Issue 206

There’s something elemental and captivating about the sound of stringed instruments, and The Art of Hi-Fi Volume 04: Strings from PS Audio’s Octave Records showcases them to spellbinding effect, in stunning high-resolution Pure DSD audio. The album features a variety of both familiar and unusual instruments including acoustic guitar, violin, banjo, mandolin, cello and others, even a nyckelharpa (a keyed harp), in 10 selections that combine demonstration-quality sound with passionate performances.

Paul McGowan, Octave Records CEO noted: “the sounds of plucked, bowed and strummed stringed instruments are a fundamental part of music and human history, sounds that we respond to in an almost instinctive way. They’re also very hard to get right in a recording, from the extremely fast initial attack of a plucked string to the complex harmonic overtones of a fine violin or cello. We think listeners will be delighted by The Art of Hi-Fi Volume 04: Strings, one of our finest recordings to date.”

Every effort was made to use the world’s most resolving equipment to capture not just the full spectrum of the instruments, but also the rooms in which they were played – and the soul and musical intent of the performers. The Art of Hi-Fi Volume 04: Strings was recorded using Octave’s Pyramix-based Pure DSD 256 recording system. It was recorded, mixed and produced by Paul McGowan, with Terri McGowan and Jessica Carson assisting in the recording and production duties, and mastered by Gus Skinas.

One listen to “The Tower,” a dobro and acoustic guitar duet by Eric Wiggs and Dylan McCarthy, will reveal that this album is something special. The dobro practically jumps from the speakers – every nuance of the metal slide against the strings, and the unmistakable “twang” and resonance of the body of the instrument can be heard with startling clarity. Cole Porter’s “All of You” is played by Enion Pelta-Tiller and band in a lively swing arrangement featuring viola, guitar and acoustic bass. The viola has a surprising amount of body and presence, with the bite of the rosin of the bow against the strings clearly heard.

The incomparable cellist Zuill Bailey is captured in the Bach BVW 1007 “Suite No. 1 in G Major – Allemande,” part of the famous Bach cello suites. His magnificent tone and playing are perfectly complemented by the acoustics of Arizona’s Mesa Arts Center.

The album’s many additional highlights include the deep, rich sounds of Conner Hollingsworth’s bowed and plucked acoustic bass on “(Up a) Lazy River,” complemented by Matthew Cantor’s Gypsy-style acoustic guitar. Katie Mintle offers a dreamlike version of the Beatles’ “Let It Be,” exquisitely played on harp. “Road to Westcliffe” showcases the twin banjos of Chris Elliott and Kyle Ussery playing off each other in a lively track that will have listeners thinking twice about what a banjo can sound like. Sean McGowan’s “August” begins with cascades of dazzling acoustic guitar harmonics leading into a virtuoso fingerstyle melody. The unique sound of the nyckelharpa can be heard on Sandra Wong’s “Spelmansgladje” (“Fiddler’s Joy,”) featuring her nuanced bowing accompanied by the resonance of the instrument’s body and strings.

The Art of Hi-Fi Volume 04: Strings features Octave’s premium gold disc formulation, and the disc is playable on any SACD, CD, DVD, or Blu-ray player. It also has a high-resolution DSD layer that is accessible by using any SACD player or a PS Audio SACD transport. In addition, the master DSD and PCM files are available for purchase and download, including DSD 256, DSD 128, DSD 64, and DSDDirect Mastered 352.8 kHz/24-bit, 176.2 kHz/24-bit, 88.2 kHz/24-bit, and 44.1 kHz/24-bit PCM. (SRP: $19 – $39, depending on format.)

AXPONA (Audio Expo North America) has become the biggest audio show in the United States. The 2024 show featured more than 200 exhibit rooms with over 600 exhibitors and brands. More than 10,000 attendees from around 50 countries showed up – a 14 percent increase, according to AXPONA.

As Ed Sullivan used to say, a really big show. Usually, I stress out about trying to cover every exhibit at AXPONA, but this time I didn’t, knowing that it would simply be impossible. Every one of my peers in the press who I talked to felt the same. That said, I did get to cover a lot of ground – according to my phone, I took about 40,000 steps (around 20 miles) from the time I got on the plane to when I got home.

So, for any exhibitor who isn’t mentioned here, it’s not because I didn’t want to! Readers, there’s a lot of online coverage about AXPONA as the audio press was out in full force, so Google is your friend as far as triangulating a big picture.

The general mood among industry people and attendees was upbeat. Whether someone came to exhibit, audition possible purchases, buy records (and there were lots of them), see what there was to see, attend one of the many very informative seminars, or just gape, people were having a good time and there was a lot of energy and enthusiasm in the air.

 

 

Setting up an exhibit can take a lot of time and effort, as these road cases can attest.

 

My usual caveats about the sound you hear at shows were, if anything, reinforced. Especially this one:

You cannot make definitive judgments about sound at shows!

Some rooms might be acoustically downright poor, and even the big ballrooms may not be a good match for the size of the speakers in them, or have weird room modes. (A speaker manufacturer once told me it’s impossible for most speakers to work well in huge rooms.) The quality of the AC power can be lousy. There might be co-exhibitors who have never used their equipment together before and have no idea whether they’ll have synergy, or the opposite. Yes, it happens; at least one manufacturer didn’t know what model loudspeaker the other co-exhibitor was going to bring until setup day. A distributor, whose sound was markedly better this year than at AXPONA 2023, told me that because of logistical headaches they simply didn’t have enough time to set their system up optimally at last year’s show.

The sound of a room can change from day to day or even hour to hour. If a room is crowded, it will sound different than if empty (and good luck getting the sweet spot in a crowded room). In addition, some systems settle in over time. (If you’re one of those who think warm up or break-in is a myth, with all due respect, my experience is otherwise.) I visited one room – Wolf Audio Systems/House of Stereo – that sounded really, really good when I first heard it. When I went back on Sunday afternoon, it was exceptional.

 

 

Jorge Sadurni in the Wolf Audio Systems/House of Stereo room. (Read more about this room below.)

 

There are so many other variables – temperature, humidity, and not least, your mood and physical condition (I don’t know about you, but if my sinuses are stuffy, forget it) – that it’s simply not fair to make Pronouncements from On High at an audio show. On the other hand, if a room sounds terrific, it’s a beautiful thing, and there are always some standout rooms. One of my colleagues opined that audio shows are good for making short lists.

Well, that, and certainly, for hanging out. It’s always loads of fun for me to meet and talk to old friends, and if you’re an attendee, it’s a chance to meet the designers, engineers, company representatives, press, show organizers and other people who work their butts off to make these shows happen.

I have to once again (as I have in previous articles) comment on the prices of some of the gear, prices which have reached eye-watering levels. One room had almost $200,000 worth of cables alone. Six-figure speaker systems aren’t quite commonplace, but they’re prevalent enough to have become a thing. So, this level of audio equipment has become completely out of reach for the vast majority of audiophiles. But not all. Is this gear overpriced? (I think some of it is, but without actually knowing the manufacturing costs, I can’t be definitive.) We can shake our heads, call it snake oil, laugh, or be jealous that we can’t afford it, but the fact is, while it’s still the exception and not the norm, it is reality now.

Yet on the other side of the, erm, coin, there were lots of of genuinely affordable components at the show, from the Schitt Audio gear, to a $249 xDuoo vacuum tube headphone amp, to what I’d call absolute bargains like Elac and Wharfedale speakers.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, in my opinion, based on the evidence at AXPONA 2024 (and CanJam NYC), the reports of the death of high-end audio are greatly exaggerated. I saw a greater percentage of younger people, women, families, diversity, and according to AXPONA, first-time attendees. Sure, there were still plenty of us gray-hairs, and why the heck not? The older you get, the more important a music system becomes to an enthusiast, know what I’m saying? But I don’t think the desire for good sound is going to disappear with the baby boomers. The high-end industry will change, but it’s not going to go away.

Yeah, I did see lots of stuff at AXPONA 2024; so much that I have to split this show report into two parts. Roll ’em…

Audio Group Denmark, comprised of Aavik Acoustics electronics, Børresen loudspeakers, Axxess (speakers, electronics, and cables) and Ansuz (accessories), unveiled a number of new products in a $35,000 system that included new Ansuz Axxess cable, Forté 3 electronics, and power distribution, with the new Børresen C1 two-way loudspeakers ($16,500/pair). The C1 features a woofer/midrange with a unique carbon fiber matrix driver with “whiskers” in the material. This is said to reduce “speaker noise” and allow the speakers to be placed further apart.

Based on what I heard, this is true. The very cool percussion-based track, “Mumbo Jumbo” by Brent Lewis, sounded excellent, with superb dynamics, spaciousness, and presence. To give you an idea of how busy the show was, AGD was in three other rooms on the same floor as the room I was staying in…and I didn’t have a chance to see them.

MoFi Distribution had an incredibly diverse selection of gear in multiple rooms at the show. Just listing some of the brands is head-spinning: MoFi Electronics, Music Hall, Balanced Audio Technology, Wharfedale, Dr. Feickert Analogue, Mastersound, Koetsu, My Sonic Lab, Piega, Leak, and a heck of a lot more. In fact, their equipment list for one room alone included 64 products! The big debut was for the MoFi SourcePoint 888 floorstanding loudspeakers ($4,999/pair). Designed by the renowned Andrew Jones, these understated 3-way towers feature a concentric midrange/high-frequency driver flanked by dual woofers, all 8 inches in diameter, hence the name. Like the other SourcePoint models, the 888 has a faceted front baffle to control dispersion. The sound in the demo room, fueled by HiFi Rose electronics, had fantastic bass, depth, warmth, resolution, punch, everything.

 

 

Here's just a small portion of just one of the MoFi Distribution systems on display.

 

 

MoFi showed a lot of turntables including Music Hall's Stealth ($1,649 with Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge), and others in their lineup.

 

 

The new MoFi SourcePoint 888 loudspeakers sounded impressive.

  

A big part of AXPONA was the Ear Gear Expo, featuring all things headphones, and one of the most popular areas at the show. I didn’t spend a lot of time there as I’d seen many of the exhibitors at the recent CanJam NYC 2024 (see my show reports in this issue and in Issue 205), but it was obvious for anyone who even just stuck their head in that headphones and their related electronics and accessories are a thriving part of the audio world.

In what might be becoming a new tradition, Impex Records hosted a listening demonstration of an upcoming 1STEP release; this time it was for Sing and Dance With Frank Sinatra. The historian Charles L. Granata and Impex head Abey Fonn were on hand in one of the Quintessence Audio rooms to talk about the reissue of the 1950 release, and I’ll be covering it in a later article.

For now, I’ll just say the sound was…something else. No surprise, considering the quality of the reissue and the playback gear, which among other components included the $140,000/pair Sonus Faber Aida speakers, Boulder 3010 preamp, 2108 phono stage and 2150 mono amps ($348,000), Clearaudio Statement turntable and Goldfinger Statement MC cartridge ($300,000 and $17,500), and…gasp…$192,960 worth of Transparent Magnum Opus and XL cables. That doesn’t even count about $100,000 of dCS and Innuos digital playback gear and $70,875 worth of Critical Mass Systems racks and isolation products to put it all on.

Luxury Audio Group was showing the Estelon Forza loudspeaker ($169,000/pair) in a unique Violet Night Liquid Gloss finish. Wow, did it look good, and I enjoyed the sound – the selection they were playing (naturally, I forgot to note it) had a quick, clean, deep slap bass with impressive dynamics and a wide soundstage. The speakers were complemented by Vitus Audio electronics, an Innuos streamer and network drive, Crystal Cable Art Series Van Gogh cables, a Stromtank battery power conditioner, and other accoutrements.

 

 

A budget system? Well, if you have a big budget. The Estelon room showcased the Forza loudspeakers, along with components that made the system total out at $556,700.

 

Totem Acoustic is a loudspeaker brand familiar to most audio enthusiasts. They also have an affordable line, KIN by Totem, whose tagline, “We are Young. We are Fun.,” tells you all you need to know about their intent. Kin showed a lineup of powered bookshelf, tower and center channel speakers, and subwoofers, from $500 to $2,250 per pair, all available in attractive satin white and black finishes. Just add a wired or wireless source. They also make a $799 amplifier for those who already have passive speakers. I was particularly taken by the $900/pair Play Mini, which are just over 10 inches high and share a lot of design DNA with their Totem big brothers and sisters. Good stuff.

AXPONA’s Expo Hall features accessories, turntables, cables, and lots of records. Copper’s Rudy Radelic has a report, and I also spent a little bit of time in Expo Hall (the allure of the records was irresistible).

As many readers may know, Stillpoints specializes in high-tech vibration isolation solutions. They had a wide range on display including their new Ultra I V2 set of isolators, which at $3,500 will accommodate five pieces of equipment. Not cheap, but they’re made from stainless steel and ceramics and are very precisely machined. They sure look great.

Keith Monks produced the first commercially-available record cleaning machine in 1969, and they’re still going strong, as evidenced by their Prodigy Monarch model, which they showed in a unique one-off American and British flag finish. Production units are available for $2,595.

 

 

Here are Elizabeth Hansen and Jonathan Monks of Keith Monks with their one-off Prodigy Monarch record cleaning machine.

 

Pink Floyd aficionados take note! Pro-Ject recently introduced The Dark Side of The Moon limited edition turntable ($2,000) and the first run of a few hundred quickly sold out. This made-in-Europe belt-drive model has to be one of the most striking record players ever – complete with prism record weight! If you want one, you’d better move on it – Pro-Ject says they’re getting only 20 more in July, and once they’re gone, they're gone.

 

 

Here's The Dark Side of The Moon turntable, available in very limited quantities.

 

As most of us know, the quality of the AC power coming into our audio systems can vary a great deal. This was certainly the case at AXPONA 2024. Puritan Audio Laboratories had a display set up in their booth that was connected to an electromagnetic interference (EMI) analysis probe and a digital oscilloscope. This showed the high-frequency disturbances (noise) on the AC power waveform...the power that exhibitors were plugging into. it also displayed what it looked like with the Puritan PSM156 power conditioner.

The difference was blatantly obvious.

As Puritan's Mike Lester noted: "The probe is essentially a high-pass filter that takes away the 60 Hz mains frequency to facilitate the clear display of all of the unwanted voltages present at other frequencies. We were sampling at 2 gigasamples per second and displaying this in time domain to show the spread of different frequencies that were present on the mains waveform. Noise voltages on the show supply exceeded 3.0 volts, which is not very friendly to hi-fi perfection.

When switching to measuring in the frequency domain, the predominant frequencies were seen to be in the 100 kHz band, the common switching frequency for the switching power supplies found in appliances, chargers, lighting, and some hi-fi components, etc. Many other frequencies were present from the other trappings of modern living.

The flat trace was the power exiting our PSM156 [power conditioner] showing that it has been cleansed of the noise."

 

 

 

Here are before and after shots of the AC coming straight out of the wall of the Renaissance Schaumburg, and with the Puritan PSM156 plugged in.

  

Jacksonville, Florida’s House of Stereo had an impressive array of gear on display, including the all-new Sadurni Acoustics Double Spherical loudspeakers at $4,600 for the pair, and $3,000 for the companion subwoofer. The gear also included a Wolf Audio Systems Red Wolf 2 SX server ($16,500) VPI Avenger Direct turntable ($36,000), VIVA Solista MKIII tube integrated amp ($29,999) and WireWorld Platinum Eclipse cable, and...

Most intriguingly, a DS Audio Grand Master EX optical cartridge and Grand Master Equalizer playback system ($67,500). I don’t remember ever hearing an optical cartridge before, so it was a revelation. Happily, they were playing the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s “Take Five,” a record I know intimately, so it was instructive. I won’t say the sound was drastically different from conventional phono playback – but there were details in Paul Desmond’s sax playing and Joe Morello’s drumming I’d never heard before. (Of course, triangulating what the rest of the equipment was doing was impossible, but still…) It wasn’t like the instruments were more “three-dimensional,” or had more “body,” exactly, but they had an increased sense of reality in a way that’s hard for me to put my finger on.

