JAPAN: TAKATSUKI, OSAKA PREFECTURE
Julie Mullins
The industry has lost another luminary. Atsushi Miura passed away peacefully on May 25, 2022. He was 88 years old.
Miura’s name may not have been as familiar as some, but audiophiles know his companies and products, from Luxman to Air Tight, solid state and tubed. Miura was an accomplished audio-electronics engineer who rose to prominence at Luxman, where he began his tenure in 1956, when Luxman was still a family business. Miura married the eldest daughter, Mari, of company head/co-founder K. Yoshikawa. Miura’s audio-engineer father later led Luxman. By the early 1980s, Miura had risen to prominence at Luxman, eventually following in his father-in-law’s—and his engineer father’s—footsteps and running the company.
When Alpine acquired Luxman, soon after, Miura founded A&M Limited with designer/co-founder Masami Ishiguro, in 1986. “A&M” stands for their respective first names, Atsushi and Masami. A&M Limited spawned the Air Tight brand of tube electronics, beginning with the EL34-based ATM-1 stereo amplifier. A few years ago, Atsushi Miura’s son, Yutaka (aka Jack) Miura, took the reins at A&M Limited/Air Tight.
I had the occasion to meet and spend a little time with Miura-san at the Air Tight factory in Japan. A team of women were building the company’s small-batch, point-to-point–wired components by hand, soldering meticulously. An inventory of new and NOS tubes occupied a good bit of real estate. A collection of Miura-san’s favorite amplification gear from several decades, both tubed and solid state, filled shelves in another area. Their designs and presence inspired him.
There was a listening room. One of the speaker pairs in the room were vintage Apogees. It may sound clichéd, but music transcends linguistic and cultural boundaries. After a group dinner with former colleagues and Air Tight folks, I felt compelled to inquire about musical interests beyond our earlier listening.
Maybe it was the sake. Miura-san didn’t speak much English, and I know only a few Japanese words. But I asked Miura-san whether he knew the Wanda Jackson song, “Fujiyama Mama.” Concerned about the potential for unintentional disrespect, one of my former publication’s superiors tried to shush me, but I was genuinely curious: I’d heard it had been a huge hit in Japan. Without missing a beat, Miura grinned and began singing the song. He was serious about his craft, but he also knew how to enjoy life. It was our last exchange, and I’ll never forget
