still love to own a Recto... Guess this is the way, or build my own.
watch it, US patents protect the patent holder from people even building their patents, he could sue you just for building a dual recto for your own personal use.
