SOTA turntable co-founder David Fletcher recently passed away at age 81. The experimental physicist left the U.C. Berkeley Particle Lab to be his own boss. In 1972 he co-founded Sumiko. Both companies remain in business though Fletcher long ago sold his shares.
During vinyl’s heyday, Sumiko was a leading North American importer of phono cartridges and tonearms, introducing brands to America that included Grace, Supex, Fidelity Research, Koetsu, Kiseki, Lustre, Audio Note and Breuer. Today Sumiko imports and distributes Pro-Ject turntables and electronics and manufactures a line of well regarded phono cartridges, among other audio products.
Fletcher worked his way through high school as a tech in his father’s electronics repair shop, which helps explain his seemingly incongruous career shift. In the 1960’s he co-founded in Berkeley The Audio Clinic the Bay Area’s premier audio retailer and repair facility that became a watering hole for Hewlett-Packard audio enthusiasts including Siegfried Linkwitz, Russ Riley and Barney Oliver (Hewlett Packard labs founder and director).
During his time at Sumiko Fletcher designed a series of still highly regarded products including:
* 1980 MDC-800 “the Arm” tonearm
* 1982 Talisman high output MC cartridges
* 1983 Premier MMT tonearm
* 1984 Talisman Alchemist MC cartridges
* 1985 Premier FT-3 tonearm
* 1986 Talisman Virtuoso MC cartridges
* 1988 Premier FT-4 tonearm
and in collaboration with Jim Fosgate, the FF-1 MC head amp.
In 1980, Fletcher and Robert Becker founded SOTA. The company’s first endeavor was to fund designer Rod Herman’s effort to build a better Linn Sondek LP12, itself an Ariston “knock off” based on a classic Thorens suspended design, which evolved from Edgar Villchur’s original AR turntable and appropriately around and around it went!
Fletcher made use of his Berkeley lab connections in the design and development of SOTA’s turntable line that included the Star Sapphire, which offered a vacuum hold down option, variants of which were later used by other turntable brands including Micro-Seiki. In 1985 Allen Perkins joined SOTA and his ideas were incorporated into the designs. Perkins went on to found Immedia where in the 1990s he designed and manufactured the much-copied RPM turntable and arm and later the Spiral Groove line of turntables.
Fletcher and Becker in 1991 sold SOTA to Jack Shafton who not long afterwards sold it to Kirk and Donna Bodinet. They moved the company to Illinois and revived the brand as vinyl “rose from the ashes”. Kirk passed away suddenly in 2015 at age 52. Donna and new business partner Christan Griego continue Sota (now spelled in “non-yelling” lower case letters).
Fletcher was one of four co-founders of Pacific Microsonics (developers of HDCD among other innovations), playing the role of “analog guy” assisting the digital engineers. He was in charge of parts selection, circuit board layouts and quality control.
Fletcher retired when Pacific Microsonics was sold to Microsoft in 2000 though he continued thereafter to attend CES shows. He’s survived by his wife, Donna, daughters and grandchildren.
As the “analog guy” it must have given him great satisfaction knowing that both Sumiko and Sota continue in business and record players march on strongly in the 21st Century!
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