From Clark Johnsen's Diaries
By Clark Johnsen
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Now to mbl: multi-multi-thousands of dollars but horrid,
distorty and digital-edged sound. Hard to believe the
exhibitors could allow this, because the speakers are rather
good. Pity, the music was actually in the correct polarity.
Intermezzo I
I adjourn to the Concourse press room hoping to pick
up free food. But no coffee, even! However, there is the
estimable (or is that, inestimable?) John Marks holding forth
to a small group. As I sit down, the topic is Brahms’ op.
118 and I realize I am among real musicians. While I love
that music for piano solo, although I admire the op. 117
Intermezzi even better, John is explaining the hand-over-hand
technique that should be employed for a certain passage, and
how one particular performer nails it, and I am entirely
adrift. I gave up piano at age fifteen; not a natural, and
I knew it. Yet I love the literature and hearing people talk
about it literately.
Soon the conversation drifts into technical matters where
I feel more at ease. DSD/SACD/MP3... John is on top of this
too. Well, he is a record producer... And then, video!
Omigosh! And now he’s telling the story once told to him,
of the dealer who set a customer up with the desired expensive
surround system and big screen, who then gave the man a DVD
of Casablanca, which the fellow had never seen. Well, he
came back and said, “It was an OK movie, but it had every
cliché in the book.”
After picking ourselves up off the floor, another guy
tells of the first time one of his classically clueless
girlfriends had heard Hoist’s The Planets. She said, “OK,
but it sounds just like John Williams.”
Oh, those press room antics.
But Life Goes On
Philip O’Hanlon may be the best presenter in the business,
anyway to judge by his two most recent appearances. Today
he is manning the Rockport/Halcro/Clearaudio suite, to which
hand-in-hand John Marks and I repair. John has just presented
me with an autographed CD of Dominick Argento’s 1987 Te Deum,
which we are bound to hear. He describes the music, with
a broad wink, as “Britten’s Ceremony of Carols as heard through
the John Williams experience.” Inside we are guided by Philip
to excellent seats and our CD is put into the stack deck.
First, however, we must hear some of Debussy’s ravishing Trio,
a Philip favorite. At its conclusion a voice is raised from
the back of the room: “So Clark, was it in phase?”
I turn to see the merry, bearded face of Andy Payor,
one of the greatest guys ever and designer of the most
beautiful (and expensive) turntable on earth. I hadn’t noticed
him as we strolled in. Yes! It was!” Andy nods and waves
cheerfully.
Next, “Love in Vain” from the live Stones LP. Also in
phase, and sounding immensely live. I ask Philip afterwards,
not sotto voce, “Was that a SALP?” which gets a nice rise
from the audience. Then, returning to CD, our Argenta. Oops!
Well it isn’t their fault, although pity there’s no polarity
switch. Still, sounds pretty good, and I should mention that
the Rockport speakers have never acquitted themselves so well
before, in my experience. I’ve not been a fan of their
highly-damped sound, but here they sing, perhaps due to the
Halcro amplifiers, which at the recent CES allowed even the
underperforming Wilson Maxx’s likewise to sing. On the other
hand, they seem to have little response under forty, and no
high top, but within that broad passband the effect is magical.
And that band represents, remember, 99% of the music.
ReTHM loudspeakers -- horn-loaded and Lowther-driven
—- have for several shows provided highly engaging sound.
Today we hear their newer, smaller Third ReTHMs which acquit
themselves nicely, but without the total involvement of the
big guys. The exhibitors, as before, have dozens of CDs
attractively spread on the floor, for our looking and listening
choice. Why this excellent practice has not caught on
elsewhere, I cannot imagine.
Here come the VBT (Virtual Bass Technology) subwoofers,
self-powered, $750. And you can barely see them! (Just
kidding.) They are relatively small, however, owing to their
-- ready? -- 6” drivers. Impossible, I know, tell me. They
blend very comfortably, however, into the Ars Acoustica
speakers, Marchand electronics and Custom cabling. Can’t
think of better supplementary bass for the money, or even
much, much more money. Listen to these.
Here’s Where I Opt Out
Too much of this Show, I already said, has become devoted
to so-called Home Theatre, to the detriment of two-channel,
the upfront sound of real music. Those aircraft approaching
from the rear, the helicopters overhead, explosions everywhere
-- Hey, isn’t this what sound is all about? so many
demonstrations seem to ask.
No. Simply, no.
And just as most of the best movies are in mono, so are
most of the best recordings! That’s if you honor instrumental
body and timbre above instrument placement. But then, most
of us wouldn’t be in business, would we, if those ideals were
honored?
Putting radical thoughts out of mind, I catch a taxi
to the Port Authority Terminal for the 11:30 #66 bus to West
Orange, New Jersey. What could be there, to demand a detour
from the mighty High End Show?
That would be, ironically, in this context, the premier
public showing of the recent reconstruction of the first sound
movie ever made. One might think this occasion would make
a larger impact on the High End Show where so much sonic
theatre happens, but, no, nary a mention. Indeed, I must
thank my membership in ARSC for alerting me, otherwise I might
never have known what made this Saturday special.
My earliest boyhood hero was Thomas Edison. Famous for
the light bulb and the phonograph, it was not until much later
that I learned the true extent of his inventiveness. Indeed,
Edison invented the research laboratory. In 1894 he ordered
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson to organize a half-minute or
so of coordinated film and sound. The job was duly
accomplished via cylinder and Kinetoscope. For many reasons
the process clearly had no commercial potential, so both
elements went into storage. The picture stem was discovered
decades ago, but not until over a century later, in 1998,
did the cylinder turn up in an attic room at the Edison
National Historical Site.
Park Ranger Jerry Fabris was put in charge, with funding
donated by George Lucas. Although the cylinder had been
broken, it was reconstructed physically and virtually.
Synchronization with the picture was later accomplished by
Walter Murch. (Murch edited Apocalypse Now and is famously
on record for detesting digital sound in movies.) The complete
show consists of only twenty—two seconds of two men dancing
together (no female employees then, in the research division)
to a violin accompaniment provided by Dickson himself.
And here we are, seated in the Black Maria! This is
the stage that Edison built to shoot the first movies, painted
black inside but with the rear and top wide open to receive
needed sunshine. And to follow the sun’s angle, the whole
unit rotated! One feels rather historic oneself, watching
a movie made here over one—hundred years ago. And the results
(played three times in a row, after a lengthy introduction)
both look and sound believable, although not up to Star Wars
standards, exactly.
As fifteen years before, when I had been here, the entire
Edison site merits a visit, although I’d have to say it seems
somewhat more touristy today. What survives is only the large
Main Laboratory and the smaller Physics, Chemistry and
Metallurgical Laboratories, and the Battery Works; the
Phonograph Works, the Electric Works and other huge factory
buildings were demolished in the Seventies. Still, the most
surprising room is the Edison Library.
Here the Great One entertained visitors and dignitaries
and the press, and in style. The large Edison desk occupies
center stage, with a table close—by to seat perhaps ten.
Photographs, oil portraits and statuary abound. Heavy velvet
drapes festoon the tall windows, drapes that could be drawn
when the rolled—up screen was lowered, to create the world’s
first private projection studio. Best of all, an alcoved
balcony runs around three sides of the room; it and the spaces
below contain every scientific and engineering tome and journal
the Laboratory could obtain, in English, French and German.
These his assistants would pore over, for leads on possible
inventions.
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