Issue 170

As a direct representative of an era steeped in glitz and glamor, journalist Elise Krentzel’s journey through the entangled jungle of rock music is one of dreams, determination, and perseverance.

From a young age, Krentzel harbored a passion for both music and the written word. Throughout her teenage years as an aspiring poet and writer, Krentzel perfected her craft through self-reflection, and with the help of a few mentors along the way.

After a trip to Europe in the mid-1970s, the wunderkind writer, who was first published at age 17, knew with steadfast resolve that she would one day make it her home, leaving the doldrums of Long Island, a region where Krentzel felt alien, an outcast in the dust.

At 19, Krentzel received the call of a lifetime from the press offices of KISS to cover the band on a tour of Japan. Krentzel had not been a part of the “KISS Army” of devoted fans, and set aside trepidations and misgivings she may have had and joined the Kabuki-clad rock warriors on their tour of Japan in 1977.

As one of ten journalists on tour, Krentzel at times faced harsh treatment from her male counterparts, but even at her young age, her professionalism and diligence shined through, and by the tour’s end, Krentzel had parlayed her time with KISS into a full-time gig with Shinko Music, as a talent scout.

Over the years, as a woman in a male-dominated field, Krentzel has proved to be both a role model and a visionary for young women who came after her. Krentzel’s recent memoir, Under My Skin, subtitled Drama, Trauma and Rock ‘N’ Roll, is part one of what will amount to a three-part series on her life, her trials, her pain, and her triumphs. For my money, as a human being, a KISS fan, and a purveyor of the written word, this is a must-read.

In the midst of promoting Under My Skin, Krentzel took a break from the whirlwind to talk about the people and places that have influenced her journey thus far.

Andrew Daly: What was your first exposure to the arts?

Elise Krentzel: Probably when I was four or earlier. My dad was constantly playing jazz records, and my mom played classical music. My paternal Belarussian grandmother would sing along to “Moscow Nights” and other Russian ballads. I started playing guitar at seven years old.

AD: When did you hone in on both music and journalism? What led you to marry the two?

EK: I was 15, living in a teenage wasteland (Long Island), and had amassed an extensive record collection of around 1,000 LPs by that time. As I wrote poetry and [kept a] journal for years prior, I distinctly remember having an “a-ha” moment and said aloud, “Well, if I love writing and love music, why don’t I become a music journalist?” I didn’t consciously realize how ambitious and driven I was to accomplish my goals, whatever they were. I was at rock concerts at least two weekend nights per month from the age of 14.

Before I was [ever] published, I practiced being a journalist by contributing to my high school newspaper, as well as writing articles for magazines I had no intention of sending to, just for me to practice. I’d come up with album reviews, concert reviews, and faux interviews. Once I had a few that I wasn’t ashamed of showing [to] anyone, I brought them to my mentor – my poetry teacher – and had him look them over. He approved and gave me tips on submitting articles to magazines, [and helped] me write a cover letter. Does anyone even know what that is anymore? (laughs)

AD: How did your early exposure to European culture affect you as you moved forward?

EK: The trip changed my perspective 180 degrees on American politics, culture, and in particular, men. In Europe, I felt at “home” and not like the outcast I was on Long Island. I had male friends, something I craved since my group of friends from middle school was no longer the same group. We all went our separate ways except for one girl who remained my closest friend. The boys were no longer friends. In Europe, I could discuss social progressive politics with anyone who was 16 to 19 years old. They were better-educated than us Americans, more erudite, and informed.

Brit pop was my weakness; fashion from Paris and London and the food culture. And oh my God, I discovered real cheese. (laughs) Not that my grandmothers didn’t expose us to the homemade cottage and farmer cheese (very Russian, very Eastern European), but in Europe, I tried gouda, edam, brie, goat cheese, and emmental. We buttered our bread before laying down meat, jam, and cheese on it in an open-faced style. It was real bread, without sugar and not squishy. I was worried about what I was going to do when I got home as the food was simply awful. One thing I knew after that trip: I would move to Europe upon graduating high school.

AD: Do you feel that it made you a more diverse writer? If so, in what way is that best demonstrated in your work?

EK: I think it made me a more diverse explorer. I liken myself to an archeologist who extracts the gems of a person, situation, or behavioral pattern. The topics I wrote on were about music. 

AD: Coming of age in the early days of glam rock, who were some of your favorites, and why?

