(Photo: John Atkinson)
Don Garber, founder and sole proprietor of the influential electronics company Fi as well as a noted artist, passed away on June 4th, following a brief illness. He was 81.
Born in Virginia, Garber spent his formative years in Lititz, PA before a brief stint in the Army, during which time he was led by his love of jazz to take up the saxophone. But before long, Garber's interest in the visual arts eclipsed whatever thoughts he had of becoming a professional musician, and he put all of his energies into painting, supporting himself with carpentry and other jobs. He remained an avid fan of jazz and early country music, and, in the early 1970s, an interest in playback gear led Garber to try his hand at building a Heathkit amplifier. That experience was, in its small way, portentous: In the early 1990s, Don Garber—then living in Brooklyn with his wife, the architect Ikuyo Tagawa—rented a storefront on Watts Street in lower Manhattan, and opened Fi, arguably the most unique hi-fi shop in history. Garber channeled his artistic sensibilities into not only the aesthetics of his retail space and the gear he sold but into the concept of the audio store-as-gallery, through which he championed the work of such designers as J.C. Morrison, Tadataka Uchida, and Noriasu Komuro.
Soon after, Garber focused on his own design work: He had a talent for creative and good-sounding circuit layouts, and he's credited with making one of the first practical direct-coupled single-ended power amplifiers. Near the end of 1993, Garber closed the store on Watts Street, and Fi the hi-fi shop became Fi the hi-fi manufacturer. From that point forward, Garber devoted his time to building and selling amplifiers and preamplifiers—and painting. In his spare time, he enjoyed skiing, fly-fishing, and attending jazz and chamber-music recitals.
