Second day, maybe... not counting
Did I mention what happened last night? Geez, I can’t
remember... Maybe it was that sexy Mexy place... Well, off
to TG Audio for the great Ethiopian brew Bob provides for
the inner circle every morning. Here I’m told by someone,
Geoff Kait of Machina Dynamica perhaps, maker of the unipivot
isolation stand, to visit the Red Rose room to hear “the best
sound from an inexpensive system”.
Getting there I find that yes the system sounds very,
very good. Nor does it take much space. The 40x14x7 Classic
speakers ($8,000), the almost miniature 5x10x12 upright
integrated amp ($2,000), the Sony SACD player and various
interconnects add up to under $15,000 “retail” (wink wink,
nudge nudge), comparatively inexpensive. Oh, add $25 for
the Mark Levinson SACD. Aha! Maybe that’s it! The secret
ingredient!
You never know about rooms where they play LP5 and SACD5,
because of course everything sounds better.
At tmh audio I greet the ever-pleasant and well-groomed
Jim Ricketts and am invited to seat myself front row center.
The gorgeous WAVAC amps are driving WIlT loudspeakers and I
prepare for a sonic spectacular. What I get instead, is just
great music. OK, I’m easy. Jim has this... um, unusual CD-R
and suddenly I hear a familiar British male voice giving us
“Mother Nature’s Son”. Only, in a version I’ve never heard
before, not even on pirates. Blimey, it seems like John is
there in the bloody room with us for a stunning live solo
performance while his guitar gently... waitaminnit, that’s
someone else. Anyway here’s an unforgettable experience
sonically and musically, but when I ask Jim where the thing
came from, he demurs. Damn! But what an extraordinary
illusion.
Meanwhile, in has wandered Brian Walsh of the Chicago
Audio Society, another regular of the TG morning coffee
klatsch, and he pulls out a CD with an hilarious doo-wop
rendition of “Octopus’s Garden” sung by the King Singers on
Telarc. Small world. But where has the audio system, and
talk about it, gone?
This episode illustrates a simple rule I promulgated
many years ago, and repeat here: Music is a damn distraction
from audio.
That having been said...
Time now to visit Jonathan Carr at Immedia. I love
how these great guys wait around for nowhere guys like us
members of the press to drop in! Jonathan is the materials
member of the team that designs Helikon cartridges, famed
for tonal quality and infamous for a $2000 monaural unit.
Which I have heard, and am presently saving up for. For
Jonathan I have many questions and the resultant discussion
is wideranging, freewheeling and instructive, although I must
decline to report on it here. Suffice to say, much was said
about music, especially about phrasing and about musicians’
ability to “hold the line”, and audio equipment in that
particular regard.
In other words, there’s even more than “pace and rhythm”
at stake.
Last year the ReTHMs, a Lowther embodiment, impressed
me tremendously; in fact I returned there twice just for the
sheer joy of listening. With Lowthers, generally you either
take ‘em or you leave ‘em. The ReTHMs I should think are
irresistably takable, even to this guy who loves deep bass.
It’s amazing how much volume two 8” drivers can put out, and
I’m talking clean, clear, percussive volume, and the bass
goes down somewhere into the upper forties I’d judge. With
the ReTHMs driven by great-looking Diva tube gear, I can spend
some time here again, and again.
Asked what I’d like to hear, I insouciantly reply, if
I may say, “Anything but a female vocal.” Female vocals,
as all the males call them, usually indicate a sort of music
where women wearing headphones croon in front of a mic sans
audience and sans live band too, the accompaniment having
been taped earlier. To my ear this arrangement produces a
wholly artificial result which I can barely tolerate on one
hearing, not to mention repeated. But female vocals -- aarrgh!
-- are the sonic staple at audio shows, and the genre is
usually pop. Sappy pop, at that. Hence my “Anything but
a female vocal” reply. Nothing to do with my attitude towards
women you see. You do see?
So what do these ballsy bastids put on? A female vocal!
Jeez Louise! But... waitaminnit... there s a second voice!
And they’re singing... opera! No, not opera... a high parody
of opera! And singing it very well too! Although cattily...
in fact every syllable is... a meow! I smile, I grin, I laugh
out loud! Here is the greatest female vocal I’ve ever heard!
And at a friggin’ audio show! And contrary to my specific
instructions! And boy are these guys enjoying my amusement!
Jason George, Richard Seah -- and T.S. Lim -- you rock! The
music comes first, here... As it damn well should!