EK: David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, Lou Reed, The Pretenders, Roxy Music, Nick Lowe, T. Rex, Iggy Pop, (and for punk, the New York Dolls, Iggy Pop, Sex Pistols). Ooh, why? Androgyny. I was androgynous and fascinated with the idea of fluidity. Role-playing? I loved it, and I loved dressing up any which way. As I likened myself to a masculine-thinking female (my approach was considered very male, and men were offended in the business world), I was attracted to feminine-looking men.

AD: The glam scene is credited for more or less launching what we saw in the 1980s. What’s your take on that, and what bands are most responsible?

EK: I can’t say who was responsible for the ’80s, but I can say which bands I gravitated towards. Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Tears for Fears, Eurythmics, Boy George, The Cure, U2, and Duran Duran.

AD: Journalism is a male-dominated profession, and was especially back then. While it’s improved in the present day, early in your career, there must have been many hurdles.

EK: Ah, that would fill up the page. How much time you got? There were three categories of men. First, the lowlifes who expected sexual favors in exchange for access or information. I’d be hit upon left and right, from A&R men, producers, in the recording studios, managers at the record companies, and others at parties, including male journalists who thought of themselves as better than me. (laughs)

The second were the nasties, and this started on the KISS tour but didn’t end there. Guys in the biz were jealous, intimidated, or both, and wanted to see me fail. They spread lies and rumors and tried to tarnish my reputation. The third type was the elderly statesman, a grandfatherly figure, not in age but in wisdom. These august men took me under their wing and wanted to help me come hell or high water. I always had a mentor, or two, or three to go to when the going got tough.

AD: To that end, would you call yourself a feminist?

EK: To that end, no. I was raised in a non-gender-role-specific household. My father did the dishes, cleaned the house, and did the laundry, and this was back in the 1960s. Mom cooked. I never had to dress a certain way, play with certain toys or define what I liked. If I liked something then I was encouraged to try it. I discovered early on I did not like girlie girls who gossiped, or whose interests were in boys to the exclusion of friendship or other global issues.

In this respect, I found myself on the side of feminism because I wanted equal rights and respect as an individual with different tastes and ways of thinking. I started reading Ms. magazine in 1970 and learned about Betty Friedan and all the trailblazing women who paved the road for me. I read Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, which resonated 100 percent. I wanted equal rights in my pursuit of sexuality as well, which is why I didn’t wait for boys to invite me on “dates.” Injustice was and still is a huge issue, so to this day, I support causes for human rights. Women’s rights are human rights.

AD: What were the initial conversations that led to you joining KISS on the road in Japan?

EK: It was pretty simple. It was just phone calls from their press office.

With KISS on tour in Japan, 1970s. Courtesy of Elise Krentzel.

AD: Given some of the band members’ reputations, were you at all hesitant?

EK: Everyone knew of Gene [Simmons’] exploits, and that didn’t bother me because I felt safe and surrounded by his management team, my buddy on tour, Andrew, and a constant entourage of Japanese record company executives. Even when I interviewed Gene, he didn’t faze me at all.

AD: During that trip, what surprised you the most?

EK: Besides KISS’ performances, Japan itself. The country, the people’s mannerisms, the food, the exotic and visually organic environments like rock gardens, temples, food packaging, and Kabuki and Noh performances. The humility and politeness of the Japanese truly appealed to my heart.

AD: Tell us the story where KISS manager Bill Aucoin told you that fateful tour would be the band’s last.

EK: We were at dinner at the Hotel Okura’s French restaurant in Tokyo. He laid it on Andrew and me in a very offhand way. Andrew and I looked at one another and then sort of shrugged, as we had no idea to believe it or what to make of it. Was it a PR stunt? Was the whole Japan trip just a way to gain more worldwide followers? That was my conclusion.

AD: Did Aucoin or the band give you any indication of what their plans were after this “last hurrah?”

ED: Here’s the thing that didn’t make too much sense: after the Japan tour, they were slated to go on tour in Canada. So, what was the last hurrah? A worldwide tour? Is the band splitting? Are members going to produce solo albums after the Japan tour? It’s tough to pinpoint after what, 45 years? But those were the questions running through my mind.

AD: KISS has been famously compared to the Beatles over and over again. I personally don’t see it. What are your thoughts present day vs. your thoughts in 1977?

