Ted Fletcher, the pioneering designer behind iconic audio brands such as Alice, Joemeek, tfpro and Orbitsound, has sadly passed away.
Ted’s involvement in audio technology started at an early age, and at just 13 years old he built a machine capable of recording audio onto magnetic paper tape with his father, John E. Fletcher. He went on to train and qualify as a civil engineer, although soon decided to pursue a career in music, instead becoming a session singer on the London pop music scene. His interest in the technical side of the industry quickly became apparent, and led to him starting his own home studio with his own home-made equipment.
He also worked alongside producer and audio engineer Joe Meek in his independent London studio, before taking on the task of running a commercial studio for Keith Prowse Music in London’s Denmark Street. During his time at the facility, he developed and built a number of processors including a hybrid valve/transistor amplifier and an optical compressor. It wasn’t long before word got around about his designs, with a number of local studios getting in touch to request units of their own.
In 1969, Ted teamed up with some friends to launch Alice, who designed and built equipment for many of the UK’s emerging local radio stations. In addition to their broadcast work, the company was equally well received in the studio world, with big-name acts such as Yes, Jethro Tull and The Who all employing Alice gear on their recording sessions. His innovation continued throughout the 1970s, with key developments including the ‘superbal’ balanced audio input circuitry and an audio limiter that was fitted into the Alice 828 mixing console. A whole host of new developments followed throughout the 1980s, starting with a solid-state ‘hybrid transformer’ designed for use on phone-in programmes, along with transformerless circuitry for large-format mixing consoles and the first designs to use transconductance amplifiers with large studio loudspeakers.
Although officially semi-retired, in 1989 Ted started a small company that focused on the video industry. In need of a stereo compressor, he set about working on a design that he’d originally developed alongside Joe Meek in the 1960s: the renowned Joemeek optical compressor. Ted launched the Joemeek brand in 1993, and remained involved in product development until its sale in 2001. The following year saw the introduction of tfpro, which Ted used as an outlet to uncompromising audio designs that prized technical performance and build quality. In 2010 he founded Orbitsound, an international company that designed and sold innovative spatial loudspeaker systems for the consumer market, while 2024 saw him team up with sons Daniel and Guy launch Airsound, a company dedicated to designing spatial audio playback systems.
