Andre Charlin was in his seventies when I first met him at one of the first French Hifi show I visited. He was always sitting quietly in a corner of the room, silently assembling a demo on his turntable and enjoying the reactions of the audience.
By that time, he had mastered the turntables, the amps AND the speakers...so it was an awesome experience and very different from most other equipments on display.
I would always spend an inordinate amount of time at his booth, asking questions on this or that, and I realise today how much of these conversations have actually filtered down to my own designs.
I recommend you visit the most comprehensive website on his life achievements at http://www.svalander.se/charlin
I have borrowed the photo above from that site.
Charlin was also a great sound engineer and recorded a vast array of music. He had invented a special stereo microphone, called the "artificial head", which is basically an object shaped like a human head with two high quailty microphones installed where the ears should be.
This technique has been since improved and is still very much in use for boutique classical recordings.
I believe such a device is actually permanently suspended in the void of the Sydney Opera House and used for live recording by ABC Classic FM.
If anybody can confirm this information, I would be most grateful.

I have actually used a home made version of a "tete artificielle" hooked up to a portable tape recorder from Stellavox running at 38cm/s (You need to be very quick to exchange tapes in between movements...)