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Dear Mark,
Ironically, I was hired as Director of Engineering at SAE originally to
solve all of the problems with the tuner program, specifically, the VIB. Ed
Miller, who recently passed away, had unfor-
tunately went on the cheap when it came to the quality of parts and
components. Specifically, the front end was a purchased part and it was not
very good. It had to be "babied" into alignment and also needed afc in order
not to drift. Any top notch RF engineer should be able to design a front end
that is properly temperature compensated to eliminate drift. As an example,
probably the greatest tuner ever designed, the Marantz 10B, did not need
afc. Also, the IF filters that were preset and supplied by Filtek, were
terrible and we had to reject a great many of them. Finally, all of the
technicians working at SAE were Taiwanese nationals and aside from being
totally incompetent, they didn't speak English and it was almost impossible
to communicate with them. The first thing I did was to fire all of them.
With Ed gone I had to do a very fast job of "fixing" the tuners to get them
out the door. In the meantime, SAE amplifiers were actually subpar designs
and were extremely problematic. I had to close down one production line to
the consternation of Morris Kessler who owned SAE and I ordered an end to
the production of the remaining two amplifiers. It was very clear to me that
unless a new concept in amplifier design was forthcoming, SAE was not going
to survive. That's when I conceived of the dual-differential, full
complementary circuit topology which has for the last 27 years been the
defacto standard of the audio design world.
SAE made a second tuner without the scope called the VIII. Subsequently,
after I left to found the GREAT AMERICAN SOUND CO with AMPZILLA, SAE
produced a few more tuners culminating with the T101 when ED MILLER returned
to the company. The tuner was much better than the previous VIB however, it
like most other tuners in this world, still were just not in the league of
the 10B, the Sequerra Tuner, the Tandberg 3001A, or for that matter, my
"Charlie the Tuner" that I designed at Sumo. Subsequently, Morris decided to
shift design and manufacturing to Inkel in Korea and that I believe, was the
final nail in the coffin for SAE.
Morris has for the last few years had a new company called ATI and the great
irony here is that he is still using my original circuits that I designed
for him 27 years ago. Obviously, there is something right about the concept.

On another note of irony, I would like everyone to know that the much
vaunted SAE 2400(L) is an exact circuit clone of my original Ampzilla and I
mean part for part.
Regarding service manuals, I have some of them and as soon as I get situated
(I am currently moving to a new location and everything I have is all packed
up at the moment) I will make available to you what I have.
Also, the SAE products had some similatities with the earlier Marantz
designs. The amplifers of course had ABSOLUTELY NO SIMILARTIY as they were
my designs however, the two preamps being made while I was there, the IC and
the XXX were close circuit knockoffs of the circuitry that was in the
Marantz 7T. I had nothing to do with this and I tried to get Morris to
realize that this needed to be improved but he wouldn't listen to me (pun
intended). To be sure, these two preamps were POOR copies. As stated
earlier, the SAE tuners were not at all in the league of the Marantz 10B.
Finally I would like to correct another misconception and that it Mike
Pontelle was never a partner with Morris in SAE. The original partner with
Morris was Ted Winchester which Morris subsequently bought out.
Coincidently, all of the equalizers that SAE prouced were designed by Ted
and initially were also half manufactured by Ted next door. By half I mean,
the coils and circuit boards where Morris made all of the metalwork, etc. I
hope this clears things up somewhat. Also, the only engineer at SAE that was
formally with the Marantz Co. was ME.
Also, to Armin Paya, If you want your SAE reconditioned, that's what I do. I
have attached my update schedule for you to peruse.
James Bongiorno

Mark Gurries wrote: