Ray Dolby, the man whose name was synonymous with noise reduction, has died.

Dolby died last Thursday in San Francisco of leukaemia. He was 80. In recent years he had also been battling Alzheimer’s disease.

I have fond memories of making backup copies of my record albums onto cassette tapes, and using the Dolby button to minimize hiss.

Dolby had many patents and became a billionaire when his company went public in 2005, forty years after its founding in 1965.

Thomas Dolby, the English new wave musician, best known for his hit ‘She Blinded Me with Science’, was not a relation but changed his last name to his nickname, one he got for his audiophile tendencies.

My take: rest in peace, Ray. In the analogue days, Dolby NR was a glimpse of better sound to come. In our digital age, tape hiss is a historical footnote, thank goodness.