He is a self taught Hi Fi designer who didn't receive a formal university education and learnt electronics by observing his father's work.

He is the designer behind the Peachtree Audio Nova D/A integrated amplifier that was voted a Budget Product of the Year 2009 by Stereophile magazine.

These started in 2013 on the audio discussion forum pinkfishmedia.net[11] with the MDAC2 proposal and was followed by a VFET Amplifier, DETOX USB signal adapter and MDAC2 Streamer.

The proposal for these projects was a development period of months with investors rewarded with completed design PCBs and products produced at cost.

Instead of focussing on achievable design goals, John has allowed projects to run-off on tangents chasing new technology and ultimate performance.

Because of these criticisms, John now mainly only discusses the crowdfunded projects on a private Closed Facebook Group page under his control.

Source:[11] In 2013, John Westlake used the audio discussion forum pinkfishmedia.net[12] to offer the development of an upgraded MDAC mainboard to project investors.

Investors would support the development with stage funding of £400-£600[13] and be offered the upgraded DAC mainboard on an "at cost" production basis.

Originally, upon design completion, production was to be sourced from China utilising Johns manufacturing supply chain contacts.

Source:[11] The VFET Amplifier is a similar investor backed project to the MDAC2 development which started in 2014 with delivery planned for late that year.

John supposedly bought sufficient 8000MB chassis to fulfil the project investors orders at over £3,000 per pair, paid upfront.