It’s 11.30 am as we walk our way through the bustling streets of radio market on Anna Salai.

Chennai :

It’s 11.30 am as we walk our way through the bustling streets of radio market on Anna Salai. A three-storied building with a board ‘Torvin Audio System’ catches our attention. As we step into the building, we notice a huge projector mounted on the wall along with advanced speakers, amplifiers and home theatres arranged in a studio-like set-up to our right. An assistant guides us to M John Thankachan’s room on the first floor. John is the founder of Torvin Audio System, and is passionate about music and audio electronics.

Ingeniously Indian
John Thankachan is popular in the Indian audio industry. His selfless contribution towards taking music to audiophiles and people from all walks of life through affordable and made-in-India gadgets has earned him the title ‘Father of Indian audio systems’. Down-to-earth, open-minded and hard-working — these are the three words to sum up his persona. Dressed in a white shirt and black pants, John welcomes us into his room with a smile. Electronic magazines are piled up on his table, shelves are stacked with encyclopedias, client folders, and awards, and walls are filled with paintings and motivational quotes. Books, greenery, and music are an inevitable part of his life.

“I like enriching myself with updates and advancements in technology daily through Internet and magazines. I have hard disks with thousands of songs. I’ve been on a solo journey from the beginning. To design music equipment, you need to be a music lover after all,” says John, who lives in Anna Salai with his family. He came to the city 40 years back. John, son of a farmer, was born in a village called Poomala in Thrissur. He completed his diploma in electronics and communication and worked in Murphy Service Center in Kerala for four years. John came to Chennai in the 1980s for a television repairing and service course.

The man behind Torvin
Talking about the inception of his brand, John says, “That was a phase when there were several hindrances in servicing international brands due to the unavailability of spare parts. What started out on a small scale to offer servicing solutions to audio equipment later turned me into an equipment maker. I founded the Power Electronics & Technologies in 1980. In 1990, I started the brand Torvin Audio System and we’ve been in this building for 23 years now,” says John. He was honoured as a Doctor of Audio Engineering and Research by America West University, California, in 2005.

John kickstarted his business in a 150-sq ft room. Currently, he has his own servicing unit, a manufacturing place, and outlets. Unlike a typical workspace, his office has four large speakers with exceptional sound emanating from them. Transparent boxes with connectors, moulded samples, sockets, diodes, and knobs are neatly labelled and arranged on the shelves. The motherboards of the amplifiers and spare parts of gadgets are scattered on the side table, there are a few demo models under testing, and charts with diagrams hung on the walls. His service room is no less than a lab.

“The three challenges in electronic industry are  lack of spare parts, skilled labour, and competitive mushrooming of foreign brands. I emphasise on the tagline, which is also my logo, — ‘It’s Indian’. All the equipment here is made with Indian components as much as possible and are priced affordably. But, the radio markets are flooded with Chinese products and people fall for that. We Indians are capable but do not appreciate or support one another. Secondly, engineers go for IT jobs for good pay. Nobody takes up electronics, so there’s always a shortage of labour. It takes years of experience to earn recognition in this field,” he says..

Musical experiences
John’s first innovation was a single station radio for `40 in the 1970s. Subwoofer amplifier, tower speakers and audio systems — he has manufactured them himself. His latest creation under progress is called the project 1.3 speaker system and his best work is a six-foot tower speaker. In the 90s, John was the first to introduce virtual home theatres to Indians. He also built the fully-protected amplifier to bring a theatrical impact at home. He also has a huge collection of electronic gadgets, spanning different eras, stored in a dust-free room on the second floor that is vacuum-cleaned once in three months. One of the oldest of the lot is a radio from the 1950s. John’s favourite is a walkman with a mini-reel player from the 70s. Radios, gramophones, disc players, vinyl, laser discs,and  mics, are some of his priceless possessions.

“Given the time and opportunity, I’d like to pass on my knowledge by conducting workshops for sound and electronic engineering students. Lastly, people should listen to good music that captures the sound of every instrument and enhances the singer’s voice,” he says.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Vaishali Vijaykumar / Express News Service / January 29th, 2019