EK: Good question. Let’s take a trip on the wayback machine. I thought the amount of press coverage, insane emotion the fans displayed, media blasts, and stage phenomena were similar to the Beatles, at least in Japan. Now, I wouldn’t hold a candle to the Beatles because KISS’ music, while iconic, is nowhere near the level of genius as the Beatles, who took pop music to an unprecedented level. KISS fans worldwide are wonderfully devout, almost fanatical about the band, yet compared to Beatles fans, they probably comprise a much smaller percentage, but don’t quote me on the percentages. Pop music is more ubiquitous than hard rock, a sub-genre.

AD: In the wake of the KISS tour, you began working with Shinko Music as a scout. What was your approach to scouting talent?

EK: I’d read every music magazine from the UK and US, both consumer and trade. As I was already a journalist, I transferred those credentials while in Japan to earn swag in the form of hundreds of records, LPs and 45rpm, tickets to concerts, etc. Then once I chose bands who I thought had potential, I’d write telexes and postal mail to the band’s publishers, management team, and foreign record companies. Then I’d pitch it to the local Japanese label to build up momentum to get them to promote the albums to the public. Once there was steam, Shinko (and eventually me as I started my sub-publishing and talent agency later), would sign on for the publishing rights in Japan.

AD: Were there any you felt would be sure bets but never made it?

EK: Punk rock became trendy but didn’t make it as big as say, Queen, Aerosmith, Bowie, or other significant acts. Some of the punk rock acts that didn’t make it were Ian Dury and the Blockheads, and Lena Lovich.

AD: What makes now the right time to finally get your book, Under My Skin, out there?

EK: Because finally, I got around to putting pen to paper after decades of therapies and self-help stuff. I wrote two books that were not published. I guess I put my past behind me enough so that it wouldn’t emotionally cloud my humor, or interfere with the painful parts of my life. It was timely since the ’70s are back in vogue. I have a quote, “it takes a long time to be on time.” (laughs)

AD: Has the process been stressful, cathartic, or something more?

EK: One of the main reasons Under My Skin wasn’t written earlier was due to my fear of putting to paper metaphorically all the tragedy, drama, trauma, and hurts of my past. I was knotted up. I couldn’t see how to unfurl my past with humor that was hidden due to fear of exposure. As I wrote each chapter, the flow was natural, and the words just poured out.

AD: This book is only part one, right? How will parts two and three shake out?

EK: Think of it as the three stages in life. Stage one covered the ages of five to 20, and much of the focus was physical, whether physical abuse, sexuality, or school-age peers.

Book two is entitled Men Moving Me, covers the ages of 20 to 44, and will focus on emotional growth, international relationships of treachery, betrayal, alienation, traveling, moving around the world, and giving birth.

Book three is the mental equivalent of maturity and growing into adulthood (I have a Peter Pan complex, so turning 65 in a few weeks makes me giddy as I finally become a senior citizen) as a woman, mother, and friend to myself who learns the true meaning of love.

AD: When you reflect on your career, how do you quantify your influence and accomplishments?

EK: I don’t quantify any longer, I qualify. I qualify it by how many people I’ve helped along the way, through mentorship, or guidance to create better circumstances for themselves. I qualify it by looking at clients who implemented my out-of-the-box suggestions, and those who, while at first resistant, changed their strategies. Accomplishments to me are lifelong and in flux. Once I achieve a goal, there is always another one, so reaching it is not exactly an accomplishment. To me, accomplishment is the process of doing, getting up every day, and not giving up. Every day I focus on the goal, not the outcome.

We’ll begin this article by having artist Melissa McCracken give us a short introduction to synesthesia and how it inspires her artwork.

Melissa McCracken: Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which the brain’s senses are cross-wired. So, in my case, whenever I hear music, the color faculty of my brain is triggered at the same time. it’s involuntary and simultaneous – an automatic response to music. Synesthesia can occur in a number of different ways. Any of the senses can be cross-wired. I have a form called grapheme synesthesia, in which, if I’m reading a book, all the letters and numbers are color coded as well. Spatial synesthesia is another [type that I have], where days of the week and numbers or anything that’s sequential is mapped out around my physical body or in my mind in specific places. It’s basically just my senses overlapping in a way they wouldn’t normally in a neuro-typical brain.

Alón Sagee: How did you discover that you had Synesthesia?

MM: When I was about 16, I honestly had never even given a thought that other people may not experience music as color, probably because there’s such a high association between visuals and music – you know, album artwork and music videos and light shows at concerts. It just kind of seemed natural to have that colorful component to it. And when I was trying to find a ringtone for my phone (laughs) I was consulting a friend on it and was talking about how this song matched my phone better. And he kind of stopped me in my tracks and said, “what are you talking about?” I was just amazed that he hadn’t had the same experience.

