Rob Robinson R.I.P.

Channel D founder, designer, visionary

Rob Robinson, Channel D founder, designer and manufacturer of some of the most innovative phono preamplifiers among other products, passed away suddenly on October 15th, 2025. He was 67 years old and leaves behind his wife Claudia. Please click on the hyperlink where you'll see a long list of his many achievements and accomplishments.

This obit is late for a variety of reasons: I wasn't alerted until I was about to leave for the Warsaw Audio Video Fair and upon my return was very busy with show report coverage and I didn't have a photo of Rob, which is crazy since I spent a great deal of time with him at shows and mushroom hunting in the wilds of New Jersey.

Over the years I reviewed many of his phono preamplifiers including the Lino and Lino C and Seta Model L. Rob's novel designs were battery powered and featured defeatable RIAA circuitry because Rob, whose background was in the computer programming world, felt that RIAA filtration was best and most accurately accomplished in the digital domain—though many of us felt and still feel that digitizing analog defeats the whole purpose of playing records. He argued otherwise.

Rob developed Pure Vinyl™ software so customers could play back their digital files using a "tangential tracking" virtual turntable. At the touch of a drop down menu, users could select from an endless list of curves, besides the usual few, which made it particularly useful for 78rpm playback.

Ironically, at one point when Apple changed OS and chips, Pure Vinyl needed a complete makeover to be compatible and due to Covid or some other reason or reasons, Rob never completed the update.

While some believe giant caps and resistors soldered to "through holes" on circuit boards is the best way to accomplish great sound, Robinson felt that these were less useful in our RFI/EMI polluted environment for reasons not worth discussing here, so for him, modern surface mount board technology (SMT) was best. It's one reason his phono preamps were compact compared to many high end products.

John Atkinson measured the outstanding sounding Lino C 3.3 fully loaded at $7082 and declared it "... the best-measuring phono preamplifier I have encountered," he concluded, adding "Wow!"

I chose the photo at the top showing Rob setting up a room, either at AXPONA or the Capital Audio Festival as the lead photo because it epitomized Rob in his audio element. I could have chosen one of him cooking because he loved doing that as well and he was equally detail oriented and fastidious when he was being a chef as well as when we went mushroom hunting, which was especially good because he knew the edibles from the poisonous. I trusted him completely on this as I'd probably not trust too many others.

To say he was detail oriented would be a serious understatement. He spent the time, had the knowledge and produced great sound under difficult hotel conditions. To say he didn't suffer fools easily would be another understatement. Rob was blunt and not particularly diplomatic, but he could laugh about it.

Yesterday, (January 9th, 2026) I drove down to where Rob's wife Claudia is currently living in Pennsylvania, and with two of Rob's friends, Mark Block and Marvin Berkowitz, we took her out for lunch and shared Rob stories.

I've received more than a few inquiries from Channel D product owners wanting to know if someone will buy the company and continue manufacturing and servicing the products but at this point that doesn't seem possible. Unfortunately, Rob being Rob never left Claudia with the password or passwords to his computer(s) and no one has been able to open them. It's where all of his inventions and circuit diagrams etc. are located (not to mention bank account information, etc.).

Claudia's attorney and other advisors are working on this but so far there's no solution. However, there must be a legal "work around" if there's not a "tech one." Let that be a lesson to all of us: be prepared to take care of your loved ones when you are gone!

We keep thinking the fastidious Rob had somehow taken care of this and the solution will be found somewhere around the house. And it will sound good.

Rob with wife Claudia who almost never looks this serious, and Mark Block