The duet turns out to be sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
and Victoria de los Angeles, two of the greatest sopranos of
the last half-century. “Vocalists” -- indeed! Often I’ve
wondered, and out loud, why “vocalist” enthusiasts never listen
to... well, real music. Like this selection from the Gerald
Moore Farewell Concert. Gerald Moore -- the leading accompanist
of his day, and two top stars gave him lasting tribute. It
doesn’t get much better than that, female-vocal-wise.
Next up on the ReTHM-Divas (a diva is a singer, too),
Chinese flute music. Then: 600-year-old Vietnamese traditional.
Followed by Hugh Masakela: “There’s a train that comes from
Zambia...” Very heavy. Very varied! And all sounding great.
These guys really know how to please a musically-literate
person. And not towards any discernable commercial purpose,
either. Do they behave this way for everyone? Well, perhaps;
there are dozens of different CDs spread out on the floor,
a display unlike anywhere else. As though, the music were
front and center. Which it damn well ought to be!
I want this system!
Then again, I want it all
In Alan Kafton’s Audio Excellence suite the Diapason
speakers from Italy, which I have always admired, are being
driven by Tenor tube amps to good effect, although this is
evidently not the moment for Alan to disc—jockey for me.
At these shows one must be respectful of priorities for the
exhibitors, and realize that even we, the vaunted press,
sometimes must yield to business necessity. Nor is Dan Wright,
also in the suite, easily accessible, owing to many recent
favorable reviews of his mods and his original tube gear.
But let the record show, Dan is not the geeky unkempt geezer
you might expect. No. Back later!
Just down the hail is Silicon Arts from Japan, a newish
company headed by Masataka Tsuda and assisted by my able
friend, long resident in Japan, Mike Veretto. Mike swears
that here is a great, great unknown designer and there’s no
reason to doubt him. Mike’s a Harvard man! Over the Rosinante
loudspeakers the integrated amps do sound rather good, quite
fine in fact, although I am on to Mike’s little tricks. (Or
is it that he’s on to mine?) Every demo CD has been faithfully
edged with the Audio Desk System, polished with Optrix and
destaticised with Nordost ECO. As I have explained for years,
mostly to uncomprehending ears, you do those things and you
will win. At any rate you will overcome the sonic limitations
imposed by faulty CD manufacture. Mike and Masataka at Silicon
Arts are the first ever to apply this principle fully. I
bow to Eastern wisdom.
And perhaps for that reason, perhaps for others, the
“female vocal” I select -- Christa Ludwig doing Mahler’ s song
Das irdische Leben (“An unusual choice,” Mike observes) —-
sounds utterly ravishing. True contralto timbre. A smoky
voice. Sexiness! Everything one might wish in a woman singing
“The Earthly Life”. Fully conveyed, too, despite the
solid-state electronic intervention.
Hey! Nothing wrong with transistors done right.
At the risk however of offending the Japanese gentleman
with whom I have exchanged several bows, I pull out the Aurios
feet and we place them under his CD player. Aha! Ah so!
Much better! Mr. Tsuda issues a brief few syllables and I
request a translation:
“Meatier!”
Strolling subsequently through the yard in this excellent
weather I run across Al Foster of the Boston Audio Society,
a good guy whose one audio blindspot is Absolute Polarity,
which he disparages despite my drumbeating. Here he is with
a small but animated group and he draws me in by the shoulder.
“Clark, I’d like you to meet Barry Ober of M&K. He’s a
recording engineer from ‘way back.” Turning to Barry he says,
“Clark’s a big proponent of, ahem, Absolute Polarity. [Wink
wink.] Do you think it can be heard?”
“Well of course! Who doesn’t? Its neglect is a crime,
almost. I’ve known about polarity since 1978.”
Not what Al wanted to hear. Nor I, after a fashion.
“Damn!” I say; “That precedes me by four years. Well, pleased
to meetcha!” We shake hands a second time and Al, poor guy,
squirms. “Hey! I have along with me one, singular copy of
my hot book on the topic, The Wood Effect. They’re getting
scarce. You can have it. Enjoy!”
“Thank you! I’ve heard about it. Will you autograph
my copy?”
“Sure! But that costs you a nickel...” Barry digs into
his pocket and the transaction is completed. We exchange
electronic addresses and split. Thanks, Al!
Click here for page 4
High-Performance Audio Reviews
