Chris Brown, an Obituary

Alpine Electronics is arguably the most prestigious brand in all mobile electronics. Their level of products and technical support and knowledge has always been revered. For over three decades in the UK, the technical buck had stopped at the feet of Alpine’s top engineer, Chris Brown, who we are sad to report died on the 25th August 2009 after a relatively short illness.
Chris was an original employee of Autocar back in the Seventies when they were the first Pioneer distributors. When Pioneer GB Limited was set up and Autocar lost distribution, Chris stayed with them as Autocar took on Alpine. He was then involved with Graham Johnson and Keith Holness from the first day when they in turn set up Alpine Electronics of UK Limited as a founder member. He was the tech smarts they needed.
Chris was a fixture at Alpine’s Milton Keynes offices throughout and changed to contracting for Alpine some five years ago when Alpine moved to Coventry. During this time, he was far more than a service wizard. Chris would implement all kinds of special applications for the UK market, including PCB design and beta testing.
His training sessions were legendary and the author in particular recalls great slices of education learned at his presentations – especially sealed versus ported enclosure pros and cons. He was the single most glorious source of a bloody good tech argument and while you couldn’t EVER find disagreement with him technically, he would always have a lopsided wry twinkly grin for you if he respected your ability to have a standpoint. He made me feel like I was in the presence of one you should feel deep respect for. And a wicked sense of humour to go with it, with an unrestrained guffaw that would flow from his beard like it was amplified by it when he laughed.
Keith Holness, Alpine’s National Sales Manager said, “You asked him a stupid question at your peril. Sometimes it was fun just doing that to wind him up, but then you had to pacify him with a cup of tea – or a fag!
We are already missing him and as time goes on we’ll realise just how big a hole his passing has left, both in our lives and our industry.”
Graham Johnson, holder of a trade Lifetime Achievement award and until his very recent retirement the most prominent face at Alpine said, “Chris was a top bloke and I was just numb when I heard he had passed. It just hasn’t sunk in yet. He was arguably the best engineer in our industry of all time.”
Chris was just 62 and leaves a wife, Susie. Are thoughts are with her and their family.
Left to right: Mike Pearce, Chris Brown, BarryJohn Vincent