Overall, the sound was superb, with the modestly-sized Sadurni speakers and subs delivering a surprising amount of bass, dynamics, and presence from the mains’ 5-inch drivers, and the 9-inch woofers of the self-powered subs.

 

 

Masquerading as a Trisolaran droplet, here's a driver housing for the Sadurni Acoustics Double Spherical speakers.

 

I am always interested in the work of Mike Levy and Alta Audio, so I made it a point to hear the new flagship Alta Aphrodite floorstanding loudspeakers ($50,000/pair; upcharge for custom finishes). I wasn’t disappointed. Mated with an Infigo Audio Method 7 preamp ($20,000), Method 4 DAC ($35,000) and Method 3 mono amps ($55,000/pair), VPI Avenger Direct turntable ($36,000), Van den Hul Frog Gold cartridge ($3,620) an Audirvana mini server and power supply ($1,000) plus a Pangea Audio rack and Infigo cable. The Aphrodite employs four custom-designed drivers with neodymium/ferrite magnets, carbon fiber/rohacell cones (for the woofer and midbass), and a ribbon tweeter. The sound was superb, wide and deep yet intimate, detailed yet smooth, and I’m not really doing justice to it here but listening to Ellen Andersson’s version of “You’ve Got a Friend In Me,” was intimate, inviting, and, well, with no small help from the system, she transformed a lightweight song into a captivating one.

 

 

The Alta Audio/Infigo Audio room hosted the debut of the Aphrodite loudspeakers.

 

The most mind-blowing demonstration I experienced was for the debut of the Gryphon Audio Systems PowerZone. This power signal optimization device, as the company calls it, is said to be the result of 16 years of research by Paul Hafner, founder of Quantum Acoustics SRL, and is not a “power conditioner” or active filter. Available in two varieties, the PZ3.10 ($14,000) and PZ3.20 ($17,500) the PowerZone models use three different conductor materials and proprietary and patent-pending technologies, so Gryphon wasn't revealing everything involved.

I can already hear the online naysayers. All I can say to those who didn’t listen to this product but will pass judgment on it anyway, is that its effect was obvious to this listener (one of my colleagues even called it “terrifying”). With the PowerZone removed, the system sounded really good on a jazz piano trio cut. With the device in, the sound was transformed. I could easily hear the pianist lifting his foot off the pedals, something I either hadn’t noticed before or which was inaudible. The depth and width of the recording expanded. The instruments had more body, especially the drums, which now sounded like very distinct entities, and the cymbals seemed more “real” and less sizzly. The system simply sounded less “hi-fi” and more like musicians playing.

 

 

The Gryphon PowerZone 3.10.

 

It's the rule rather than the exception for the Joseph Audio/Doshi Audio/J. Sikora room to have superlative sound, and this year, along with Cardas cable and Berkeley Audio Design digital sources…well, it was no exception. Joseph was showing their new top-of-the-line Pearl Graphene Ultra floorstanders ($51,999 per pair), powered by Doshi Evolution monoblock amplifiers ($45,995). Analog sound was courtesy of a J. Sikora 15^th anniversary Standard Max Supreme turntable ($38,500) with KV12 arm ($12,500, featuring a Kevlar arm tube) and an Aidas Mammoth Gold cartridge, featuring a body made of, yes, ancient Siberian wooly mammoth tusk ($10,450). Talk about a combination of old and new tech. Digital was provided by the Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC Reference ($28,000) and Alpha USB 2.0 re-clocking/noise reduction interface ($2,495).

When I walked in they were playing Steely Dan’s “Aja” on the vinyl rig, and I’d never heard it sound so big, with deep bass, incredible dynamics on Steve Gadd’s drums, marvelous presence on Wayne Shorter’s sax, and with details in the swirly synth sounds at the end I never knew were there, and this ain’t a record I’ve heard only a few times.

 

 

The Joseph Audio/Doshi Audio/J. Sikora room excelled with both analog and digital sources.

 

 

The Marketplace featured all manner of accessories, audio components, records, CDs and more: you could even check almost any audio/video connector imaginable from AEC Connectors (AECO), an OEM supplier.

 

 

More from the Marketplace: some very serious looking cables and cable lifters from Viablue.

 

 

Classic design never goes out of style: here's the SOTA Quasar ("Quay") turntable ($2,995 for the turntable only).

 

I will have much more to report on in the next issue.

 

Header image: the Acora Acoustics/Valve Amplification Company exhibit. All images courtesy of the author unless otherwise noted.

After our brief examination in Issue 205 of the recording chain front end – the microphone – it's good not to forget what follows the microphone. In the same way a phono cartridge requires a phono preamplifier to process and amplify the signal – and we all know how important to sound quality the phono preamplifier is in the chain – so too do microphones.

Both microphones and phono cartridges are mechanical transducers that convert motion into electrical energy. In the case of a microphone, it is converting changes in air pressure, while with phono cartridges it is the motion of the needle tracing the plastic grooves in the vinyl.

Both transducers have very low output and must be amplified before you can play them back on a reproduction system or feed them into an A/D converter to record them.

And, just like with moving-coil and moving-magnet cartridges, different microphone types have varying output levels that require either more or less amplification.

If we break down the main microphone types into three categories they would be: condenser, ribbon, and dynamic.

By far, the most common and preferred microphone type used in the recording studio today is the condenser microphone (like the Neumann, Telefunken, and Gefell models I’ve mentioned). Condenser microphones operate using an electrically-charged diaphragm placed close to a backplate. When sound waves hit the diaphragm, the distance between the diaphragm and backplate changes, causing capacitance variations that generate an electrical signal. It’s somewhat the opposite of the way an electrostatic loudspeaker works.

 

 

The stuff of legend: A Neumann U 67 vacuum-tube condenser microphone.

 

Ribbon microphones are today mostly relics used for specific duties in recording studios. They utilize a thin strip of metal (usually aluminum) suspended between two magnets. When sound waves hit the ribbon, it vibrates, inducing a small electrical current proportional to the sound waves. These mics are amazing on horns and blaring instruments.

Dynamic microphones are everywhere. They are versatile, handle huge dynamics, are low in cost, and are most widely used in live performances as well as specialized applications in the studio (like high-dynamics applications such as recording drums). If you ever attended a school function in the auditorium it's likely you were listening to some administrator drone on through one of these. They operate using a diaphragm attached to a coil of wire suspended within a magnetic field. When sound waves hit the diaphragm, it vibrates, causing the coil to move within the magnetic field and generate an electrical signal.

All three types of microphones, like phono cartridges, must be amplified by a preamplifier before we can use them to record or listen through a PA system.

In the case of the condenser types, they need two stages of preamplification. In the same way a moving coil cartridge requires the additional gain boost of a head amp, condensers do as well. This "head amp" is built into the condenser microphone and receives power through its connecting cable. In most condensers the external power needed to run their internal head amp comes from what is known in the industry as "phantom power." In pro applications this is 48 volts DC. In consumer versions that connect via USB, it is +5V and inside the microphone is included an A/D converter and amplifier. In the case of the Neumann U 67 and the Telefunken stereo mic, the vacuum-tube head amp in the microphone body receives its power from an external box where the higher voltage power supply is located.

 

Microphone Preamplifiers

How many of us would argue that the quality of a phono preamplifier doesn't matter? That we would hear little difference between an Amazon special and a Stellar Phono Preamplifier?

Hard to imagine, especially on a high-resolution audio system. Phono preamplifiers are essential components to get your turntable/cartridge setup to sing.

The same is true for microphones. In many of today's proliferating explosion of home studios, USB-powered microphones and cheap knockoffs of microphone classics abound (as do the growing number of substandard recordings). And to think they don't sound different or their differences can be EQ'd out?

Not happening.

But then why would we be surprised? 99.9 percent of all consumer electronics, like 99.9 percent of all do-it-yourself studio setups, have average sound quality. In fact, they define average. Which is what they are supposed to do, and they do it well.

But we're audiophiles and by definition, we are anything but mainstream average. We invest in better, above average, systems. The same can be said for the rare handful of (dwindling) high-end recording studios and beautifully-recorded media.

It's one of the reasons we started and continue to support Octave Records. We, along with the handful of others like Blue Coast Records, Native DSD, Chesky Records/HDtracks, and Reference Recordings, pay attention to every aspect in the recording chain – just like we audiophiles pay attention to every aspect in the playback chain.

All microphones must run through a preamplifier to have enough output signal level to feed the A/D converter. Just as in high-end audio reproduction, the design and quality of that preamplifier has HUGE impacts on sound quality.

At Octave Records, we have invested in multiple types of preamplifiers, including both solid-state and vacuum-tube (and a long-term project of building our own based on Darren Myers’ and Bob Stadtherr's design ideas).

Having worked with all these preamplifiers over the years I have settled on one type of preamplifier that for me makes magic. Vacuum tubes. In particular, the Manley vacuum-tube preamplifiers from our good friend EveAnna Manley.

 

 

May the Force be with you: the Manley Laboratories Force four-channel mic preamp.

 

While vacuum tubes are fun and interesting in the playback chain (like in our BHK Series or Stellar M1200 amplifiers), they can have far more impact on recording than they do in playback. Why? Because in playback we have more "control" in the expected dynamics. Once you buy an SACD or download from us, it has been mastered to ensure dynamic levels never exceed 0 dBFS. The same is not true with microphones.

And there is more.

In the playback chain our goal is to accurately reproduce what is on offer from the recording. Here, we don't want to color or in any way change what is being given to us. When we design our equipment, we don't choose vacuum tubes because of their colorations. We choose them because in that circuit, they make audio magic – magic that can be designed using multiple technologies. The same is not always true in a recording.

That is because the goals of a recording differ from those of playback.

A recording is more like a work of art. You're painting a picture and you want to capture as best you can the rich musical notes and voices. You're actually shaping them to make magic.

I am reminded of a recent recording session for an upcoming Octave release of wonderful cover songs. One of our excellent artists, Alicia Jo Straka, is a beautiful singer and she was working on her version of a few classic Ella Fitzgerald tracks. Alicia's gorgeous voice was captured on the Neumann U 67 and amplified through our wonderful Manley vacuum-tube preamplifiers. A fully vacuum tube chain of rich sound. Only, Alicia's voice didn’t have that lovely intimate quality the track cried out for.

 

 

Alicia Jo Straka in the recording studio.

 

What to do?

Work the microphone. You see, in the same way we might adjust VTA on a cartridge, or reposition our speakers to accommodate the room, the distance a performer is from the microphone has a huge impact on how it sounds (the same is true for loudspeakers). Closer to the microphone and we get what's known as the proximity effect, where the sound is richer with more midbass. Intimate. Sensual. So, on the soft notes, Alicia moved in close and "made love" to the microphone. When she got louder, she moved away (you've no doubt seen singers doing this on stage).

In the end, as we shape the sound, it is the combination of the recording chain electronics and technique that creates the recordings that we love.

The preamplifier is a key in that chain.

 

Essential Differences

We’ve waxed on about microphone preamplifiers and how important they are to the recording chain.

A couple of folks have asked me what brands of mic preamps we have in house that are solid-state, and they are made by Grace Design, and Forssell Technologies. Both are excellent preamplifiers that sound wonderful, though as mentioned, my go-to preamplifiers are the vacuum-tube Manleys.

 

 

A Grace Design M201mk2 mic preamp.

 

How do microphone preamplifiers different from, say, a BHK Signature home audio system preamplifier?

Let's have a look.

An audio preamplifier like the BHK has the following at its core:

• Multiple inputs
• High-impedance direct-coupled inputs (47kΩ typical)
• Gain of no more than 20 dB
• Volume, balance, and input select and a remote control
• Low output impedance 

A microphone preamplifier has at its core the following:

• One balanced dedicated input
• Low-impedance transformer-coupled inputs (1kΩ typical)
• Gain of typically 50 dB to 60 dB
• VU metering
• A volume control for the input
• A 48-volt phantom DC power supply to feed the internal microphone preamplifiers
• Low output impedance

So, basically microphone preamplifiers are low impedance in and out with high gain, low noise, and loads of headroom.

Audio preamplifiers are high input impedance, low gain, low noise, low output impedance.

They’re the "same" in that they amplify a small signal into a big signal and provide a means of changing level. In all other respects they are very different beasts.

 

 

 

A preamplifier intended for home use, like this PS Audio BHK Signature Preamplifier, differs in functionality, performance and even appearance from a preamp designed for pro applications.

 

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

As we wrap up our little miniseries on microphones, it occurs to me how little attention we pay to them. Which, if you think about it, is weird.

With the exception of synthesizers, drum machines, and perhaps a few electric guitars and electric pianos, 99 percent of everything ever recorded has passed through a microphone and its preamplifying chain. And the sonic characteristics of microphones are as extreme and all over the map as they are with phono cartridges.

To be clear, this isn't like the differences we audiophiles argue over between cables and power conditioners. No, the gaps in performance in microphones are as enormous as the ones we think of in the vinyl chain – a Shure V15 versus a Koetsu moving-coil cartridge, for example. 

One of the microphones I did not write much about is the rare (today) ribbon type. These ribbon microphones were once the mainstay of recordings, but today, they are generally used only on specific recording techniques, like capturing the blare of a trumpet without a resulting sound that make you grit your teeth.

Renowned for their smooth and natural sound reproduction, ribbon microphones often feature a bidirectional (figure-eight) polar pattern, enabling them to pick up sound from both the front and back while rejecting sound from the sides. Despite being passive devices that do not require external power, ribbon microphones are fragile and susceptible to damage from excessive wind or loud sound sources.

On the two most recent Octave Records releases by trumpeter Gabriel Mervine, I beautifully captured the sound of Gabe's horn with a classic ribbon mic weighing over 10 pounds (because of its enormous magnets). Just recently, I tried to use that same microphone to capture the honk of a baritone sax, and it sucked. Blurred, too rolled off. I moved over to the Gefells I talked about previously, and…magic.

The point is, all of our recordings are the result of sounds and signals passing through sonic transducers that are all over the map. Which reminds me also of the opposite end of the audio spectrum: loudspeakers.

Loudspeakers stare at us, so we pay attention. Microphones and their associated amplification chains are out of our control, out of our reach, and out of our thoughts.

Yet nothing else in the entire chain plays such a pivotal role.

Out of sight, out of mind, yet not out of our musical experience.

One Last Thought…

Of course, that's probably never the case as each thought leads to the next, but it makes for a good subhead.

In any case, it occurs to me that as we strive so hard to get as close to accuracy as possible in our high-end systems, we're trying to do two things: uncover all that is on the recording, and do so without affectation. In other words, create a perfect reproduction of the live event, where instruments and voices sound like themselves.

Pulling back for a moment to look at the big picture, we see that the real meaning of "live event," in the recording studio or on stage, has actually more to do with getting right with what the recording engineer captured, as opposed to what we believe to be the correct sound of instruments and voices.

Why does this matter? Because using our tweaks and expertise to get a clarinet to sound like a clarinet may have a bit of futility built into it. How accurate was the recording? If I, as the engineer, capture more of the upper squawks of the reed as opposed to the body of the instrument and you, as the listener, try and make adjustments to your system to compensate, we're trapped in an endless loop doomed to failure.

What do we do? My first impulse is to figure out a way to make a perfect recording that captures the sound of specific instruments, that we might all choose to rely upon as the standard. My second thought is how flawed that idea is.

Or is it?

I have told this story before, but just recently, while recording Octave's Steinway piano and a soprano saxophone, I was surprised by the comment both musicians made to me upon coming into the control room after their session. Listening to the playback on the aspen FR20 loudspeakers, they both remarked how "it sounds better in here than it did in there."

"Better than live?" We've been down this road too.

Just some final rambling to ponder.