I thought that something must be different in his brain because the color/sound connection just seemed so apparent to me. So, we explored that conversation and not long after I opened it up to some other friends and family members and started to get a better idea of the way my brain was wired. I found out that synesthesia wasn’t very common but nevertheless it actually ended up being discussed in one of my college psychology courses! The professor asked if anyone had experience with synesthesia and since I was familiar with it and pretty sure that was what I had, I raised my hand. Hearing his analysis convinced me that this is what I have. I ended up speaking to the whole class about my experiences. So, it was relatively late in my life to understand that, you know, something was a little bit different about me.

Melissa McCracken.

AS: Was it difficult as a youth to have this special ability that other people didn’t have?

MM: I think in some ways it was very helpful. I remember that math was a fairly easy subject for me since I see numbers in all their different individual colors. This made it easier for me to remember formulas because I’d be familiar with what colors were in that formula. It’s like a mnemonic device for remembering a lot of things, but it kind of would get in the way sometimes, like when meeting people. I’ll know they have a blue name, but I wonder, does it start with an “A,” does it start with an “F”…? And then alongside that, the relatability of having these experiences with music. I’m very passionate about music and it can be – I wouldn’t say frustrating, but kind of a moment of mismatch knowing that I’m having these experiences and they’re not exactly transferable or relatable to someone else. So, I think that sometimes that was a little upsetting to me, which is why I started painting – just to connect that a little bit better into the real world and with other people. So yeah, I don’t think it was much of a hindrance, but there were ups and downs to it, for sure. (laughs)

AS: Is this something that’s on all the time or can you turn it on and off?

MM: It’s involuntary, so it’s just always happening. I may not pay attention to it as much, you know, just like if I might be more in tune to the smells of the room or the conversation that I’m having rather than just focusing on the colors that are being expressed through the music [that’s playing] at that moment. So, I’ll tune in and tune out, but it’s never gone…

A Sunday Night (2018).

Wash (2018).

AS: Is this related to anything else that you experience? For example, years and years ago, I was taught how to focus and relax my sight to see auras around people.

MM: Oh, really?

AS: Yeah. It’s really weird and fascinating. I don’t tell too many people that, but now it’s it’ll be in print, so I’m sure to get some (ahem) comments.

MM: (laughs) Okay. Wow. That’s really cool though.

AS: I could see a yellow glow around people, especially around their heads. So I can relate to what you’re saying a little bit, although I wish I was a good visual artist. I’m not.

MM: (laughs) I actually can relate specifically to that – my roommate and I are interested in those sorts of topics and we’ve talked a lot about auras and things like that. And I think there does seem to be a spiritual connection to it just because it feels like more of an impression of the feelings the music evokes, rather than a very literal translation of what I’m experiencing, but I don’t know if that’s the same concept as feeling the aura of a song, you know what I mean?

Ghosts (2018).

Kiss the Earth (2018).

AS: Yeah, it’s fascinating stuff. One thing I’m fairly sure of is that our audiophile community would be interested in your process. How do you start a painting? Do you start with a song in your head? Is the song playing on a loop in your mind, or does it all show up at once?

MM: There are a lot of components to it. You know, a song is typically [around] four minutes long, so there’s a lot of different things happening in the visuals that aren’t stagnant, that have a lot of movement to them. I’ve tried a bunch of different approaches and [they’ll] vary from piece to piece. Many times, I’d listen to a song on repeat, and then, to be honest, I stopped doing that as much, because I’d have my favorite songs that I wanted to paint and I’d get a little numb to them just because I’m orienting myself towards [them] in a very trying-to-figure-it-out sort of way, rather than just fully enjoying the music.

So, I’ve learned to listen to a song a couple of times and kind of get a good understanding of the overall feel that I wanna get across. And then maybe I’ll turn on a podcast or something like that. And then intermittently go back to the song and make sure that – I don’t know how else to put it other than that I’m still incorporating those elements of the song that feel powerful. I relate it to the idea of creating a movie poster. You’re not putting all the scenes [in the movie] on the poster, but you’re really trying to get across the highlights. And so it’s like a screenshot in time, but at the same time a collage, and I try to make sure there’s movement in there to kind of give context to how these colors or shapes play into the song itself.

AS: It seems that the places where your paintings want to go don’t unfold all at once. Can you hear a song on the radio and then go home and paint it without putting the song back on?

