Then I saw a job ad in the newspaper about to work for the city of Geneva as a civil servant. I got the job and was in charge to get the first portable computers for the 80 politicians of Geneva. And I was in responible for choosing the computer model. Then I became the 'guru 'because when the policians had a problem, they called me. At the time we had Windows 3.1 oder 3.1.1. It was a long time ago. I worked for the city of Geneva for eight years, but my my passion grew stronger and stronger: I wanted to build amplifiers. And so I never stopped thinking about my project. I tried, I failed, I tried again and failed again. So I was happy to have this job in the city because we had to have something to eat the end of the month.

It took me 16 years in total long to think about my first amplifier. In 1999 I built a prototype of the first darTZeel amplifier, it was called Model Zero. It was very huge because I didn't know which size I need inside. So I made it bigger than I needed. Now it's still there and when you look inside, it's almost empty. When I switched on the amplifier for the first time, I was afraid it would burst into flames. But everything was fine. I remember my son coming into the basement and me hugging him and saying, ‘It's working. It's working.’ I was so happy. That was 1999, and then I started to just enjoy my first creation.

Friends came to listen to it and said: “You can't make only one. You have to make one for me and for me and for me. Because we want it.” “Okay, guys.” Well, at that time it was quite complicated because we didn't have all these modern programmes to do drawings and stuff. At the time I didn't have the means to use AutoCAD, but there was a little software for designing called AutoSketch, which was derived from AutoCAD, but for beginners. To design the shape, all the electronics, the mechanics and everything else for this amplifier took me maybe two to three years.