Prague Journal

Friday, November 19, 2004.

Rick and I headed to Prague 9 to see the KR Audio corporation, located in the former Tesla Electronics complex. After the last Nazis escaped and the Russians entered the Czech Republic in 1945, most of the formerly private enterprises were nationalized. Philips, which had developed tubes and circuits used in radios in its manufacturing plant in Prague, became the state-controlled Tesla radio plant. Nikola Tesla, the inventor of modern radio technology, was born in 1856 into a family of Serb peasants in one of the poorest regions in Croatia, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Tesla studied at the Technical University in Prague, which was at that time one of the best technical schools in Europe. Tesla was heavily involved in the intellectual life of Central Europe before moving to New York City in 1844 to work with the Edison Company redesigning Edison’s DC (direct current) dynamos. Tesla resigned in 1886 and formed his own company, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing. In 1888, Tesla developed systems which would allow AC (alternating current) electricity to be transmitted over large distances. Tesla spent a year in Colorado Springs in 1899-1900 to study the effects of high-frequency currents at high altitude. There he improved his coreless transformer invention known as the Tesla Coil. Tesla died in 1944, too soon to see the effect of the Russian liberation of the Czech Republic from the Nazis. But people here will tell you that the Tesla plant was not named for Nikola Tesla. Officially, it is an abbreviation for Technica slaboproda, or “technique for weak current.”
The history of the KR Audio company is as interesting as the history of Tesla Electronics. Eunice had moved from New York to Italy to study veterinary medicine at Perugia and had met Riccardo Kron at a dinner party in 1977. Riccardo was an art collector, audiophile, tinkerer and engineer, living and working in Milan. In 1992, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they stumbled on a young Czech engineer selling vacuum tubes for old radios in a flea market. This young fellow had worked for the Tesla High Vacuum Technology facility in Prague and when the company folded, he and two Tesla colleagues started their own company, trying to replicate old tubes for radio collectors like himself, and selling old tubes in flea markets around Europe to support himself. Riccardo knew modern tube design, and had been working on innovations himself, so he entered into a partnership to develop new tube technology for modern audio (stereo) amplifiers. After several years of Riccardo traveling back and forth to Prague from Italy, he and Eunice moved to Prague in 1996, eventually taking total control and ownership of the now-KR Audio Electronics company. Riccardo was not only a creative engineer and audiophile, he was a brilliant networker and salesman. You can find KR tubes in the best high-end amplifiers, and will probably see the “Kronzilla” amplifier hooked up to the best systems. Riccardo died in 2002, and Eunice has been running the company with a competent team of loyal employees, who still make each tube by hand.
Rick, of course, was enthralled with the company, not only because of the meticulous care taken to the design and manufacture of the tubes and amplifiers, but also because of the incredible sound of the Kronzilla amplifier. Even hooked up to mediocre speakers, we’ve never heard sound so close to actual instruments. Rick sees a Kronzilla in our future.
After the Friday evening Shabbat service at Bejt Praha, Howard and Marketa invited us to dinner at their house again. We had already planned to go to dinner with Eunice, so Howard invited her to join us. Marketa had made huge pot of chicken-vegetable soup, which was more than a meal in itself, and, of course, had also bought pastries for dessert. Another delightful evening ensued, with more discussions about world affairs and interesting experiences. We feel rich in friendship here.

posted by JWinn @ 8:47 PM