 

This article is based on a series of Paul’s Posts from March 2024.

Header image courtesy of Pexels.com/Antoni Shkraba.

Sonic Edge is a company that specializes in MEMS miniature speaker technology. MEMS (for micro-electromechanical systems) speakers employ drivers that are fabricated on silicon chips, which can be made to be very small, and can offer advantages in audio quality, and manufacturing. Sonic Edge, based in Israel and Denmark, offers a unique modulated-ultrasound MEMS driver, a second-generation MEMS speaker that is a “one-speaker-solution,” unlike first-generation MEMS speakers that can only work as tweeters, operating in parallel with a traditional dynamic-driver speaker. Sonic Edge’s driver is based on ultrasound, where ultrasound is generated from multiple speakers, each the width of a human hair, and then converted to audible sound via a patented acoustic frequency transformer or modulator.

I spoke with Moti Margalit, CEO and co-founder of Sonic Edge, about their approach to MEMS speaker design, which has applications in earphones, smart glasses, headphones, hearing aids and other products.

 

 

Moti Margalit of Sonic Edge.

 

Frank Doris: Let’s talk about who you are, what Sonic Edge does, and your AirDriver technology.

Moti Margalit: Most of the MEMS speakers on the market today are only good for tweeters. They're not a full-range solution and always need a standard driver to provide the low-frequency sounds. This is an intrinsic aspect of trying to make sound from a MEMS speaker, because the MEMS material is not compliant enough. We started thinking about MEMS speakers back in 2012, when we got our first patent, and formed Sonic Edge in 2019 to take the technology to market. I looked at the general situation and the challenges, and said that to make a MEMS speaker, we needed to go back to first principles, keeping in mind that size is the critical parameter. Making a smaller speaker has huge benefits for customers, but also helps drive costs down. At the end of the day, MEMS also needs to be about making things smaller and cheaper.

We started with a speaker that's the width of a hair that is good for making ultrasound. And we could put about 200 of our speakers on a 10-square-millimeter chip and had a great ultrasound speaker, but it couldn’t be heard as music. We somehow needed to take that ultrasound and make it into audible sound. That is how we invented the active modulation principle. In the past, people have done what's called a parametric speaker. [These generate ultrasonic waves which are modulated with audio signals as they travel through the air. The waves are demodulated and heard as sound. – Ed.]

The sound was not good, and lots of power was required to drive the speakers, required, the size of the speakers as large; in short, everything was against that technology. It's good for making very directional sound, but that's really the only benefit. That's why we thought of using active modulation. Basically, this means that the ultrasound is going through an acoustic channel, and we can open and close that acoustic channel. If we modulate it fast enough, we can generate sound from ultrasound. This is the basis of our technology, a totally new way of generating sound. It took a couple of years to develop and refine.

But why does this enable a smaller and better speaker? Another way of looking at our device it is that functions as a very high-speed air pump.  When the speaker membrane is pushing air by moving in one direction, the channel is open and air can flow, and when it is pulling air by moving back in the opposite direction the channel is closed and air is not pulled back, so our speaker is actually a pump working at ultrasonic rates, 400,000 times a second.

Compare this to a standard speaker pushing air at let's say one kilohertz or a thousand times a second. So we have 400 times the advantage. We can make the speaker area 10 times smaller. The movement of the speaker can be 10 times less, so the displacement can be much smaller at ultrasound compared to audio frequencies. Yet we are generating more sound pressure level than a standard speaker. Going to modulated ultrasound is like using a very high-speed pump to replace a slow-moving membrane. That's the reason why we can make a much smaller speaker than existing speakers.

Diagram of the Sonic Edge AirDriver principle.

 

FD: Just to be clear, this is a mechanical way of converting ultrasound to audible sound. The signal is not going through any kind of electronic or D/A conversion. It’s strictly mechanical.

MM: Exactly.

FD: Is it patent-pending or proprietary?

MM: We have 25 patents, of which 12 are already granted worldwide protection. To make the AirDriver, we are using the same manufacturing companies that today make MEMS microphones. These fabs [fabrication facilities] are already making billions of MEMS microphones, and are adapted to what we need, so we can scale our manufacturing in a rapid manner. Our MEMS speaker is made of pure silicon and we use electrostatic drive to move the ultrasound speakers and modulator, which provides very low power and high fidelity.

Some of our competitors are using PZT as an actuator, and PZT is a problematic material. First of all, it has lead in it, limiting its use in some applications, and second, it does not have the manufacturing infrastructure and reliability history that pure silicon has. Our design is highly reliable, scalable, and low-cost. It’s similar in design to what's called a double-backplate microphone, the standard MEMS microphone most people use today. So, we just use that platform, but in a different design.

 

 

Sonic Edge AirDriver modules.

 

FD: I'm trying to wrap my head around this. How does the modulator get you from say 400,000 movements a second to the audio band?

MM: We’re doing amplitude modulation of the ultrasound.

FD: Ah. Like radio broadcasting!

MM: Exactly. Like radio waves. This is exactly the principle. The active modulation creates a sideband that we can actually hear, and in a very similar way to electromagnetic waves. If instead of modulating it in a single frequency we modulate it in multiple frequencies, we will get the whole audio spectrum.

FD: The obvious applications would be headphones and smartphones. Are there any others? And let me talk about the sound of the MEMS headphones I’ve heard so far. There’s a sort of electrostatic clarity and detail.

MM: Our driver delivers increasing sound pressure level as it goes down to low frequencies. It actually goes down to DC. No other speaker can do something like that. Regarding other applications, it’s scalable. So, you can increase the active area and get more air flow.  On the other hand, you can use just a single ultrasound speaker and channel and incorporate it into something like gas sensors, or medical applications for pumping air or gases. Another far-reaching application is for very-low-frequency applications like hydrophones for sonar, where you can make infrasound sonar with a very small and energy-efficient source.

So it really is a new way of pumping air, with sound being a large, but not the only, application.  However, for speakers we believe that our technology provides a scalable way to generate sound and will be the speaker of choice in the future.

We think this can first of all replace micro speakers, wherever they are in earphones, headphones, glasses, cell phones. But as we mature the technology, we have a roadmap where every two years we will increase the sound pressure level by a factor of two for the same driver area. Combining the increase sound pressure level with a scalable architecture, we can also create larger and larger speakers with more volume. As an example, in cars, we can take the speakers out from the door and put them in the roof, or in the headrest. 

FD: As an audiophile it drives me a little crazy when I’m in my car and the speakers are at the sides of the doors, aiming at my legs. I mean, it's just silly.

How loud are the AirDriver speakers capable of playing? Obviously good enough for headphones and other applications.

MM: The best way to think of it is like a pump, and one unit, let's say 10 square millimeters, generates a certain airflow. Now if we want to replace a speaker, we need to look at the maximum airflow that speaker is generating, and then see what the area is that we need [for an AirDriver in order to] to replace that speaker. If we're looking at a 2-inch speaker, we’d replace it with something with the same area, but with factor of ten times smaller thickness, so instead of the 1-1/2-inch width of a 2-inch driver, we would need only 1/8-inch, and we also only need a much smaller back cavity. Even more importantly, the configuration of MEMS drivers doesn't need to be square or round, it can be any shape. And because they are truly identical drivers, we can do very good beamforming, so the listener can get personalized sound while the other people in the car hear their own personalized music. [Beamforming is the process of changing the output of multiple speakers using delay, volume differences or cancellation effect to control the behavior of an acoustic wave. – Ed.]

FD: Can you tune the frequency response of the drivers, or is that more a question of the acoustic space that the drivers would be placed in?

MM: Our device is basically a pump, so in lumped-element speaker design “speak” it's a “current flow,” and you can do whatever you are used to doing in acoustic design in terms of introducing cavities, pipes, or tubes to tweak that. We don't need the same size back cavity as a standard speaker. When you have a standard speaker and the back cavity is too small, it will affect the compliance of the driver and as a result, push up the resonant frequency, and you won’t get really a nice low frequency performance. But a pump can handle pressures up to a thousand pascal without effecting performance so we can have smaller cavities.

You can think of our drivers as a way to build up very loud speakers by using a series of isolated emitters. This is similar to using multiple LEDs for anything from flashlights to large displays. In the future we can build arrays of speakers and do meaningful things with those arrays.

 

Diagram of a Sonic Edge AirDriver unit.

 

FD: Are you going to be selling these under your own brand or are you going to be an OEM to other manufacturers?

MM: We are an OEM. We sell our speakers and the ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) that drive them, and a module which connects to a standard audio interface. We will not have an earphone brand and we will not compete with our customers.

FD: So there might be instances where a company will say they’re using Sonic Edge technology, or is it going to be more invisible to the general public?

MM: If we do a good job in branding and marketing, then our customers will be proud to say that their products are powered by Sonic Edge. We need to work to make that happen. But that is the plan.

FD: Tell us more about Sonic Edge, the company.

MM: The original concept was developed in 2012. My business partner Ari uses hearing aids, and we were discussing between us, why can't hearing aids really provide good sound? And we started studying why.

FD: I confess I use them myself at times.

MM: It's better than nothing, but it's not good.

FD: They've gotten better. But I tell people I don't want to listen to life through bad D-to-A converters. For speech intelligibility when sitting in a crowded restaurant, they’re great, but I can’t listen to an audio system with hearing aids. It's too sad for me.

MM: So, this is really the issue. The electronics are really good. There are really a lot of very smart things going on there. but the bandwidth of the transducers is limited. That's why if you go to a high-end IEM (in-ear monitor), you have five, 10, even 20 balanced armatures to really get the full frequency spectrum. And we tried to understand the limitations of why speakers can't be small and good. That's how we invented this modulated ultrasound technology.

Life takes you in many [directions and] we did not actively pursue that at [first]. We started Sonic Edge back in 2019, and then the coronavirus stuck. The first two years were basically working out of my attic and developing the technology. In 2022 we had working prototypes, working with some consumer electronics companies to demonstrate earphones and glasses. By the end of this year, we should have the manufacturing up and running, with the goal of having products in the market in 2025.

I think this is a very big step, and our modulated ultrasound approach is the right way to make MEMS speakers. We've spoken with many companies and they think that MEMS speakers will be the speaker of the future. Some are saying next year sounds reasonable. Some are saying it'll take another five years. But it's not a question of if it'll happen, only when.

In Part One of our CanJam NYC 2024 report (Issue 205), I noted that the show was vibrant and upbeat, and more diverse than ever both in terms of the gear on display and the people who attended. A vast selection of in-ear, over-ear, dynamic, planar magnetic, and electrostatic headphones were on exhibit from manufacturers around the globe, along with an equally varied smorgasbord of headphone amps, DACs, cables, accessories and other products.

As I mentioned in the last issue, there were a lot of vacuum-tube electronics on hand – I think headphone aficionados have the same high regard for the technology as do guitar players. And I heard a lot of great-sounding rigs, much more so than in previous shows. My hearing may not be as acute as it used to be, but I know what I like. 

Here are more highlights from CanJam NYC 2024. 

ZMF Headphones had a large room full of headphones, along with their Decware Reference OTL (output transformerless) vacuum-tube amplifier, Homage solid-state amplifier, and accessories. The Homage is available with a number of utterly gorgeous wood faceplate options. You gotta love the retro-round VU meters on both of them. I sampled a few of the many headphones including their new Bokeh open-back and Caldera closed-back planar-magnetic models, which both sounded "NICE" (as my listening notes noted), smooth, clean, and involving.

dCS Audio showed its LINA digital audio system, comprised of three compact components: the Network DAC streaming DAC ($13,650), Headphone Amplifier ($9,750) and optional Master Clock ($7,750). According to dCS the system is compatible with all digital audio formats and supports hi-res streaming from Roon, TIDAL, Qobuz, AirPlay and a host of others. The sound was exceptional, thanks to refinements like dCS’s ring DAC technology (deserving of an article in itself; read about it here), and the use of circuit boards connected by flex PCBs rather than the typical ribbon cable. The system isn’t cheap, but there’s a lot of tech in there, the build quality was superlative (machined rather than stamped metal chassis, for example) and the proof was in the very tasty sonic stew.

 

 

This was just a small part of ZMF's cornucopia of headphones, amplifiers, aftermarket earpads, and accessories.

 

 

The three boxes in the middle comprise the dCS Lina headphone listening system.

 

 

The Lina's internal circuit boards are linked by flexible connectors and folded against the bottom and sides of the enclosure. Shades of Trisolaran Sophon technology!

 

 

Poland's Feliks Audio was one of numerous manufacturers at CanJam NYC to utilize big-bottle vacuum-tubes. Here's the Euforia Evo headphone amp ($3,495).

 

Sonic Edge showed an interesting application of MEMS micro-speaker technology. Their AirDriver uses ultrasound that is generated from multiple speakers, each the width of a human hair, then converts the ultrasound to audible sound via a patented acoustic frequency transformer. The design has obvious applications in headphones, hearing aids and other products. I wasn’t able to hear a demonstration but I did get to hear the Creative Labs Aurvana Ace 2 in-ears with xMEMS drivers (see Issue 205’s CanJam NYC report), and there was no mistaking their clarity and resolution.

I had a chance to listen to the Benchmark HPA4 headphone/line amplifier ($3,499) through the outstanding HIFIMAN Susvara planar magnetic open-back headphones ($5,999) – and I have to tell you, the more I heard these headphones at various exhibitors, the more I became taken with them – and I was sort of at a loss to describe the sound, which was pure, detailed but not etched, and neither lean nor warm but neutral. Well, OK, I guess I just described the sound. Rumer sounded warm and seductive, and Kraftwerk was mind boggling in their panoramic soundscape. I am told the Benchmark measures fantastically well, and based on the aural evidence, I’m not surprised.

It wouldn’t be a headphones show without brands like Sennheiser, and they showed a full range of wired, wireless and noise-cancelling models, including the new MOMENTUM 4 wireless over-ear ($299) and MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 in-ears ($299.95). These interact with Sennheiser’s Smart Control app, which enables the listener to tailor the sound to their tastes.

One of the Sennheiser people told me that the company’s higher-end IE series of in-ear monitors are becoming more and more popular. This reaffirms my observation that many headphone enthusiasts are willing to spend some serious money to hear good sound. In other news, Sennheiser has recently partnered with Polar Electro to launch the MOMENTUM Sport earbuds ($329.95), which incorporates Polar’s biosensing capabilities to monitor heart rate and provide fitness tracking and other functions.

 

 

The great photographer Lee Shelly was standing next to me as I took this photo of Sennheiser's MOMENTUM 4 headphones. Forgive me, Lee, for this crime against the photo arts!

 

It also wouldn’t be a CanJam without Focal, and they showed a lot of headphones. One of their most recent offerings is the Bathys wireless noise-cancelling on-ear, which is an exclusive at retailer Headphones.com (boy, whoever bought that domain name was smart). The $699 Bathys is available in black or silver and offers selectable noise-cancellation modes, a dedicated Focal/Naim app, aluminum/magnesium driver material, and wired USB connectivity for up to 24/192 digital audio listening.

Can cables be works of audio jewelry? They can if they’re from Singapore-based Eletech Cables, who had one of the most eye-catching displays at the show. The company’s cables are said to utilize materials engineering and unconventional approaches in the interest of musicality. They certainly look striking.

FATfreq showed that in-ear headphones can certainly look like audio jewelry. Their in-ear models are available in a wide selection of customizable finishes, looking like polished rocks and minerals in a dazzling array of colors and patterns. The prices range from around $630 for a Scarlet Mini Universal to around $2,140 for the flagship Grand Maestro custom in-ear monitor at around $3,170.

 

 

Here's part of the extremely cool Eletech display.

 

 

FATfreq offered a dazzling array of customizable headphone earpieces.