MM: There’s a visual memory [aspect]. I do like to have the song [playing] as a reference because there are things I can come up with that I might have forgotten about. One of my favorite artists is Nine Inch Nails. I love Trent Reznor; his music has so much detail. There’s a lot of depth in the experience is of listening to NIN or his solo work. I think what’s cool about that is I can turn on a song that I’ve been so familiar with and notice a new little bass line or – I’m not super-technical with music, so I can’t speak [about] it in that way, but I’ll notice little elements of it that I haven’t previously experienced and that will change the picture. It’s important for me to stay in tune with the song.

Stay tuned for Part Two of this interview in our next issue.

Here’s the full list of Melissa’s paintings inspired by music: https://www.melissasmccracken.com/song-list

******

Copper Community Engagement:

Has one or more of the paintings inspired by a piece of music touched you in some way? Please share your experience by submitting a comment.

Alón Sagee is Chairman and Chief Troublemaker of the San Francisco Audiophile Society. Alón’s writings for Copper can be found in the following issues:

• A Pre-Entry-Level Analog MP3 Killer
• The Audiophile’s Opinion/Audio Clubs
• The Audiophile’s Brain
• The Audiophile’s Cat
• Chinese Food for Thought
• The Not-So-Great Wall
• Everest, Part 1
• Everest, Part 2
• Everest, Part 3
• Mongolia, Part 1
• Mongolia, Part 2
• Two Hands Clapping
• Sublime Moments

Also, please note: Alón’s biography for the Francisco Audiophile Society.

Header image: Gravity (2014), by Melissa McCracken. All images courtesy of Melissa McCracken.

I’ve been absent for a couple of issues, and I wanted to let everyone know that I haven’t completely faded away…at least, not yet! In previous issues of Copper, I’d hinted at some not-too-distant lifestyle changes on my horizon, and the possibility of downsizing my audio system (and obsession) to a certain extent. My personal timetable for that was sometime next year, after I retired from my job of three-plus decades with publisher RR Donnelley. Guess what? Things have gotten pushed up, and I’m pretty much retiring effective immediately! My wife Beth and I are selling our home of the last five years in Atlanta and are moving to Charleston, South Carolina in October. 

This all came about pretty quickly; my daughter Julie and her family moved to the Charleston area in July, and it’s been a real wake up call for us to be so far from our two young grandchildren, Henry (four) and Finneas (nine months). We basically were attached at the hip to everyone in Julie’s house for months on end in advance of their move, and then spent a week in Charleston helping them get unpacked and settled in. On the return trip home, Beth had a “Come to Jesus” moment, and told me that I had to go ahead and retire now; she couldn’t bear to be so far from those young kids for another nine months. So the nonstop madness of Julie’s move had barely subsided, when our own moving madness kicked into full gear. We had to get everything packed and the house ready to go to market in a month. Oh, and that was preceded by a week-long hospital stay by Beth; somehow, she contracted pneumonia while we were in Charleston. It was the really unpleasant icing on an already unsavory cake!

My system in the process of being dismantled. Not any fun at all!

When Kathryn (our real estate agent) toured the house in advance of listing it, the story was the same as when we moved from our home of 30 years into the current one: “that stereo setup has to go away immediately!” I didn’t argue with her perspective on this – her demands got us forty grand over asking at the old place, so far be it from me to question the logic. It took about two and a half days to disconnect, pack, and hand truck countless boxes of equipment (very heavy!), CDs (also very heavy!), LPs (extremely heavy!), and a plethora of racks, stands, and other audio-related gadgets and gizmos into a storage area. Oh yeah, and RCA dogs and Buddhas – lots of RCA dogs and Buddhas. That happened weeks ago, so I’ve been essentially deprived of my usual daily doses of music for what seems like forever. What I wouldn’t give for my neighbor Bob to be able to come over with his laptops, microphones, gadgets, and gauges in tow, enlightening me as to how badly my system measures while rapidly digesting all my high-gravity dark beers. My only reprieve has been listening to the factory system in my car, which is an exceptionally poor substitute for the real thing!

My room in its current state of solitary sadness. My music will never play here ever again.

If the house sells right away, we’ll quickly head over to Charleston to hopefully make an offer on the closest thing to our version of perfection we can find. But we’ll still be lucky to get moved in by mid-October. Even then, the drill will be the same as when we moved into the current house: everything except the stereo will get set up and tweaked to the infinite degree first. All that “audio crap” can wait until later!

