A Heartfelt Goodbye to Gary Altunian

Gary was 59 and a native of Southern California. He was director of training and development at a regional CE chain, The Federated Group from 1975 to 1988. From 1988 to 2003, he was Yamaha's national sales training manager. In 2003, he launched a career writing about audio components for such publications as Widescreen Review, Ultimate AV and Home Theater Magazine. Gary passed away March 15 after fighting cancer for several years.

Funeral arrangements weren't available as of this posting.

What we personally knew of Gary was a bit more recent, having spent some time with him at CES back in 2005 and he having the somewhat dubious privilege of having introduced us to one of our long-running jokes, the Samsung AV-R3000 AV receiver - a Yamaha looking replica that never could seem to get to market. While we never rubbed that in his face (after all, it wasn't his fault), we were impressed that he never once joined in and poked fun of any of his former employers - his comments always seemed to be uplifting and positive.

At one point we were asked to review a set of Phase Tech CI-20VII In-wall speakers - which, to be quite honest, we had no way of accurately reviewing at the time. Turns out Gary had built his own in-all speakers rig... Happily, we contracted him to do the review and it was truly wonderful to see a fellow pro at work.

Gary Altunian resided in Oceanside and Temecula, Calif., with his decade-long companion Marcia Walker and his dogs Rosie and Aussie, according to an email sent to Yamaha employees. He has a sister, Sue Holland of Shadow Hills, Calif., and a son, Jason Altunian, of Huntington Beach, Calif.

Altunian, the letter states, "was admired and respected by everyone that knew him, or that came into contact with him over his long electronics industry career that spanned over 35 years." Of that, we have no doubt.