 

Chinese audio brands have been coming on strong in the last few years, offering products that deliver high-fidelity performance and often at very attractive prices. Leiyin Audio is one of the major players, the company behind increasingly well-known brands like Topping, xDuoo, Gustard, SMSL, and others, and they had a large presence at CanJam NYC 2024, with multiple tables filled with electronics and accessories. Featured was the new xDuoo TA-66, an OTL (output transformerless!) tube headphone amplifier with features like 6N2 preamp and 6N5P buffer tubes, point-to-point wiring, and a very cool, large, red, stepped-attenuator volume control, all for $249.99.

 

 

Leiyin Audio took up most of a ballroom wall to showcase their full range of brands.

 

I’d mentioned previously that CanJam 2024 NYC had a distinct international flavor, with exhibitors from United States, United Kingdom, China, Germany, Korea, Austria, The Netherlands, Singapore, Poland, France, Romania, Italy and elsewhere – including Japanese company MASS-Kobo. They featured their handcrafted balanced headphone amplifiers, including the flagship Model 465 ($17,000), the Model 433 ($2,519), and the Model 475 portable headphone amp ($1,750).

The 465 is a dual-mono design with an unmistakable look, thanks to its square lighted pushbuttons. This limited-production component sounded wonderful with – again – HIFIMAN Susvara headphones. As the CanJam show guide description states, “I deliver to you an organic, realistic sound that springs out from the silence.” That’s exactly what I heard while listening to “The Girl from Ipanema” from Getz/Gilberto – a sound I could have gotten lost in for hours.

 

 

Masanori Masuda of MASS-Kobo (with interpreter Ms. Kaoru) had a selection of superb headphone amplifiers on display.

 

Danacable offers handcrafted, extremely high-end headphone extension cables, one of which has the diameter of braided rope. The $5,000 price tag and large size may elicit raised eyebrows, but wow did it sound good when mated with the company’s $9,000 HeadSpace by Dana amp and, again, the Susvara headphones.

 

 

Here's Danacable's HeadSpace amp and some serious-looking cables.

 

Germany’s T+A manufactures an extremely comprehensive range of audio products, including loudspeakers, electronics, cables, and headphones and headphone amps, the latter two of which were on exhibit at CanJam. T+A has offered headphones since 2020, including the Solitaire P, which they call “planar-magnetostatic” in design. According to the company, 19 neodymium magnets drive the headphone’s diaphragm through “accurately calculated magnetic field lines.” Heard through their elegant HA 200 headphone amplifier ($5,900), the sound was clear, spacious and detailed.

Astell&Kern offers some of the finest portable music players on the planet, and at CanJam NYC 2024 they announced their upcoming SP3000T, which features dual Raytheon JAN6418 vacuum tubes in a hybrid design. It has an unabashedly retro dual-VU-meter front panel and will be available in May – June for $3,000. It was love at first sight for me, and I didn’t even get to listen to it (the booth was really crowded). Sometimes you just get smitten with the way something looks, like a 1963 split-window Corvette or a Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster. Based on listening to previous Astell&Kern components, I don't think I'm going out on a limb by predicting this portable player is going to be a good one.

 

 

T+A's HA 200 multi-source player was one of many components to combine retro and modern styling.

 

 

Astell&Kern spotlighted their upcoming SP3000T portable player.

 

 

Transparent sound: a bevy of Abyss headphones on display.

 

 

Crossover: pro audio distribution company American Music & Sound had plenty of consumer-friendly offerings, like these Fostex and other headphones.

 

 

HeadAmp's Blue Hawaii headphone amp ($6,495) also comes in green and other colors.

 

 

High-performance personal audio can be compact and affordable, as evidenced by this Schitt Audio stack, comprising the VRU 3 tube head amp ($149), Loki Mini+ equalizer ($149), and Modi Multibit 2 DAC ($299).

 

All images courtesy of the author unless otherwise indicated.

Little Feat has always been a “musicians’ musicians” band. Across a more than 50-year history, they have mixed masterful musicianship with a blend of music that is impossible to define. There you’ll find California rock, funk, folk, jazz, country and rockabilly mixed with New Orleans swamp boogie. With songs like “Dixie Chicken,” “Spanish Moon,” “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” and “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now,” Little Feat established a musical beachhead that is entirely their own.

When they broke up in the late 1970s, the surviving members went on to back some of the biggest names in music, providing studio support to acts like James Taylor and Bob Seger. They re-emerged in the late 1980s with an electrifying record called Let It Roll. It was prophetic in that it launched a new era for the band that is still “rolling.” Although some band members have passed (Lowell George in 1979, Paul Barrere in 2019, and Richie Hayward in 2010) or left, Little Feat has found ways to continue on, recruiting members over the years that add even more depth to the band’s sound.

Their last studio record was released in 2012. Since then, Little Feat have toured relentlessly, promising audiences that new music was on the horizon. That horizon is now here: the band is about to release their first blues album, Sam’s Place, on May 17.

 

 

Little Feat, Sam's Place, album cover.

 

The current lineup has Scott Sharrard on lead guitar/vocals and Tony Leone on drums/vocals, with founding member Bill Payne on keys/vocals, and veterans Fred Tackett on guitars/vocals, Kenny Gradney on bass, and Sam Clayton on percussion/vocals. But the star of Sam’s Place is without question, Sam Clayton, who for the first time, steps forward and tackles lead vocals on every song. It’s all done with ease and his signature sense of musical style.

The nine-track album was waxed at Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis, Tennessee, except for “Got My Mojo Working (Live),” recorded live at the Boulder Theatre in Boulder, Colorado. This is also the first Little Feat album recorded with new members Sharrard and Leone, and it largely features songs made famous by Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters. Pay close attention to Sam’s duet with the band’s longtime friend Bonnie Raitt on “Long Distance Call.” It’s a reminder of how much more this band still has to offer and how little they have lost along the way. 

We caught up with Bill Payne to talk about Little Feat’s legacy, their first foray into the blues, and what is in store next for a band that shows no signs of slowing their “roll.”

Ray Chelstowski: The band has always had one foot in the blues. What prompted you to step fully into the genre with this record?

Bill Payne: The idea came to me many years ago in Cleveland, Ohio. At the time we were all doing solo records, and I thought we ought to do a blues album with Sam. It didn’t happen, obviously. Fast forward to a few years ago and we were watching a show that Little Feat had performed at The Egg in Albany, New York and one of the guys from our management company said, “wow, Sam really sounds great, doesn’t he?” I agreed and told him that I had this crazy idea some time ago and thought that we should do a blues album together. He thought it was a great idea and he got it financed.

We lined up all of the material, taking a lot from Willie Dixon, and Scott had the great idea of recording it in Memphis, Tennessee.  We used one of Sam Phillips’ [Sun Records] studios and the first night, before we even started recording, there was a shoot-out in the street below. Eight folks were injured by gunfire. What a way it was to start things out; with a bang.

 

RC: Blues records aren’t easy to make. There’s something special about this one.

BP: The authenticity of the record is what impresses me the most. I was playing Jerry Lee Lewis’ piano and the thing just played itself. We’ve all played with different blues artists. I once got the chance to play with Willie Dixon in Madison Square Garden, alongside Paul Barrere and Ritchie Hayward, and George Porter Jr. [of the Meters] was the musical director. It was a tribute to John Lee Hooker and it was one of the highlights of my life. I’ve also played with B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Taj Mahal; the list goes on and on.

RC: The tracks lean on material from Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters. Was that always the intent?

BP: I never gave that much thought. I was more concerned about whether Sam’s vocals would command attention and wasn’t ever worried about whether we could play anything or not. My philosophy about playing music is that as long as it’s in a Western key like C, A, G, B or E, I think I can play it, within reason. Little Feat is at a point in our careers [where] we can just about play anything. We were just down in Nashville recording an album with [producer] Vance Powell, who works with Phish and Chris Stapleton. It’s got all-new material, and in terms of genres, like most Little Feat records its spans everything from A to Z. Sam’s Place was a continuation of that same spirit of cooperation and musical exploration. It was just fun to do.

RC: Sam has always been known for adding character to your tunes. This is a big shift.

BP: When we were recording in Nashville he was moved by the fact this thing had taken place and sounded great. He must have listened to it over a hundred times. I looked at him at one point and said, “hey man, this isn’t a dream. It’s a real thing.” I was just so proud of what he did and what we did.

RC: Was there anything different about the making of this record?

BP: We listened to input from others. When we were on the bus in San Francisco, Bonnie Raitt told us there was a song we should consider, “You’ll Be Mine.” When things do a handshake with one another, just fall in place, it’s a lovely thing to see. They don’t always.

RC: Recording in Memphis was new for the band. Did it require much flexibility?

BP: Absolutely. First of all, when we went in to record they didn’t have any monitors set up. Amazingly, everyone was very relaxed about it all. It reminded me of an album I did with Jimmy Buffett called License to Chill which we did on Key West. It took just four days to make that record and we were like, “wow, what just happened?” That’s kind of how it was in Memphis.

RC: Was there much overdubbing on the record or was it largely cut live?

BP: This was mostly live. I had to do a (Hammond organ) B3 overdub or two. On “You’ll Be Mine” I did suggest [using] double shakers to drive the song. It was already like a freight train, but we lifted it up in the mix [with the shakers] almost like a hi-hat and it ended up being so cool. The whole band produced the record along with Charlie, and that took the onus off any one person and it allowed us all to have more fun, and to make it more challenging too.

RC: Has this record inspired you and the band to make more new music?

BP: Yes, and we had planned on doing another studio record. I’ve been telling audiences for some time now that we’re not a cover band covering Little Feat. We’re going to be doing new music. Regardless of where the music ends up, things like this take on their own volition and point to something that has a great story attached to it. I know that we have something that really works when people are feeding me lines that I’d like to feed [back] to them.

RC: Back in 1987 when you released Let It Roll, did you have any idea that you’d be touring and recording together as a band this long?

BP: No. I don’t think so; because so many things in life happen. You have a great record like that and you follow it up with [something completely different like] Representing the Mambo. I still think that’s a great record but we led with our left instead of our right. We actually renamed the album later with the idea being that while we had these artsy songs which were cool, I often wish we would have led with the more rock and roll stuff and let people discover the other things. Also, the AOR format was already spindling at that point and that cut off a lot of people’s ability to sell more records. So I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.

RC: You open for the Tedeschi Trucks Band for a bunch of dates on this tour. Does that influence how you build your setlist?

BP: I think there’s a little bit of that going on. We only have an hour to play, so while we can do a lot of damage in an hour, we do want to play songs that people are familiar with. That said, we don’t have to play “Dixie Chicken” every night. If we do we can change up the solos or do something different. We do, however, want to look at where we are and make it an enjoyable night for the audience. It’s always been about songs and musicianship and it still is.

 

Header image of Little Feat: center, Sam Clayton; back row (left to right), Bill Payne, Kenny Gradney, Fred Tackett, Scott Sharrard, Tony Leone. Courtesy of Fletcher Moore.

Let’s admit this right up front: AXPONA is a ginormous, mahoosive audio show. Some of us simultaneously look forward to the event as much as we dread it. My weary bones at the end of Saturday reminded me of two things – one, I’m over the idea of taking the stairs for a while and two, I ain’t no spring chicken! I did appreciate the free cardio workout, however!

Part of the problem is the venue. Elevators? Sure, they have elevators. Only, the wait during peak times can be as much as 20 minutes to get from one of the two main floors to the upper floors of the Renaissance Schaumburg. Six elevators aren’t enough, and the situation was made worse by two that were operating erratically. I never once saw the “Express” elevator. Does it even exist? Did it launch itself out of the roof of the Renaissance Schaumburg in Willie Wonka fashion?

 

 

The hotel was big. This is just a fraction of it.

 

So that left the stairways. From the time I arrived in mid-afternoon Friday until I left Sunday around 1:30 p.m., I only took the elevator twice. (And the second elevator was one of the malfunctioning lifts, and we had to disembark and take the next one, as it froze in place with its controls not responding.) All the rest of my travels throughout the show, bottom to top and back, were via stairs.

When attempting to cover a show as part of the media, though, that approach doesn’t often work, and I found myself retracing my steps a few times as I went back to a presentation in a room, or realized I’d missed a poorly-marked room that I had wanted to see.

But, I made it through. I got home Sunday evening, took my vitamins, and realized that I came up somewhat empty-handed for a project I had proposed to tackle for this show report. Otherwise, I still took notes of systems I heard that are well worth mentioning.

I made my annual stop at Butcher Block Acoustics and noticed that the three-shelf version of their RigidRack had apparently grown taller. Was it just me? Had I grown shorter? Not at all! New to their product offerings, the RigidRack Plus is a version of the rack with taller spacing between shelves – four additional inches on the bottom shelf for taller amplifiers, and two additional inches on the shelf above it. The four-shelf version has similarly been “stretched.” (They do not offer custom sizes, but they now offer standard and “plus” legs with different shelf spacing.)

As with all Butcher Block Acoustics products, the woodworking and finishing is top notch, the racks sturdy, and while the prices seem a little steep, it’s no different from other fine furnishings available today. (Point of reference – the wooden Amish tables in our living room have risen about 50 percent in price over the past three years. Just the wood itself has gotten expensive!)

 

 

Butcher Block Acoustics offered an expanded selection (literally) of equipment racks.

 

Elsewhere in the Exhibition Hall, more record vendors set up shop this year, including some independent used record dealers as well as the usual audiophile store appearances. I escaped their clutches mostly unscathed (especially the UHQRs and OneSteps – we shouldn’t be normalizing $100+ records), but could not resist finally adding both of Kevin Gray’s Cohearant Records releases to my collection (Kirsten Edkins’ Shapes & Sound, and Anthony Wilson’s Hackensack West). The Analogue Productions Greatest Hits by War came home with me as well, as did a couple of picks from one of the used record stores, Picture Sleeve 45s (below), who came up from Plano, Texas with an impressive selection of titles.

  

 

There were many records for sale at the show.

 

A seemingly endless array of rooms awaited, as did the similarly endless flights of stairs. I tackled a few of the lower floors after my late arrival on Friday afternoon. (Thank you, Chicago traffic and road construction.) For 2024, I was going to attempt to assemble a budget system of components I could audition in person at the show. Unfortunately, anything lower-budget was most often sitting on the sidelines as display units, which meant I couldn’t audition them. But I still heard systems that impressed me.

Surprisingly, one of them was Yamaha, a name that has been around for more than a century. They were running a demo of their NS-800A bookshelf speakers when I visited the room, and was pleasantly surprised by how little coloration there was throughout the frequency range.  (One interesting feature is that the woofer cones were made partially of wood reclaimed from their piano manufacturing division.) Despite missing the lowest octave of music, the rest was nicely balanced and imaged well. They would be too pricey for a budget system (they retail for $2,400/pair), but would hold their own with other speakers their size in that price range.

 

 

Part of Yamaha's extensive display.

 

They powered the system with their R-N2000A network receiver, which offered an AM/FM tuner (a novelty these days!) and streaming capabilities. While the model on demo was again too much for a budget system, the smaller brother R-N600A lists for $900, with 105 watts per channel, and would be a solid basis for a system with its tuner, streaming features, and phono input.

The other half of Yamaha’s suite offered a timeline exhibit with some of their products over the past several decades. The earliest on display was the Yamaha Hi-Fi Player, from 1954. How times have changed!

 

 

The Yamaha Hi-Fi Player from 1954.

 

Two surprises awaited me in the Morel room. Morel is an Israeli speaker manufacturer, whose name I recognized both from the speaker components they sell at Madisound, and from the world of automotive sound. (I have two pairs of Morel speakers in my daily driver’s sound system.) Morel was using this year’s AXPONA to reintroduce themselves to the home speaker market and I have to say that the Avyra 633 towers they had on demo were quite impressive for their size, with a weight to the lower frequencies that was full, yet not at all boomy. List price for the pair is $2,000. (See the header image for this article.) 

