Positive Feedback 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award: Ted Denney III and Synergistic Research

The difference between the journalist and the novelist is the deadline…

An award given as a story.

For quite a while now I have given the rarest of my recognitions – my PF Lifetime Achievement Awards. As I wrote in 2017:

“Finally, we have a PF Lifetime Achievement Award, wherein I honor persons who have produced a longtime body of work in the audio arts that ought to be highlighted. We've had some fine names there in the past…for example, George Cardas, Winston Ma, Chad Kassem, Stan Ricker…” Others have included people like Lloyd Walker, John Grado, A. J. van den Hul, Nelson Pass, and Wayne Colburn. Luminaries, all.

This year it’s past time for me to recognize another longtime very significant contributor to the audio arts.

Ted Denney III of Synergistic Research.

This has been a long time developing…Ted received one of my PF Gizmo Awards back in 2017, and again in 2019…but Ted and SR have hit an extremely important critical mass over the past several years. His latest generation reference products are sui generis, while his forthcoming LogIQ system looks to be a unique quantum leap to a level of accomplishment for the audio arts that will transform everything.

But this award is going to be unique. Fact is, I’ve known Ted personally for decades now…since the spring of 1994. Or was it 1993?

A long time, anyway. And unlike many (most?) of my other Lifetime Achievement Award winners, my recognition of his accomplishments is much closer and much more extended in nature. This adds real three-dimensionality to what he has done.

In 1993/1994, he showed up at what then PF Central at my home in Laurelhurst, Portland. He was clearly quite young and had a youthful associate with him. Ted said that he had come by because he had spotted a copy of Positive Feedback at Tower Records. The über underground vibe, edginess, and wild-child attitude appealed to him, as opposed to the grey worlds of corporations and cults that dominated high-end audio in the early ‘90s.

Ted Denney III visiting Music Millennium with me during a trip to PF Central in Portland back in 2021

Turns out that Ted was kindred in that way. He had just established Synergistic Research, was living/sleeping on the floor of his 1,200 sq. ft. factory, and doing a pretty good job of starving a lot. A classic entrepreneur, for sure. (Just ask the guy who has taught economics, business, eCommerce and such.) There were other cable manufacturers – not nearly as many as now, though – but Ted thought that he had a radically different take on how to design and build them. And PF was a natural rocket ride along the way.

We listened to my reference listening system at the time and talked about what could be. Too bad that I was so caught up in our conversation that I didn’t think to get my trusty Canon AE-1 and make a photograph or two.

Remember film?

After that, I would always make sure that I stopped by Ted’s room at various high-end shows that I attended. His passion and enthusiasm made me smile, and his designs got better and better by the year. No two years ever looked alike. He branched out from cables to AC power conditioners and other accessories. I saw and heard devices that had tubes. No tubes. Spatial optimizers that allow you to shift the soundfield in a listening room…at first taller units, then shorter. Active grounding blocks.

In the SR room at an audio show in 2019...

And now, Ethernet switches and routers, optimizing Internet feeds. iPad-based control.

Ted with his SRX PowerCell, 2025: no holds barred, and definitely in the Sui Generis category. (Just ask the guy who has one in his reference stereo listening room!)

But wait! Soon to come: LogIQ, pronounced "Logic," which will truly revolutionize your listening experience in your audio room according to all that Ted has outlined to me.

In reaching this place, as I’ve followed him over the years, Ted demonstrated a highly focused, wild and free spirit. Brilliance of design, yes, but done with a powerful adventurousness.

Ted and Ferrari (image courtesy of Ted Denney III)

This has led him from sleeping on tiny factory floors and starving to sailing the Pacific alone; from being broke to going for broke on high performance cars and high-end motorcycles, on racetracks and the wide-open road.

My beloved BMW M3 Hardtop Convertible

Now I dig performance cars too…Porshe GT/GTS and BMW M3 for me.

But Ted’s operating at a much higher level (and budget!) than I am.

Motorcycles too!

Back to high-end audio, and the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Over the years, and especially by 2017, Ted had reached a point where it became impossible to ignore the ever-growing body of design work that he had done.

And so I didn't.

My Gizmo Award is often a leading sign of a person on the road to a Lifetime Achievement. I named in after my good friend and long-ago PF contributor, Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg, a brilliant wild-child in the usually more staid world of audiophiledom.

Gizmo! (image courtesy of Harvey Rosenberg; photographer unknown) You just had to love it...

These were in addition to any Brutus Awards or Audio Oasis! Awards that Synergistic Research earned.

Ted Denney III with cigar on my deck in Happy Valley in 2026: a portrait.

All of this is by way of background.

Unique. I can’t think of anyone else in high-end audio who is like Ted. Having sustained a body of ever more remarkable designs since I first met him back in the early '90s, the time has come to add him to the short list of my PF Lifetime Achievement Award winners.

Yes, I know. I was on the verge of publishing this article when serious health issues interrupted my workflow. And I've been digging out of the massive backlog of work since I returned from the hospital for nearly two months now.

But – at last! – it's done. Due recognition has been given.

And congratulations to Ted! This award has been decades in coming, and is well deserved.