A very small selection of my collection of RCA Dogs and Buddhas, with a couple of squirrels thrown in for good measure!

At the new digs, I’m pretty much abandoning the concept of a dedicated audio room, and will have the stereo setup in a hopefully largish family room. Beth and I have been ironing out the compromise details of this plan for months now. The system will have a place of prominence – probably on the main floor – but all the LPs, CDs, and extraneous stuff will be out of sight, and hopefully out of her mind! The main items that we haven’t been able to achieve common ground on are my fairly extensive collections of RCA Nipper dogs and Buddha statuary of various sizes and configurations. We’ll eventually get there, I’m certain of that; thankfully, I’m at that point in my life where I prefer to avoid confrontation, especially over cast-iron dogs and ceramic demigods!

I had been seriously considering drastically downsizing the audio rig, but since my trip to the Florida Audio Expo in February, I’ve gotten plowed with review offers from a host of manufacturers. I currently have some pretty sweet gear available to me – even if it’s all temporarily packed away. It looks like the big system is here to stay, at least for a while longer, anyway. Without the nuisance of having to deal with being employed, I’ll no longer have the day job creating a constant drag on my audio journalistic productivity. I should be able to get my writing and review schedule fairly prioritized after we get settled in.

My header for the articles on Positive Feedback that chronicled my move into the current home.

When we built the current house, we lived in my brother Harold’s basement for over nine months (!) while the construction was going on. That seemed like the most interminable period of my entire life, and not much audio activity went on there for months on end. We actually joked about the experience, and lovingly referred to our basement apartment as “The Dungeon.” I even chronicled the experience over on Positive Feedback in a couple of articles, True Tales from the Dungeon, and True Tales from the Dungeon, Part II. Nine months was a really long time to go without great music, so a couple of relatively quiet months until we’re set up in Charleston should be a walk in the park!

I’ve been getting a fairly steady stream of DVD-Audio discs, Blu-rays, and SACDs over the last few weeks, and I’m still set up to rip those and add them to my library. It’s been really weird having great discs I’ve been jonesing for on Discogs show up, rip them, and get the metadata and album art in order – and then not be able to hear them in full resolution on the Gustard/Euphony system. I even have a new OS upgrade available to me on the Euphony system, but can’t install it until I get unpacked and set up in Charleston. I can’t help but feel like I’m missing all the excitement!

I plan on posting as often as my current craziness allows, and will provide updates on the new setup once we’re in place. Until then, happy listening!

All images supplied by the author.

File under “what comes around, goes around.” I wrote the following unpublished piece in 1986, found unexpectedly after going through old computer files. The deja vu of my music consumption patterns and the sheer irony of me now preferring vinyl makes for some interesting reading from this time capsule, especially since it’s been almost 40 years since the CD was introduced in Japan in November 1982.

In 2010, I foolishly sold 4,000 LPs, save for a hundred favorite and/or valuable autographed records. I have spent the past decade rebuilding that collection. When I purged the LPs, I also sold 3,000 CDs and kept about a thousand. I still occasionally buy CDs if I can’t find an album on vinyl. Towards the end of the article, I reference an early CD purchase of the music of Jethro Tull played by a symphony orchestra. I recently bought the album again – on vinyl, for $7.99 in its original, unopened shrink wrap (above). In hindsight, the music is much better than I remembered.

For someone who never knew how to properly take care of records (i.e., leaves them exposed out of their jackets and then wonders where the scratches came from; hasn’t even thought about buying a Discwasher), the advent of compact discs has been an amazing gift for this frequent prerecorded music purchaser.

On the other hand, CDs have presented a whole load of new problems that I’ve never had to deal with before. For example, how do I get used to plunking down $15 for an album I would previously pay no more than $7? Or, do I undertake the costly proposition of replacing numerous worn-out classics like The Dark Side of the Moon and Exile on Main St.?

And, while perusing my neighborhood record stores (an at least twice-a-week ritual), how do I resist the impulsive urge to buy that latest release that may or may not be released on CD, given the slow production that the new format has experienced?

In recent weeks, my CD addiction has become even more pronounced since there so many good releases (the Beatles series, U2’s The Joshua Tree, Simply Red’s Men & Women, and Prince’s double-disc Sign o’ the Times. I’ve found that my subscription to biweekly Rolling Stone always nagging me to buy the latest product, as well as my American Express and Visa cards, have been no help in resisting my digital urges.