Off to the side of the room were a smaller set of bookshelf speakers with matching stands, the Avyra 622. As their drivers are similar, I would feel as though they would provide the same engaging sound of the towers, yet only lack in the low frequencies. The speakers are $1,200 for the pair, with an extra $300 for the matching stands. The Avyra series also offers a center channel and three subwoofer choices, and is their entry-level home speaker series.

  

 

The Morel Avyra 622 bookshelf speakers, complete with matching stands.

 

The second surprise in the room was something smaller and self-powered. Morel offers a Bluetooth speaker, the BIGGIE, for $299 each. If you buy a pair, they will connect as a stereo pair and for under $600, you can own a very convincing portable sound system to take with you. Unlike most mass-market Bluetooth speakers, these have a very neutral tonal quality and a soundstage you won’t get with other portables. Each speaker is powered by two Class D amplifiers – 45 watts for the woofer, and 15 watts for the tweeter. Battery life is up to 20 hours with volume at 50 percent. It measures a diminutive 7 x 7 x 4.5 inches and is available in nine colors (the Oak Wood version is pictured below).

  

 

I will admit I’m not a fan of horn-loaded speakers, having heard way too many that were too “clumsy” sounding in the bass, too colored in the high end and often, just too damned loud. Yet with Klipsch offering us a chance to hear their Cornwall IV (from their Heritage series), I felt like I should stop in and revisit a speaker I hadn’t heard in decades. The Cornwall IVs sounded much better than I remembered them, with a smoothness to the highs I wasn’t expecting. I was very surprised at first to hear some really low, deep bass, only to realize they had paired it with a gigantic subwoofer off to the side. (You can see the massive driver just off the right edge of the photo.) With the lowest octaves finally filled in, the system in the room provided a very pleasant listening experience.  The Unison Research Simply 845 integrated amplifier was a perfect pairing for this system.

  

 

Still going strong after decades: the Klipsch Cornwall IV loudspeakers. 

 

Avantgarde Acoustics also demonstrated a horn-based speaker in their suite – the MEZZO G3. This setup provided a very nicely balanced and clean sound characteristic and was probably the least “horn-tinted” sound I heard at the show.  I only poked my head in for a few moments but enjoyed my time in the room. The MEZZO G3s feature a horn midrange and tweeter, crossing over at 170 Hz to a powered subwoofer unit. Time alignment of the horns’ drivers keeps the drivers on the same axis, something that some other horn-speaker manufacturers neglect to address. This provided the coherency and pinpoint imaging these speakers are capable of.

 

 

The Avantgarde MEZZO G3 horn loudspeaker system.

 

One system that polarized many attendees I spoke with this year was a $4 million system, the Dragon System by ESD Acoustic, that featured massive horn speakers and a wall of electronics (many of them low-powered tube amplifiers). I will say to its credit that it…played loudly. It was so loud that I took the following photo three feet beyond the doors to the room, as I wasn’t going to risk aggravating my tinnitus further. It was a curiosity…and I’ll leave it at that.

 

 

You want big sound? The ESD and Auralic system certainly fit the bill.

 

After my years of being around audiophile equipment, including my own, I’ve come to the realization that the speakers which sound most lifelike to me are those that are planar speakers, or variations thereof. Electrostatics and Magnepans are the obvious examples, but speakers with ribbon tweeters and midranges will always get my attention and more often than not, have the tonal characteristics I’m familiar with and prefer for their uncolored and accurate presentation, and quick response.

British loudspeaker manufacturer Wharfedale has been around since 1932, and coming across a pair of their Elysian 4 speakers in the Vinyl Sound room was a welcome surprise. I found them to have not only the sweet, uncolored highs that I appreciate (thanks to their ribbon tweeter), but the tonal balance was spot-on as well. I had a seat too far off-axis so I stayed in the room for a handful of selections. These sell for a buck under $10K per pair.

 

 

Here are Wharfedale's Elysian 4 loudspeakers.

 

One of the more interesting speaker designs I discovered was from Treehaus Audiolab. Their speakers use a full-range field coil driver, along with a 15-inch DSP-controlled woofer and a Fostex super tweeter, all on an open baffle. The woodworking on this model (the Phantom of Luxury) was eye-catching and quite impressive. (I believe they call this style “Walnut Cookies.”) Treehaus has a system approach as the field coil driver requires a separate power supply, so they offer their companion tube power amplifiers and preamplifier for the speakers. Unfortunately the room was too crowded to get a proper audition and I didn’t get a chance to revisit later in the day.

 

 

"Organic" is a word thrown around frequently in audio circles, but the Treehaus Audiolab system truly lived up to the name.

 

I didn’t get much of a chance to listen to the newest Andrew Jones speakers either (the MoFi SourcePoint 888 – the room was just too packed to get into, each time I tried). But one of the companies he worked for in the past, TAD, was represented in the room hosted by electronics manufacturer Wells Audio. I spent an engaging few moments in their room enjoying both the sound of their equipment, as well as the unique physical design of their handcrafted components. Meters seem to be the “thing” this year, and theirs had the appearance of a fine watch being surrounded by a gold bezel. Their Commander Level I preamp, Innamorata II power amp, and Looking Glass II power conditioner were adorned with meters, while the Cipher Level II DAC did without.

 

 

The Wells Audio room was a feast for the eyes and ears.

 

One final highlight of AXPONA was hearing the excellent sound in the Linkwitz Audio room, as it provided the perfect environment for listening to one selection each from the two recordings released by Kevin Gray’s Cohearant Records label, presented by the man himself. I got to chat with Kevin for a moment prior to the invitation-only presentation, and it was very interesting to hear how he assembled his all-tube recording chain, from the microphones to the cutting head, over the course of 15 years. His recording studio is actually the living room of his house, having realized the dimensions of the room were acoustically ideal. This is nothing new, as Rudy Van Gelder began recording in his parents’ living room in Hackensack, New Jersey, which is the inspiration for Kevin’s studio being nicknamed Hackensack West.

 

 

The Linkwitz Audio room hosted a number of well-attended seminars.

 

The Linkwitz LX521 systems in the suite were based on three drivers in an infinite baffle array, placed on a sub-bass unit whose design decouples the outer wooden “shell” from the main enclosure. It was an open, natural sound, all the more enhanced by the sound quality of Kevin’s recordings. While Cohearent’s sound has all the liquidity and lushness that goes with vacuum tubes, the electronics, modern-day recording tape, and other advancements in the ensuing decades contribute to a clean, modern sound that is rare among studios today. Kevin Gray has a winner on his hands with these recordings, and I hope he can find time out of his busy schedule to do more of these.

 

 

The Linkwitz LX521 system has an unmistakable design.

 

For those interested, the two albums used for the demo were Kirsten Edkins’ Shapes & Sound, and Anthony Wilson’s Hackensack West. They are available at the usual online audio stores, and distribution is being handled by Mike Esposito of The ‘In’ Groove in Phoenix, Arizona so they may be available at your local record store soon, if not already.

Any complaints about the show overall? Beyond the venue-specific issues, only two. First, some rooms were just way too loud. I don’t know of anyone who listens at high levels at home, and for those of us suffering from tinnitus, all the loudness does is aggravate it. The other complaint – please play music that more of us are familiar with. I realize that a manufacturer needs a core library of songs to show off the best of their equipment (and those are helpful), but we also would like to hear at least a little of the music we actually play at home. I’ll be honest: I’m more attracted to a mediocre system playing music I like, vs. an accurate and expensive system playing music I can’t stand.

Looking back at the show, it has become the largest audio show in North America, and every year it seems to be even bigger than the last. There is only so much a person can see at these shows. Thankfully I won’t do anything silly like proclaim a “Best of Show” award on any single room, as that is a highly subjective and rather pointless accolade. But I’ve pointed out some rooms that I personally enjoyed (and one that left me underwhelmed). I also missed a handful of exhibitors who chose not to attend AXPONA this year.

Seeing the status quo of today’s audiophile offerings, and meeting up with many friends and acquaintances made over the years makes the show a worthwhile visit. Thankfully I’m only five hours away via a handful of Interstate highways, and I consider myself to be fortunate to be conveniently located so close to a major audio show like AXPONA. So barring any major catastrophes in life (deafness, blindness, loss of my Wyndham Rewards points), I will be back at the show in 2025, ready for another round of the latest audio equipment…and lots of cardio!

 

All images courtesy of the author.

Part One of this two-part series, "Folk Music Really is International," appeared in Issue 205.

 

With 162 official showcase performances and 639 different private showcase artists at Folk Alliance Interational 2024, which took place in Kansas City last February, it was sometimes difficult to decide what to see and when and where to see even a fraction of all the music available. I gave preference to those artists or arts organizations kind enough to have contacted me when the press list was sent out before the conference. FAI, despite being a magnet for performers, is a below-the-radar organization; it’s a niche that contains multitudes from guitar strummers to gospel, funk, jazz, Gaelic and British Isles old and new, Cajun from both Louisiana and the Acadian (Canadian) roots, and which many would describe as "world music." Here are some of the noteworthy artists that I saw. Note: though only a small percentage of readers open video attachments, I really tried to represent the music of these artists most folks have not heard.

Puuluup is the Estonian duo of Ramo Teder and Marko Veisson. They play homemade folkloric string instruments known as talharpas, which look like rectangular wooden washboards with strings be plucked, fingered, or played with a bow or slapped with a hand. One of them is tall with long blond hair, and facial hair like Robert Plant; the other is shorter, balder: think Paul Giamatti. The music is a seriocomic melange of Baltic folk tunes from the Middle Ages forward, reggae, Eastern European shtetls, John Cale turning LaMonte Young into dance music, the instruments rewired through electronic loops. They made up dances for the audience to move along with, some inspired by Yoko Ono/Fluxus directions: place your feet on the floor. Lift one foot up. Put it back down. When people wonder what the songs are about, the answer is often, "sports. Cross-country skiing." ("One song is called "Pink Skis.") Why? "It's much more interesting to sing about sports than...agriculture." Somewhere in between was "a song about forestry." They are said to sometimes sing in a language they made up, but I was skeptical, and they understood that, saying that only about a million people in the world speak Estonian, so outside their native country, who would know the difference?

 

 

The Wildwoods: Acoustic trio from Lincoln, Nebraska. Andy Vaggalis plays upright bass; Noah Gose sings and plays acoustic guitar. Chloe Gose sings and plays fiddle. Chloe had sent me an e-mail inviting me to a showcase, and discovered, no surprise, that a journalist pal from the Lincoln Star-Journal is a mutual friend. Their music is gorgeous: I was floored, remembering how beautiful three instruments and voices can be. Think of the purity of the early Fleet Foxes; I shouldn't have been surprised when I found the Wildwoods covering "White Winter Hymnal."

They exchange verses on a refreshing version Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right." After their set, I huddled with the band and said: "No artificial ingredients." And one said, "we should put that on the label of our next record. Their latest album is Foxfield Saint John (2023).

 

 

Karyn Oliver: Ft. Worth, Texas. Sure, she's a folk singer. And her songs: "Lay Your Burden Down," "Jenny," and "In Galveston," are deftly crafted and resonate in the heart and mind long after the last notes fade. These are also the first three songs on her album, Cherchez la Femme, in which the musicians, producer, engineers, everyone who touches the project, is a woman. It doesn't feel like a forced statement: it just happens that she's doing her part to hire women for recording studio jobs that had always been handed down, by tradition and exclusion, to men. Oliver also has stature, long, natural-looking, honey-colored hair, and the kind of elegance you might see not in a neighborhood folk music club, but in an artist-in-residency of the boutique lounge of a five-star hotel. I don't know what the Dallas/Fort Worth area offers, but New Yorkers of a certain age might think of a combination of Reno Sweeney's downtown, Michael's midtown, and the Cafe Carlyle uptown. Folk City would have been alright for her, too. The City Winery chain would be downright plausible.

 

 

Cast Iron Shoes. "Folk songs for lonely tumbleweeds" is the self-description of Texas "badass" fiddler, singer, and songwriter Nicole Ridgwell. She opened one of her sets with "Don't Let Me Go Back," just her and her fiddle, alternating instrument and vocals. If one were to invent a story about Ridgwell, it would be this song, with its sense of exile from a small town, the shame of returing. (She lives in Austin, Texas.) She's got a full-throated voice, not afraid to push it to her limits; I didn't want to mention Janis Joplin until Ridgwell did in a post-FAI conversation: "I love Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Janis, Ma Rainey, Gillian Welch, Bessie Smith, Dolly, Elizabeth Cotton, Odetta, Alison Krauss, Mavis Staples, Dorothy Love Coates, Tammy Wynette, Rhiannon Giddens (especially her Carolina Chocolate Drops days)."

Cast Iron Shoes is also sometimes a band with other musicians, but at FAI she was fine solo. "Speed Trap" was like jug band music, without the jug, but with that loosey-goosey vibe that makes you want to tumble along through the tumbleweeds.

 

 

Nani. I was intrigued by Noam "Nani" Vazana as soon as I heard she sings in Ladino, the nearly extinct language of the Jews of medieval Spain, and the Sephardic Jews of Morocco and the rest of the Middle East. As a kid, I was fascinated by exotic languages, Ladino in particular, because of its peculiar blend of sounding like Spanish, but written in the Hebrew alphabet. (The distinction, according to what I could find on the internet, is not too dissimilar from the relationship between Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazi, or Eastern European Jews, and German.) In a chic black dress, accompanied by a guitarist who played appropriate flamenco, North African, Hebraic and Arab melodies, Nani was both a musical-anthropological original and a bold, self-deprecating entertainer. The one song I could make out from the titles was "Una Segunda Piel," which on the stage she presented with plenty of "doot-de-doot" scatting. As if being a millennial singer-songwriter writing-and-singing in Ladino performer is not original enough, she said on stage, she pulled out a trombone. Note to Nani: I tried to download her latest Ladino album, Andalusian Brew, from her Europe-based website for 15 euros, but the site would not accept my address information because my state and ZIP code did not match. What may or may not be a compilation album, Nani Ke Haber, is on Spotify.

 

 

El Pony Pisador, and Pau. Two essential artists I saw from Barcelona. El Pony Pisador sings in Barcelona’s official Catalan language. This five-instrument/five vocalist string band includes acoustic guitar, ukelele, fiddle, banjo, and bass. In a chat after their set, they explained the Celtic roots of the northeast Spanish province of Galicia, north of Portugal with an Atlantic coastline. Celts or Celtic-rooted people had lived there thousands of years ago, BCE. But when El Pony Pisador formed circa 2014, they were chasing the modern Anglo/Gaelic folk and rock sound, from the Clancy Brothers to the Dropkick Murphys. And then they began adding on: Tuvan throat signing, American bluegrass, southern Italian tarantella. In showcase, they shifted tempos with alacrity, from very slow to very fast, like horses going from canter to trot to gallop. Skilled comic entertainers, they led the audience in so-called "dances," which might involve keeping your feet still, hips straight, and swaying upper body from one side to the other: That's it. Their commitment to Anglo-Irish folk music is strong enough that in 2023, they released a seven-song album called The Longest Pony, with Bristol, England, traditional band The Longest Johns.

El Pony Pisador takes its name from the Catalan name for an inn in The Lord of the Rings. They are stellar musicians still in the process of discovery. Their mix also includes music from their travels: Greek, Mediterranean, North African, singing in Catalan. As one of them put it, when they hear something fresh in their travels, they "like it, learn it, bring it back." They keep adding, which can get mixed audience reactions. When they played in the British Isles, the reaction was, like, you guys are good at this, but we've got many bands that can do the same thing as well or better. Back home in Barcelona, if they stray too far afield from Celtic music in Catalan, people may say, "Why are you not playing the Catalan music?" Their answer is, to find the right balance for the right audience while continuing to grow as musicians. "We like to learn things we can then express, as Catalans, as Mediterranean musicians."

 

 

Their friend, guitarist Pau Figueres, also played a fascinating set, combining traditional flamenco with electronic loops he played with foot pedals. The idea of having to perform using four limbs, and bringing flamenco into 21st century club and mood music, was a singular accomplishment.

