Trade Regrets: Jack Sondermeyer

Peavey Electronics mourns the loss of one of its most celebrated engineers, Jack Sondermeyer, who passed away on January 4 at the age of 75.

Sondermeyer was Peavey’s hief engineer for 29 years, and had more than 30 patents to his credit. He was a brilliant and gifted analog design engineer who was well-respected in the engineering community.

"Jack and I were a great team," said Peavey Electronics founder and CEO Hartley Peavey. "I knew what to design but didn’t know how to design it. Jack didn’t know what to design but knew how to design it! Together we created the magic of Peavey with the help of many who knew Jack and respected him highly here at Peavey.”

Sondermeyer joined Peavey in the late '60s and was instrumental in many of the hugely successful audio products and patents that came out of Peavey Electronics. One of his outstanding contributions to the music industry was the Peavey CS-800® power amp, which became an industry standard due to its innovative design, high power and unparalleled reliability. In the 2005 book The Peavey Revolution, longtime Peavey clinician Marty McCann referred to Sondermeyer as "the godfather of all modern power amp technology and engineering."

Sondermeyer had a great love for music, and spent his last days surrounded by his family, who sang a chorus of his favorite carols and hymns.