A sampling of the CDs purchased in 1986 and 1987 that remain in my collection. At the time, they were albums I did not own on vinyl.

I’m even making lists of what to buy next. Well, there are the new releases by XTC, Hüsker Dü and Fleetwood Mac, and then some oldies such as the Rascals, Jackie Wilson and James Brown. What scares me most about shelling out an average of $20 a week on CDs is that I am living up to the yuppie myth that CD player owners buy three and four discs at a time. It’s hard to convince friends you’re not a Yup when you’ve got a VCR, PC, answering machine and CD player, especially when you embarrassingly admit to buying three discs at a time.

I don’t even have the time to really get into that much music during a typical work week. In comparison, I used to savor every record purchase until I was sick of it, and then buy another one. Now I find myself not wanting to pass up a hard-to-find CD because some other fanatic may beat me to the last copy and the CD may never be available again.

As I long as I can remember, buying records has always had a therapeutic effect on me when feeling low. A psychologist acquaintance offered a clinical explanation to me about my habit. “It’s called the theory of acquisition. You feel power in what you buy.” He went on to explain that it’s not really a serious condition, because I’m able to function normally and not obsessed by CDs. I should worry once it begins to seriously affect my personal finances. Two indications that it’s not real manic behavior are that I can resist the temptation, and usually only buy on-sale or heavily discounted CDs. I don’t hyperventilate, get dizzy or perspire when I enter a record store.

To fill the mental void, some people squander money on unneeded clothes or jewelry, some drink or take drugs, and others gamble. I follow the school of thought of the now-deceased rock critic Lester Bangs, who once mused on The Village Voice fashion page something like, “Who needs new clothes? I need records!” It’s too bad Lester isn’t around to enjoy the pristine sound of CDs.

I’m especially glad I hung onto these Tears for Fears, the Cure, and Al Green CDs. Labels should have done more of the 2-for-1 variety, which Motown specialized in.

Everything the media hyped about CD’s superior, sonic-boom sound is true, and I only have an inexpensive player with only adequate speakers. It took a little bit of time, but now I firmly believe that crisp recordings sans hiss are well worth the extra bucks.

I remember in my pre-CD days, when I got the Dream Academy’s debut album on vinyl, how I was excited about the group’s fresh, full sound and optimistic songs, only to loudly lament several minutes into that first playing, “what is that goddamn crackle? This is a brand-new record!”

I should point out here that I’ve never been much of an audiophile (despite being a professional music critic for the past decade), and that my $100 stereo held together by paper clips was the laughing stock of Hofstra University in the late 1970s. (After a sizable check from Rolling Stone in December 1981 for a freelance story, I was finally able to buy a respectable system with name-brand components, albeit relatively inexpensive by hi-fi standards.)

Cleaning out my parents’ house two years ago, I came across my first tape deck. My budget stereo, held together by paper clips, kept my college dorm floor amused.

Ironically, I joined the digital age by accident in November 1985, when I thought I was buying the five-record Bob Dylan Biograph collection at Tower Records’ downtown New York store for $24.99. I realized something was amiss when I opened the box to find three CD boxes instead of the five records promised on the outer package.  My first reaction was to exchange the CD collection for the records for two reasons: it was the store’s mistake, and I didn’t own a CD player, which meant I couldn’t hear my latest purchase for a while. On the other hand, I had thought seriously about buying a player, but couldn’t really afford one at the time.

While I didn’t yet own a CD player, a Sony quality control error had put three CDs in a box promising five LPs, which I had recently bought on vinyl. I figured that the box must have been mispriced, knowing that the CD Dylan set was being sold by other retailers for about $40. Hence, I was getting a rare and big discount. (It seems like the folks at Columbia Records and/or Tower have made sure they didn’t make the same mistake of using the same packaging for all three formats with Springsteen’s live collection, which specifically states on the boxes, “Three Compact Discs,” or “Three Cassettes,” or “Five Records.”)

When I didn’t yet own a CD player, a Sony QC error put three CDs in a box promising five LPs of Bob Dylan’s Biograph, which I have recently bought on vinyl.

So I realized if I was serious about eventually getting a CD player, what better way than starting my collection with the best of Dylan, which I’m sure I’d want to keep for posterity later in the 21st century. Before getting into a discussion of hardware, and more on actual CD purchases, the Dylan choice is interesting to elaborate on since I have almost all of his albums, and was really attracted to Biograph for the 10 or so previously-unreleased tracks.