Moneka Arabic Jazz. Since FAI 2025 will be in Montreal from February 19 – 23, I had to shuffle my schedule to catch a few Canadian acts. Moneka Arabic Jazz is a group led by Ahmed Moneka, who grew up in Baghdad, Iraq, and is of Kenyan-Iraqi heritage. Prejudices? He's had to deal with a few, including death threats for appearing in a film about homosexuality. He found asylum in multicultural Toronto, where the MAJ is based. There were a lot of players and instruments on the stage: an oud for that Middle Eastern vibe, sax, electric piano, guitar, fiddle, drums, and Ahmed at the mic. (Before they started to play, a host pointed out MAJ's agent in case anyone wanted to talk to them after the show.) The music started with a Caribbean mashup of ska and calypso, with a heavy dose of funk, and some Captain Beefheart/Frank Zappa guitars. There was some Lonnie Liston Smith-style space funk, dancehall rhythms and raps. The mashups kept coming, Andy Mackay-era Roxy Music saxophone, Tunisian songs, sounds of the souk, riveting funk, no belly dancers.

Sirène et Matelot. Like Cajun music? This is the roots of French Louisiana music, the Eastern Canadian region once known as Acadia. The duo of Patricia Richard and Lennie Gallant formed in 2019, dedicated to preserving and performing the Acadian roots music of Prince Edward Island and the other French-speaking areas of Atlantic Canada. The music will be familiar to anyone who ever heard a rootsy Louisiana band, with an emphasis on songs about the ocean and the effect of pollution and global warming on those communities. Gallant's hearty timbre reminded me of Warren Zevon's voice, as he sang "Sur le Minnehaha" and others that reinforced their connection to community and its resources.

 

 

Bruce Sudano. Bringing it all back home for me, Brooklyn-born Sudano was keyboard player for Alive N' Kickin', which had a hit with "Tighter, Tighter" in 1970. His next band, Brooklyn Dreams, featured Donna Summer (on "Heaven Knows") and they appeared in the movie American Hot Wax with one of Kenny Vance's first iterations of the Planetones. Summer, disco's great mass appeal and crossover artist and Sudano co-wrote her hit "Bad Girls." They married in 1980, and remained a couple, raising three daughters, until her death from cancer in 2012. (Sudano now has nine grandchildren.) Although a keyboard player with his earlier bands, Sudano now plays guitar and has returned to his first love, songwriting. "Songwriting saved my life," he said at lunch one afternoon in Kansas City. After Summer's death (they had been married 32 years and together for 35), he said, "songwriting was where I felt at home, where I was comfortable. It gave me a sense of purpose and meaning," along with his Catholic faith.   

"That's what led me to the folk world; this was a community where I was welcomed," he said of the singer-songwriter substance of FAI. Sudano's new album is Talkin' Ugly Truth, Tellin' Pretty Lies on his own Purple Heart label. Though he has released solo albums since 1981, the new album, he says, is more built for his voice, his guitar, and songs. He remarried four years ago to a woman named Francesca, who has a New York art gallery; he divides his year between Los Angeles and Milan, and in Italy, he has a band. He calls them "my Italian band" or "the Milan band."

 

 

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The audio world has lost a giant with the passing of Andrew Singer at age 73. Andy was the founder of New York retailer Sound by Singer, a larger-than-life figure who wasn’t shy in letting you know what he thought – about gear, or about you. He was a successful retailer who in his own individual way helped define the rise of high-end audio. It was obvious that he loved music.

Almost everyone in the audio industry has an Andy Singer story, and I have mine. At my first CES in 1988, I spotted Singer in a hallway. He was impossible not to recognize, having seen his picture in his self-aggrandizing Sound by Singer ads. Knowing his reputation, I took a breath and went to introduce myself, thinking that regardless of how intimidating the encounter might be, from a professional standpoint I needed to get to know this Very Important Audio Personage.

“Hi, I’m Frank Doris from The Absolute Sound.”

He quickly sized me up, and with a look of disdain, replied, “The Absolute Sound? What are you, the janitor?”

Well, I’m no stranger to New Yawk attitude, but that took me aback. I think I said something like, “I’m working my way up to it,” with as much you-don’t-faze-me blowback as I could muster. I thought, boy, this guy really does live up to his reputation. He gave me a dismissive look and walked away. Truthfully, it wasn’t the first time I’d taken crap just for being on the staff of The Absolute Sound.

Over the years I inevitably ran into him again at shows, and though I approached him with skepticism at first (and probably vice versa), we gradually warmed to each other. After all, he was one of the most important figures in high-end audio retailing, and he clearly did know his stuff. And I really didn't care about his gruff attitude, or take it personally.

He came to realize that unlike others he undoubtedly encountered, I really had no agenda other than to get to know him and find out about his store and the gear he liked and sold.

I remember going into his store for the first time shortly after I met him, and being highly impressed. Nine rooms of high-quality gear that all sounded great. I mean, really great. He wasn’t just copping an attitude – when it came to sound and setup, he was clearly an expert. At shows, the Sound by Singer rooms I heard always sounded exceptional.

I think the turning point where we turned from being cordial to one another to being genuine friends was when he found out I was a musician. (At one show, there were a couple of guitars on display and I couldn't risk picking one up and shredding a little in front of him to drive home the point.) Our conversations turned more to music and guitars than to audio gear. It got to the point where we’d greet each other warmly at shows and events and take some time to shoot the bull.

The last time I saw him was at one of the New York shows, pre-COVID, maybe in 2019. He seemed to have mellowed out from his earlier fire-breathing days. The room at that show sounded utterly wonderful.

Sadly, at the Stenheim speaker event at Manhattan’s Power Station last winter, I’d struck up a conversation with a friend of his, who told me that Andy wasn’t doing great. I wrote a note and asked the friend (sorry, his name escapes me) to please give the note to Andy, and tell him I was thinking of him. I hope he got it.

 

Header image courtesy of a Sound by Singer press release.

I belong to a listening group that gets together to socialize and listen to music. We meet in each of our homes on a rotating basis. The host provides the playlist, wine, and food. When it is my turn, I usually make a playlist with a specific theme. In preparation for one of these sessions, I decided on folk singers as my theme. I created a much-too-long list of every folk singer or group whom I ever enjoyed, and was faced with the dilemma of selecting which ones to play for the group. I decided on familiarity as my main criterion and chose artists associated with the folk music revival of the 1960s: Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Leonard Cohen, the Kingston Trio, et al.

When I was done, I found that there were 21 unincluded folk singers or groups, mostly artists from an earlier time. This led to my constructing a second playlist for my own enjoyment, which can be viewed as a “B-side” to my first one. I find that I prefer this second playlist and find myself playing it much more frequently than the first.

This is the first of a series of three articles discussing “the other folk singers” on that second playlist.

 

Woody Guthrie

 

Woody Guthrie. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Library of Congress/public domain.

 

Woodrow Wilson (Woody) Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, a small agricultural community that boomed when oil was discovered and then became very depressed when the boom ended. His father was a cowboy and local politician who named him after President Wilson. At the age of 19, Woody Guthrie moved to Texas, and soon got married and had three children. As the Great Depression of the 1930s worsened, he left his family and began hitchhiking to California to find work. There he began writing songs in earnest and performing on radio. Many of his songs related to the economic struggles of those times.

Guthrie moved his family to New York City in 1940 and soon began performing with Pete Seeger and others as the Almanac Singers. Here he wrote his most famous song, “This Land is Your Land.” The politics of the Almanac Singers became more leftist and the group became darlings of liberal intellectuals, including communists. In 1943, his autobiography, Bound for Glory (which was part truth, part fiction) was completed and published. Shortly thereafter, Guthrie joined the Merchant Marine, in which he served until the end of World War II. His marriage had ended in divorce, and he subsequently met and married a dancer with whom he had four children, including Arlo. (Ironically, Arlo Guthrie was chosen for my first folk music playlist.)

After the war, the Guthries lived in the Coney Island section of New York City. This was the most productive time of a career in which he wrote 3,000 songs, most of which were never recorded. By the late 1940s, his health was deteriorating and his behavior was becoming somewhat erratic. It took some time to come to a correct diagnosis, Huntington’s disease, an inherited affliction that causes the breakdown of nerve cells in the brain. For fear of his erratic behavior affecting their children, his wife encouraged him to return to California without her and they subsequently divorced.

In California, Guthrie lived with other musicians and actors who had been blacklisted as communists by the House Un-American Activities Committee. He met and married his third wife and they had one child. The Guthries found their way back to New York, but this marriage also ended in divorce. His health continued to decline and he was ultimately confined to psychiatric centers from 1954 until his death in 1967. His second wife looked after him during those final years. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and many other young folk singers would regularly visit him as a tribute to his greatness and legacy.

  

Dave Van Ronk

 

Dave Van Ronk. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Jack Mancini.

  

Dave Van Ronk was born in Brooklyn, New York and became a fixture in New York’s Greenwich Village during the folk music revival of the 1960s. He played at many Greenwich Village bars and cafes and developed the title “The Mayor of MacDougal Street,” MacDougal St. being a key thoroughfare in that neighborhood. I saw him perform several times at the historic Cafe Au Go Go and he became one of my favorite folk music artists.

Van Ronk was a large man with a stereotypical beatnik goatee and oodles of character. He was a master at interacting with his audience and never tried to hide his ultra-liberal politics, which were reflected in some of his songs. I recall bringing a fraternity brother to the Cafe to see him perform and my friend became enamored by one of Van Ronk’s anti-Vietnam war songs, “Romping Through the Swamp.” Whenever there was a fraternity party, my friend would imbibe a bit and go stomping around the fraternity house doing his own rendition of “Romping Through the Swamp.”

While Van Ronk wrote some original songs, he mostly did covers of songs written by others. My favorites were “Cocaine Blues” and “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me.” The latter, ostensibly sung by the condemned man, contains one of my favorite lines in all of music: “I wouldn’t mind the hanging but the layin’ in the grave so long.” He later did a very moving rendition of “He Was a Friend of Mine” at a Phil Ochs memorial concert after Ochs’ passing. Van Ronk died in 2002 due to complications from colon cancer surgery.

 

The Limeliters

 

The Limeliters. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Jack de Nijs for Anefo.

 

The Limeliters consisted of three artists, Lou Gottlieb on bass, Alex Hassilev on banjo, and Glenn Yarbrough on guitar. They all sang, and had a knack for blending their voices (bass, baritone, and tenor respectively) without sacrificing their individual qualities. Hassilev and Yarbrough had been performing as a duo when they met Gottlieb, who had been working as an arranger for the Kingston Trio and also performing as a standup comic. Accordingly, a Limeliters performance always included a good dose of humor.

Early on, the group went to San Francisco to perform at the iconic Hungry I in the epicenter of the West Coast folk music and comedy scene. At that point the group was simply identifying themselves as Gottlieb, Hassilev, and Yarbrough, but the owner of the Hungry I refused to put that on the marquee, insisting on something shorter. Hassilev and Yarbrough had purchased a club called the Limelite Lodge in Aspen, Colorado the previous year, and that is the origin of the Limeliters name.

The Limeliters were an instant success and had multiple offers from prominent record labels. They first signed with Electra and shortly thereafter with RCA. While they never had a hit single, their albums sold very well. Their peak period was 1961 to 1963, when they were performing over 300 concerts a year. They also had success doing commercials, most notably for Coca-Cola, which had the Limeliters record the “Things Go Better With Coke” jingle as the centerpiece of an extensive advertising campaign.

Yarbrough left the group in 1963 and had a degree of success as a solo artist, his biggest hit being “Baby the Rain Must Fall.” The original Limeliters broke up, reformed to do a reunion tour in 1973, and stayed together again until 1981. Since then, the group has incorporated various personnel and the Limeliters still exist, albeit with none of the original members. Hassilev was the last one of them to leave, retiring in 2006.

  

Mimi and Richard Fariña

 

Richard Fariña was born in Brooklyn, NY and graduated from my alma mater, Brooklyn Technical High School. He attended Cornell University but dropped out shortly before graduating. Richard’s mother was Irish and his father Cuban, and he took time off from his studies to go to Ireland where he reputedly joined the Irish Republican Army. It is also thought that he may have spent some time in Cuba to support the revolution in that country.

Shortly after leaving college, Richard took a job working in advertising in New York City and he met and married folk singer Carolyn Hester. After leaving his job to become Hester’s agent, he also became an accomplished writer of poetry and short stories, some of which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly magazine. Hester taught Fariña to play the Appalachian dulcimer which became his primary instrument. On occasion, they would perform together. A very young Bob Dylan played harmonica on some of Hester’s recordings and he and Richard became very close friends. Richard also developed a friendship with Judy Collins and many other folk musicians.

While traveling in Europe, Richard met Mimi Baez, the 17-year-old younger sister of Joan Baez. This led to his divorce with Hester and subsequent marriage to Mimi. Mimi and Richard Fariña debuted as a duo at the Big Sur Folk Festival in 1964. Together they produced two albums. Concurrent with his songwriting and poetry, Richard wrote a novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, in 1966. A few hours after the launch party for his novel, Richard died in a motorcycle accident. That day was also Mimi’s 21^st birthday.

After Richard’s death, Mimi moved to San Francisco and was active as a singer, songwriter, actress, model, and political activist. In 1974, she formed Bread and Roses, a non-profit organization whose mission was to bring free music and other entertainment to people in institutional settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, detention facilities, and homeless shelters. While she continued to perform sporadically, Mimi dedicated most of her time to running Bread and Roses until her death from cancer in 2001 at age 56. After 50 years, Bread and Roses is still alive and well.

  

Josh White

 

Josh White. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/William P. Gottlieb/Library of Congress/public domain.

 

Josh White was born in 1914 and while still a young child was singing in church. At the age of eight, he became a servant of sorts to a blind street musician in his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. He was charged with leading the musician around town, dancing, singing, playing the tambourine, and collecting coins offered by appreciative onlookers. He learned how to play guitar from the various blind musicians whom he got to know, and became an accomplished musician. At the age of 14, White performed as a sideman at a recording session in Chicago. Record executives recognized his talent and he continued to record there for several more years.

After returning to South Carolina, a New York talent scout convinced White to move to New York City and record both Christian music and blues, in some cases as a soloist. He began to sing protest songs and ultimately formed his own band. He was then cast in the musical John Henry, which had a brief showing on Broadway followed by out-of-town venues. This led to his being discovered by talent scout John Hammond, a contract with Columbia, and performances at a Greenwich Village club where he was the first black person to sing songs about racial equality to white audiences. He also became a performer on some major radio broadcasts.

When Franklin Roosevelt was elected to his third term, he enlisted White to perform at a concert associated with the inauguration. Eleanor Roosevelt became a big fan and engaged him to perform on other occasions both before and after the death of Franklin. The relationship was so deep that the Roosevelts were named godparents to Josh White Jr. White also acted in several more Broadway shows. In 1955, he began recording for Elektra, which led to numerous bookings at colleges and concert halls. President Kennedy was a big Josh White fan and sponsored one of his performances. In the mid 1960s, he became a key player in the folk music revival and I am thrilled that I got to see him perform at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. He also performed at President Johnson’s inauguration. Josh White died from heart failure shortly thereafter. A US postage stamp was issued in 1998 commemorating his legacy.

 

 

The Weavers

 

The Weavers on Tour, album cover.

 

In 1948, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays teamed up with Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman to form The Weavers. Seeger and Hays had earlier been members of The Almanac Singers, a group that included Woody Guthrie. They all sang, with Seeger and Hellerman usually accompanying on banjo and guitar, respectively. Performing primarily in New York’s Greenwich Village and having been signed by Decca, they were embraced by the public and sold over four million records. Their recording of Lead Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene” sold over one million copies and was the first folk song to reach number one on the popular music charts.

The Weavers wrote many songs that have become folk music standards. Examples are “If I Had a Hammer” and “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine.” They also brought traditional folk songs such as “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “Rock Island Line,” and their adaptation of “Wimoweh” to the forefront of the American public. All was well until the McCarthy era, when Seeger and Hays were accused of being members of the Communist Party and were forced to appear in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Both refused to answer questions, and none of the Weavers were allowed to appear on television or radio during that period. Decca canceled their contract and deleted all Weavers recordings from their catalog. There were anti-Weaver protests at many of their performances, and they disbanded in 1952 after only four years.

The Weavers reunited with a sold-out performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1955. This led to a series of recording sessions with Vanguard. However, Seeger became dissatisfied with the band's direction and left the group in 1958 to pursue a solo career. Several other artists had stints with the Weavers until the group finally disbanded in 1964. There were a couple of reunion concerts in 1980.

  

 

Odetta

 

Odetta. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Jack de Nijs for Anefo/Anefo.

 

While taking piano lessons, Odetta Holmes’ teacher noticed her singing talent and encouraged her to take voice lessons. At the age of 13, Odetta began operatic training that was paid for by the owner of a theater where puppet shows and music revues were performed. She made her professional debut as an ensemble member at that theater where she performed for four years. Odetta then studied classical music at Los Angeles City College and, at the age of 19, joined a touring company for the musical Finian’s Rainbow.

At this point in her career, Odetta found herself associating with other professional singers and her interests changed to gospel, blues, and then folk music. Her reputation grew and she began performing in clubs in San Francisco and New York. This led to a move to New York City where she developed important friendships with Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte. Her debut solo album was recorded in 1956. Bob Dylan has been quoted as attributing his interest in folk music to having heard her.

As her reputation grew, Odetta regularly performed at the Newport Folk Festival and began appearing on television and in movies. Martin Luther King called her “The Queen of American Folk Music” and she became closely associated with the civil rights movement via her songs and guest appearances. In 1963, she performed at King’s historic March on Washington. As interest in folk music waned, so did Odetta’s career. But she continued to perform and, in 1999, was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton. A few years later, she received the Living Legend Award from the Library of Congress. She had hoped to perform at President Obama’s inauguration in 2009 but died a month before that event took place.

 

As stated earlier, this is the first of a series of three articles on “the other folk singers.” The next installment will discuss Lead Belly, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, the Browns, Burl Ives, Fred Neil, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and Harry Belafonte.

 

Header image: Odetta, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Jack de Nijs for Anefo/Anefo.

My current photography subject is IsoTek’s V5 Elektra power cleaning component ($1,995), which is also known as the V5. Despite my many years of auditing audio gear, my experience with the brand had been limited. 

Built for audio or A/V systems, the V5 has stated RFI reduction of 55 dB and six “power cleaning” circuits, which are said to remove common and differential mode powerline noise. Four isolated outlets are intended for source components such as music servers, CD players, and turntables. Two others are for high-current components like amplifiers, active speakers, and televisions.

 

 

More of the V5’s features include surge protection, a built-in star grounding system, and six-nines oxygen-free, silver-plated copper internal wiring. The unit comes standard with IsoTek’s Evo3 Initium power cord for connection to an AC wall outlet.

While focusing here more on photos than on a product review, I can say that in my audio system, the performance improvements were easily detected. Which leads me to a truism that I learned a long time ago: never, ever underestimate the benefits that clean power can bring to an audio system.

 

 

 

 

 

All images courtesy of Howard Kneller. Howard’s audiophile adventures are documented on his YouTube channel, fast-growing Facebook group (both, The Listening Chair with Howard Kneller), and Instagram account (@howardkneller).

The PS Audio AXPONA 2024 exhibit was featured in their YouTube coverage, including these behind-the-scenes setup videos:

PS Audio at AXPONA 1

PS Audio at AXPONA 2

Here’s a video from Audiophile Junkie.

And here’s one from Jay’s Audio Lab.

The new aspen FR5 bookshelf loudspeaker was mentioned as an “auspicious debut” in The Absolute Sound in its AXPONA reporting.

Steve Guttenberg aka The Audiophiliac included the aspen FR5 in his Best of AXPONA 2024 YouTube video.

Hi-Fi Pig wrote about the aspen FR5, noting, “The little speakers...have something image-wise that I really enjoy…I thought they offered really good value for money.”

Hi-Fi Trends noted, “…their innovative aspen FR20 loudspeakers sounded good! This is no small feat, as the larger ballroom setups are tricky to get right.” The publication continued, “…their system nicely filled the room with a fantastic scale and coherence.”

The Absolute Sound posted a review of the PerfectWave DirectStream DAC MK2 by Anthony Cordesman, which now stands as a tribute to AHC’s inimitable writing. You can read it here.

18 years ago, the world was introduced to Mat Kearney through his breakthrough single “Nothing Left To Lose.” It was a song so perfectly written and performed that it almost arrived without a time stamp. The song could be released today and make as much of an impact as it did then. It really was the ideal song to get people’s attention, because it also came with so many viable jumping off points. This has allowed Kearney since to test drive new elements to his music, but always seem to remain true to the sound we all first fell for.

Since then, he has modestly made a career where the sparkle of opening for big name acts like John Mayer and NEEDTOBREATHE, appearing on the Today show, Ellen, The Tonight Show, Late Night with David Letterman, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and being the critic’s darling in many media outlets has always sat on top of a body of really solid material.

 

Kearney is about release his new self-titled studio album, Mat Kearney, via Middle Kid Records. The new record is his first in more than three years and was self-produced with help from Micah Tawlks (Hayley Williams, Liza Anne, COIN) and Marc Scibilia (Breland, Robin Schultz, Teddy Swims). The first two singles from the record, “Sumac” and “Palisades,” are classic Kearney. They’re acoustically-driven tunes that have a crisp percussive underpinning. They’re also summer songs perfectly timed for a May 15 release and a summer tour where they feel as seasonally appropriate as beach days, ice cold beer, and barbecues.

We had the opportunity to catch Kearney before the tour kicks off and learn more about his creative process, the people who’ve impacted his music most, what was different about making this record, and as he looks toward the tour, which spots he’s most excited to see. It was a fun exchange with one of music’s good guys, a person of great openness and humility, and someone who musically continues to find ways to connect with us today as creatively as he did when there really was “Nothing Left To Lose.”

Ray Chelstowski: Can you believe that the song “Nothing Left To Lose” was released 18 years ago? Did you know then the trajectory it would set for you?

Mat Kearney: It’s a pretty good first single if you are gonna have one that blows up. As far as it goes stylistically, it’s kind of an open-ended song. There are singer/songwriter and rock elements to it, but it’s not like “The Macarena” where you’re locked into one thing. I love that song still. It’s funny; it’s one of my favorite songs that I get to play every night. I wrote it about not knowing what the future would hold. I’d signed on to Columbia Records and was scared to death of the reality of being presented with your dream. When I play it now, it continues to take on new meaning to me.

RC: You have toured with a lot of big-name acts.  As someone who came to music later in life, who had the most impact on helping you grow so quickly as an artist?

MK: Early on it was a lot of my friends who helped me. That community felt so safe. I didn’t know what I lacked or where I wasn’t going as a musician. We kind of just did it all together. I remember opening for John Mayer on the Continuum tour. I’m just playing songs and he’s up there doing acrobatics. He’s such a talented guy. But at the end of the Madison Square Garden show I just poured my heart out, singing my songs and the front half of the arena stood up and gave us a standing ovation. It was us doing it our way, not how John Mayer would do it and anywhere near his level of talent, but I learned that I have something that really means something to people. I’ll never forget that moment. I poured my heart out and people responded to it, and so far they still do.

RC: Your songs tell stories.

MK: In some ways I’m a better autobiographer than I am a fictional writer. I find the richness of life to be the furniture and colors of the story. If I have a big idea for a chorus, say, it’s much more interesting for me to back into it with a story than to spell it out. Then the chorus becomes more interesting as well. It also becomes more interesting to me.

On this new record there’s a song, “Drowning in Nostalgia,” about a guy leaving a burning house that never felt like a home and his need to sabotage things. So at times I do think there are times where you invent a world, but the deepest truth tends to come from my own life.

RC: There’s a solid percussive element to your music. Is that always on your mind as you write?

MK: It’s the result of a kid growing up on A Tribe Called Quest. My first love was jazz, which I get a kick out of because I’m the furthest thing from that as a musician. I fell in love with Maceo Parker and Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. There’s something about swagger in music that I feel so deeply. When things start feeling too cerebral I lose interest. So the marriage of the two is an interesting space and what I love about music. Any time I can mix beats, and the percussive element with this heritage of songwriting it becomes very interesting to me.

I enjoy the rhythm of it. Now that I’ve been doing this for a while I recognize that there’s this kind of season where you mine your soul. Then there’s a time when you kind of have to surface. With this record I went in the studio with this band called The Brook and the Bluff. They are this Nashville band that’s kinda yacht rock and also really indie. After we got to the end I realized that I didn’t have enough songs, and within a month I wrote five that are now on the record. That happened after I’d been writing for two years. So that’s the pace that I still don’t quite understand.

RC: You produced this record and wore more hats that usual. Is that why it’s self-titled?

MK: On some level, the album title will reveal itself during the recording process. That didn’t happen this time. There was nothing that felt right. I didn’t set out to make a self-titled record. I got to the end and I was so proud of the record. I played it for my bass player who’s been with me for 10 years and he said, “wow. This feels the most like the guy I’ve been hanging out with than anything [else] you’ve ever done,” All of the influences were here and this just felt like “me.” So, self-title? I might as well. It’s about time.

 

RC: You’re about to head out on a jam-packed tour. Is there anywhere you are most excited to visit?

MK: I’m from Oregon and we’re playing Bend, Oregon. That’s where I vacation and I’ve always wanted to play there. It’s one of the smallest rooms on the tour and it sold out on like the first day, which made me say, “see, I told you we should be playing Oregon!” I always love heading west. I’m a sixth-generation Oregonian so I can’t shake it. I love Nashville, and it made me who I am as a musician, but Oregon made me the person I am.

It’s very spiritual for me to go to the Pacific Northwest and smell the smells I knew as a child. With a family, touring is now one of the main ways I get to do that. I get to be part of that community that I left a long time ago. There’s always an asterisk next to those dates because I can’t wait to drink that coffee! Somewhere deep in my blood is that explorer who goes in a covered wagon and heads West. Touring is still exciting for me for all the places and things I get to discover. It makes me feel alive in every way.

 

 

Mat Kearney. Courtesy of the artist.

 

Mat Kearney confirmed US tour dates:

6/13 - Bend, OR – Tower Theatre
6/14 - Seattle, WA – The Moore Theatre
6/15 - Portland, OR – Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
6/17 - Spokane, WA – Bing Crosby Theater
6/18 - Boise, ID – Knitting Factory
6/21 - Missoula, MT – The Wilma
6/22 - Bozeman, MT – The Elm
6/24 - Aspen, CO – Belly Up
6/25 - Denver, CO – Paramount Theatre
6/27 - Kansas City, MO – Madrid Theatre
6/28 - Des Moines, IA – Hoyt Sherman Place
9/10 - Indianapolis, IN – Egyptian Room at Old National Centre
9/12 - Minneapolis, MN – State Theatre
9/13 - Milwaukee, WI – The Pabst Theatre

9/14 - Chicago, IL – The Vic Theatre
9/16 - St. Louis, MO – Pageant
9/17 - Columbus, OH – Southern Theatre
9/19 - Nashville, TN – Ryman
9/20 - Louisville, KY – Bourbon & Beyond Festival
9/21 - Atlanta, GA - The Tabernacle
9/23 - Raleigh, NC – Carolina Theater
9/24 - Charlotte, NC – Knight Theater
9/26 - Washington, DC – Lincoln Theatre
9/27 - Glenside, PA – Keswick
9/28 - Boston, MA – Orpheum Theater
9/30 - Albany, NY – The Egg
10/1 - New York, NY – Webster Hall
10/2 - Harrisburg, PA – XL Live
11/7 - Houston, TX – Heights Theater
11/8 - Dallas, TX – Majestic Theater
11/9 - Austin, TX – ACL Live at The Moody Theater
11/11 - Santa Fe, NM – Lensic Performing Arts Center
11/12 - Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre
11/14 - Phoenix, AZ – Van Buren
11/15 - San Diego, CA – Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay
11/16 - Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
11/18 - Santa Barbara, CA – Lobero Theatre
11/19 - Menlo Park, CA – Guild Theater
11/20 - Napa, CA – Uptown Theatre

 

Header image courtesy of Noah Torralba.

Copper has an exchange program with selected magazines, where we share articles, including this one, between publications. This one's from PMA Magazine: the Power of Music and Audio.

 

Welcome to my series Treasures from the Vinyl Vault. In it, I will feature select gems from my approximately 12,000 ever-growing vinyl collection, accumulated over a 45-year period and counting.* This will not be your typical “Greatest of All Time” list, but more of a guided tour, occasionally accompanied by an anecdote or two, of the singles and albums in my collection that are most precious to me, both for their historical value and the impact they’ve had on my musical journey. In order to cover the greatest number of them, I will not go into much detail about the record’s history or its sound quality – for those aspects I invite you to visit my Top 500 SuperSonic List at https://soundevaluations.blogspot.ca/.

Records will be presented in chronological order based either on their recording date or original release date, and not reissue date – which means, for example, that Miles Davis’ iconic Kind of Blue album will be featured only once, in 1959, despite its many remasterings and repressings over the years. Also, all pressings are US ones unless specified otherwise. If mono is not indicated, then consider it stereo or that the stereo version of it is my de facto choice of the two. Let’s continue, shall we?

 

“I don’t need no machine that don’t need me!” Harley Mike proclaimed. He was responding to a question asking why he prefers a motorcycle that is so problem-prone and maintenance-intensive. Turns out Mike is one of those guys who enjoys working on bikes, unlike most motorcyclists who only want to ride them. He gets satisfaction from taking them apart, inspecting the greasy pieces, and fixing or replacing whatever is necessary. For Harley Mike, that’s part of the joy of owning the machine.

It would be easy to dismiss Mike as suffering from some kind of masochistic personality disorder – but he’s not alone. Harley Davidson owns almost 30 percent of the American motorcycle market, so there must be a lot of enthusiasts who enjoy working on their machines.

Consumer Reports revealed in a May 2013 article that, “Despite the number of problems, Harley and BMW owners were among the most satisfied with their motorcycles.” It seems the more attention their bikes demand, the more owners love them. Could it be that mankind has an inborn need to be needed? In this era of childless couples and pet-less singles, is that need being transferred to machines?

In a recent audiophile discussion, someone wondered if vinylphiles like to mess with their equipment for the same reasons as Harley riders. Perhaps they “don’t need no machine that don’t need them” either. 

To streamers, it’s painful to watch them go through the seemingly endless starting ritual: locating the album in the usually extensive collection, extracting it from the double sleeve, brushing it with a million bristles, wet cleaning it, de-sparking it with a plastic gun, de-fuzzing the stylus, adjusting the VTA, checking the turntable speed, changing the input on the preamp, etc. But to the vinylphile, this is a cherished ritual to assure a boundless harvest.

Both the Harley rider and the vinylphile carry on about their product experiences in transcendental terms. To the non-believer, these arguments are mythological. They know that in empirical terms, Hondas perform better than Harleys: they accelerate faster, stop quicker, handle better, need less maintenance, and are more reliable. Likewise, digital audio has superior transient response, a wider dynamic range, flatter frequency response, lower harmonic distortion, and a lower noise floor.

 

 

Spotted at AXPONA 2024: this Clearaudio Statement V2 turntable certainly benefits from being tuned for maximum performance. Photo by Frank Doris.

So what is it that keeps these enthusiasts rooted in their anachronistic technologies? Harley guys will tell you they get more chicks, but vinylphiles don’t get more chicks, they get more clicks.

And clicks can't run out for another six-pack.

But is there more to the story? Harley riders seem to cherish the nostalgia associated with the brand. They also appreciate the unique character of a Harley engine. Researchers tell us that the 45-degree cylinder angle of a Harley engine creates a firing order which mimics the syncopation of the human heart. Psychologically, riding one may engender the feelings of warmth and comfort felt in the womb. That’s an empirical difference, not a mythological one. 

We wondered if there were any empirical advantages to vinyl? It turns out there may be at least three.

1. Most listening rooms consist of many hard surfaces: walls, windows, floor, furniture, coffee tables – all of which reflect high frequencies back to the listener. Those reflections hit the listener’s ears out of phase (at a later time) than the direct sound from the tweeters. This makes some systems unlistenable, especially those with a flat frequency response. The correct solution is damping material judiciously placed around the room to absorb those reflections. If that’s not possible, attenuating high frequencies by means of a treble control or an analog front end also helps.

This is not unlike what we experience in a concert hall, where the high frequencies are attenuated by distance, so those who say that analog sounds more like live, unamplified music may have a point.

2. Not only are the high frequencies of vinyl recordings capped by sound engineers, the deepest bass frequencies are attenuated for the same reason – to accommodate the limitations of cartridge tracking. 

Attenuated bass is less likely to excite room modes – which make acoustic spaces resonate at low frequencies like blowing across the top of a soda bottle. The listening rooms I’ve measured exhibit bass peaks of 7 to 17 dB between 30 and 80 Hz.

That tends to drown out midrange frequencies. When I equalize their bass modes, the audiophile never comments on the linearity of the bass, but on the improvement in the clarity of the vocals. As large concert halls also dissipate most bass frequencies, concertgoers who say vinyl sounds more like live, unamplified music may be correct.

To compensate for the lack of deep bass, vinyl engineers often boost the midbass response – which many concert halls do acoustically depending on where the listener sits. That may be the reason why so many analog fans claim that vinyl sounds “warmer” and “more like live music.” 

3. As well as the bandwidth, transients can also be compressed by vinyl engineers to limit dynamic range. This is necessary because the physical nature of the medium can’t handle high-amplitude transients without distortion.

When music is compressed, it can be played louder without the volume peaks distressing the listeners. That makes the quiet passages more audible, which is described by some vinylphiles as superior resolution, sweeter midrange, more body, or even by one reviewer as “fatigue-free, tonal lusciousness” – anything except “louder.”

Large concert halls also limit dynamic range, albeit acoustically through distance. The in-your-face dynamics of close-miked recordings faithfully rendered by digital front ends may actually sound less like a live acoustic concert than an analog presentation.

So audiophiles who say vinyl sounds more “live" have at least three empirical reasons to justify their belief. They are not claiming that analog reproduction is a more accurate representation of what the microphone hears; they are saying that "analog reproduction is a more accurate representation of what I hear in a concert hall” (to quote Jim Lindstrom).

I can simulate analog sound on my digital/solid-state system by means of my studio processor, which I often use on early digital recordings. It doesn’t make them perfect, but it does make them listenable at louder volumes. As Dr. Floyd Toole of the National Research Council in Ottawa concluded during his extensive loudspeaker testing, “louder sound is always perceived as superior sound.”

But don’t take Dr. Toole’s word for it; ask any Harley rider.

Header image courtesy of Pixabay.com/F. Muhammad.

This article originally appeared in Issue 21 and has been revised and edited.

In the days before digital music, the primary medium for sound reproduction was vinyl records. Sure, there were some who preferred reel-to-reel tapes, but they were in the minority. The turntable was king, and it had to be properly set up. Any audiophile worth his (or her) salt owned at least one or two test records specifically designed for that task.

Over the years, I’ve collected a disproportionate number of such discs (it helped that I worked in record stores for much of my adult life, so I could obtain the ones I wanted at reasonable prices).

In the first part of this series (in Issue 205), the focus was on test records issued by record labels themselves. In this installment, albums from equipment manufacturers are featured. It’s only logical that phono cartridge makers would produce test records to show off their products. Among the biggest names in the 1960s and 1970s were ADC, Empire, Grado, Micro-Acoustics, Ortofon, Pickering, Shure, and Stanton. I have owned cartridges from half of those companies.

ADC (Audio Dynamics Corporation) was known for their XLM and ZLM series cartridges, which were optimized for low-mass tonearms. ADC cartridges used an “induced magnet” design not unlike those from Grado. They had excellent detail when used with the right equipment. Although you can still find listings online for them, the company is no longer in business. They did produce a test record, but I haven’t got one.

Empire produced more than just cartridges – their Troubador line of turntables (with arms) set a standard for performance and elegance (they were massive units finished with a golden hue), and their Grenadier line of two- and three-way column speakers were designed to look like round or hexagonal end tables with marble tops. Those products are worth Googling if only to see their design. I could not find any evidence of an Empire test record.

Grado cartridges use the moving-iron principle in their design and are held in high regard. However, due to reports of hum problems when used with a Linn turntable (my analog source), I have never tried one. (Editor Frank Doris said he used various Grados with a Linn/Syrinx arm combination in the 1980s and never had a problem.) I don’t believe they produced a test record either.

Micro-Acoustics used a unique electret system (as opposed to moving-magnet or moving-coil) for generating the signal from the stylus. The units contained a passive solid-state circuit coupled to the electret generator. I owned a Micro-Acoustics 2002 cartridge in the late 1970s and can attest to its superb transient response. The company also manufactured cutting styli for mastering lathes.

  

 

Micro-Acoustics TT 2002 Demonstration Record (1976)

This one tests for transient and tracking ability because, as they say on the cover, “good tracking isn’t enough.” The first side contains tracks with both musical and computer-generated tones. The second side features musical selections intended to show your cartridge’s performance in both areas. There is quite a bit of information provided on the back cover.

 

Ortofon is one of the oldest and most respected names in phonographic reproduction equipment. They currently produce cartridges with a cost ranging from under $100 to over $10,000! I owned an Ortofon cartridge (can’t recall the model) maybe 40 years ago. They currently offer a test record, but at $50 or so, I have resisted purchasing one.

Pickering was a pretty big name in cartridges when I was starting out in hi-fi 50 years ago, but at one time, they made more than cartridges. My dad had a mono system from around 1950 consisting of a Garrard turntable (not the sought-after 301, darn it), a Bogen tube (integrated) amp, and a single floorstanding Pickering 180L speaker that measured 48" H x 10" W x 10" D. It was a folded-horn, variable-port design in which he had placed a newer 8-inch Wharfedale driver. While in high school, I was at a local Radio Shack store and noticed a matching speaker priced at $15 in the back room. The serial number was within ten units of my father’s speaker! I snatched it up and had my first stereo pair of speakers (albeit with mismatched drivers). I never owned a Pickering cartridge, nor am I aware of any test records under their name.

 

 

Rich's Pickering 180L speakers.

 

 

 

 

Shure Audio Obstacle Course Records (1967, 1973, 1982)

Shure was probably the biggest name in phono cartridges well into the 1980s. They also were famous for their microphones (and headphones). Shure’s point of focus with cartridges was on trackability, and their products performed admirably in that area (as well as others).

The trackability tests on their albums involved recordings of various solo instruments (e.g., orchestral bells, bass drum, etc.) at four increasing levels. A chart was provided on the insert where you could enter the levels at which your cartridge began to mis-track (if at all).

For me, the best thing on these records was the phasing test. Before Shure’s records, the phasing test on most test records used bass tones recorded in phase. You were required to listen to the tones, then switch the positive and negative leads to one speaker and listen again. Whichever configuration resulted in stronger bass was the correct one. What a pain! Instead, the Shure records presented a recording of a man speaking the words, “My voice is recorded in phase, and should appear between the two speakers. My voice is now recorded out of phase, and should have a diffuse and directionless quality – it should not appear between the two speakers on a correctly phased system. If opposite results are obtained, the system is out of phase.” This was brilliant. You could even record that track on a cassette and test your car stereo – or any other system lacking a turntable – without having to change connections.

With each iteration of the V15 cartridge, a new Obstacle Course record was issued. Along the way, Shure also made test records that were not intended for the consumer market. These featured sine waves at various frequencies and were designed for use in conjunction with an oscilloscope.

The next installments in this series will feature test and demo records issued by other stereo equipment manufacturers, labels, and publications.

Copper has an exchange program with FIDELITY magazine (and others), where we share articles, including this one, between publications.

Based in the Florence area, Gold Note is generally perceived as a young company. Yet the manufacturer is (mostly behind the scenes) one of the old hands in the business.

 

Picture the situation: On a high-fidelity press trip, not a single music track is played, we don’t see a listening room and the technical finesse of the devices also plays a subordinate role. Nevertheless, all the guests will later leave the building as moderately addicted fanboys. What does that tell us? First of all, that Gold Note gets a lot of things quite right, since a tour of the factory halls is all it takes to make you fall in love with the Italian machines …

 

Environmental Variables

Tuscany, birthplace of the Renaissance. We are barely 15 kilometers southwest of Florence in a landscape lined with rolling hills. Pine trees, spring sunshine and Italian delicacies wherever you look. It is not easy for German editors to focus on their work in such an environment. Maurizio Aterini finds it noticeably easier. For him, the dreamscape is part of everyday life. He sits in his office and works tirelessly on his computer, not particularly bothered by the small crowd of journalists outside, who are taking a tour of the building accompanied by his product manager Tommaso Dolfi.

Already A Tinkerer At Age Eight

Later, the CEO of Gold Note will tell us that he was already fascinated by tape machines and cassette decks as a young boy. He started repairing devices at the age of eight. He later studied engineering and soon developed his own components. From the early nineties, he worked as an OEM (original equipment manufacturer), one of those faceless producers who manufacture assemblies or entire devices for clients.

No Love For Financial Crises

In this role, his company flourished and manufactured for well-known European industry giants as well as a “North American market leader”. Of course, he is not at liberty to reveal any names – the contracts are still valid today. His customers wanted to preserve the aura of their own developments. At the end of the 2000s, however, the financial crisis also hit the lovely Tuscany region. Over the course of a few months, Aterini lost the majority of his customers. After the initial scare, he decided to take the plunge and founded his own brand, Gold Note.

Seasoned Veterans

This brief outline of the managing director’s career answers a question that I have been asking myself for some time: How can a producer pop up overnight whose products are so sophisticated and show no teething troubles even when scrutinized meticulously? The Gold Note team’s almost 25 years of experience in all aspects of development and production when the company was founded (2011) was built into the components, yet not widely publicized.

Gold Note Pragmatism

In other respects, too, the team are seasoned pragmatists. As already indicated in Aterini’s comments, the Italians place particular emphasis on clean circuitry, a solid construction of their power supplies and a no-frills, yet attractive design of their components. The focus is on technology, outstanding sound quality is quite simply the logical consequence. But please don’t misunderstand: Of course there are several listening rooms in the company building. However, they were occupied during our visit.

Price War Through Organization

Maurizio Aterini had one problem in particular in the early years of Gold Note: How can you produce top-class equipment with top-quality workmanship without letting prices get out of hand? The solution was found in an experienced optimizer who normally organizes processes for the automotive industry. His suggestions were not a mere tweak, but rather prompted the CEO to restructure his company from the ground up and even led to the company building in rural Montespertoli being remodeled. To ensure that processes ran as smoothly as possible, the offices and marketing department were moved to a separate wing of the building so that they were “no longer in the way” of production. We would come across the phrase “avoid unnecessary walking distances” a fair few times over the course of the tour.

The Warehouse As Part Of Production

The starting point for Gold Note production is an elongated warehouse which, together with the shipping department, takes up almost the entire lower floor of the building complex. Two employees work tirelessly here, stocking self-designed rolling shelves with parts and components, housing blanks and other ingredients. Of course, they keep an eye on stock levels and immediately reorder any stock that is running low so that the process can continue tomorrow and the day after tomorrow without unnecessary breaks.

Just One Shelf Each …

“Each of the shelves is intended for one employee,” explains Product Manager Tommaso Dolfi, who shows us around the building. He or she will find it at their workplace the next morning. In the mobile mini-warehouses, all the parts are prepared for the production of a specific Gold Note component.

In the evenings, a board in the production area is used to meticulously record what has been completed and where there may have been a problem – where, for example, it was necessary to re-sort screws despite the sophisticated organization. “We don’t mean to build up pressure with this,” Dolfi is quick to point out. The restructuring is still in full swing and there is hidden potential in every nook and cranny. Part of the warehouse is currently being restructured. Some of the packaging was arranged here according to volume. Everything large and heavy was stored further down on the shelves. However, practice has quickly shown that these cardboard boxes are rarely needed. And in order to find such errors, active feedback from the employees carrying out the work is essential.

The Gold Note Formula Works!

This fine-tuning down to the smallest detail has led to a considerable increase in the output of devices with an identical workforce. And this in turn has an impact on component prices: The massive IS-1000 integrated streaming amplifier, for example, is priced at just under €4500. Considering that we’re talking about a powerhouse in the 18 kg-class complete with an excellent DAC and a good 250 watts per channel (4 ohms), this is a veritable bargain.

During our visit, around six employees are busy assembling all kinds of devices. I discover the compact IS-10 integrated streaming amplifier and its highly acclaimed IS-1000 brother. The slim T-5 turntable is being built at another workstation. Everything is done on clearly laid out workbenches, each equipped with its own measuring stations – and with another shelf where the fully assembled devices are burned in. This is also part of efficiency optimization: if a problem occurs, the employee responsible can put the defective unit straight back on the table and get to the bottom of the problem with measuring programs and all the necessary tools. Once the fault has been rectified, burn-in can continue.

Service Included

Further back in the assembly hall, we discover the only workplace where a talent for improvisation is required: In the service area, machines from the early days of the brand are repaired. Of course, it is not possible to plan ahead for component requirements. However, the compact measuring station based on a meticulously calibrated standard sound card is also available here – and so the fault in the large power amplifier, which is currently waiting for the doctor, is sure to be analyzed and rectified soon.

Cool Packaging

This directness has also been transferred to the packing stations. Short routes, prepared materials and, above all, much better adapted cardboard packaging have virtually eliminated rejects and transport damage in recent years. Udo Besser from the German sales department demonstrated how the Mediterraneo record player is placed in its crate: There are suitable gaps in the packaging inserts for each part of the disassembled turntable. If a gap is left at the end, it means a part is missing – or vice versa. In comparison, most of the turntable cartons I know look like puzzles for advanced users.

So, Where’s Gold Note Headed?

During our final interview, I have the opportunity to ask Maurizio Aterini about the challenges ahead. Where does he see his company in five or ten years’ time? In addition to the goal of attractive prices, this was another reason for restructuring the company. In a nutshell: He doesn’t know! But if Gold Note works as efficiently and flexibly as it does at the moment, then it will be able to react quickly to new requirements. As my grandmother used to say: order is half the battle! And sometimes a little more …

www.goldnote.it

www.besserdistribution.com

 

We thought it was a tube tester at first...but no, it's an electronic egg grader!

 

 

The ventilation grille alone is enough to make us want this 1960s Fisher X-100 tube integrated amplifier. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Joe Haupt.

  

 

For true analog purists, here are two stylus force gauges from Metrosound and Shure. I probably acquired both in garage sales decades ago. Both can be surprisingly accurate, if somewhat fiddly.

 

 

It's Elektro the Moto-Man, the smoking robot! From Radio Craft, August 1939.

 

 

Presenting the Motorola Changeabout: in case you could only afford one 8-track player after making the payments on your house, car, and boat.

Maybe instead of always forging ahead, some of us should step back into our childhood mindset once in a while.

That was the time when relaxation and play came naturally, without expensive therapists or sports equipment. 

What have we done to ourselves? Is “progress" really worth the cost? Has our striving for happiness destroyed our capacity to savor it?