For my first CD purchase I had already broken my first rule: not to buy what I already owned on LP. To make matters worse, I found most of the new material to be disappointing, and understood why Dylan chose not to release it in the first place. Nevertheless, the vintage Dylan classics like the set’s opening song, “Lay Lady Lay,” featured lucid percussion that I previously hadn’t been able to hear on the record, thus already justifying the collection’s purchase.

By early January 1986 I had saved enough to plunge into the CD era. Generally, when it comes to electronics I opt for the lower-end price points, figuring that extras like remote controls are not essential. The new CD player would be joining a basically no-frills system: $150 Technics receiver; $100 Akai turntable; $75 Studio Design speakers; and a $50 Sanyo cassette deck. I was prepared to spend no more than $200 on a CD player, which, judging from newspaper ads, seemed to be the lowest price I was going to find. My choices were further limited since I was living at the time in a Pennsylvania college town that did not have many stores offering CD players for the budget-minded.

After a listening test at one store, Sony’s portable Discman seemed like a pretty good buy for $199 since it could either run alone or be connected to a receiver. But I decided against it when I realized the $40 battery pack weighed more than the unit.

With few choices left, I opted for a single-laser player by an unknown Japanese manufacturer, Symphonic, for $159. Several months later, New York discount retailers like Crazy Eddie were offering three-laser players made by Sharp for under $100.

But after a year of using my Symphonic, the company which ironically also made my first turntable that gave my college friends so many laughs, I’ve had a lot of satisfaction with the player, and wonder whether a more-expensive, name-brand unit really would sound that much better on my speakers. Let’s just hope it holds up.

Back to the discs themselves. Only two friends have also caught the CD bug, and they both live far away, which prevents me from borrowing any discs. For purchasing guidance, I regularly read the CD reviews in magazines like Digital Audio and High Fidelity, and consult several rock encyclopedias to see whether any old albums belong in my collection.

Since the age of 13 I’ve been a rock record-buying fanatic, so it’s hard to believe there are albums that I somehow missed and should have in my collection. Nevertheless, by the end of 1986, my CD collection was about 30 strong. In the next four and a half months, I bought another 20 discs. That’s a total of around $700. (During the same period, I probably spent another $200 on records.) I read somewhere that the average CD player owner buys 25 discs in his or her first year, which gave me a false sense of superiority, knowing that at least a third of my purchases have been somewhat disappointing and probably wouldn’t have been made given the chance to hear the albums before buying them.

More CDs from the author’s early collection.

Part of the disappointment goes back to price and perceived value. This became clear after shelling out $22.99 plus tax for the new Prince set, which contains nearly 70 minutes of music. But so does the new Smiths’ double-LP, Louder Than Bombs, of which I also bought the CD version on a credit card for $14.99 during that same trip to the register. Since both CDs are manufactured by Warner Bros Records, the difference in price seems to be purely a marketing decision to push product. The moguls and whiz kids know they’ll sell more of the Prince CD (which I’ve seen going for as high as $28.99), because he’s a superstar with a track record. They’re still trying to break the Smiths, a British band with a cult following in America. So they must have figured, “Let’s give the consumers a break on the Smiths but not Prince because they’re going to buy Prince anyway….”

Motown has the right idea by offering their “Two Classic Albums On One CD” series because the company is giving true value for the dollar. So far, I’ve only bought two of these collections: Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together/I’m Still In Love With You and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On/’Let’s Get It On. I had two of Green’s lesser-known albums, giving me a general idea of his Memphis-horn sound and Otis Redding-like vocal style. I’ve received a lot of satisfaction out of the Green CD release, but am having a harder time with the Gaye albums, which are supposedly “classics” that should be in every record collection. Before I bought the CD, I had a few great Gaye albums, but still haven’t discovered yet what makes these two so great.

The usually steep $15 prices have been offset somewhat by the increasing number of record stores offering used CDs  for as low as $7.99, which I’m sure full-price, occasional-sale stores like Tower are not too happy about. Theoretically, a used CD (unlike a used record) should sound as good as a brand-new one since the audio quality is not supposed to diminish over time. And these stores even guarantee the discs. But I know of some people who will not buy used of anything. As far as CDs are concerned, they’re missing out on a good bargain.

I’ve picked quite a few good titles for $8.99 – $12 this way. These are mostly albums that I for some reason never got around to buying (e.g., Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual, U2’s Boy and War, Herbie Hancock Quartet (a double album on one CD), and the Pet Shop Boys’ Please.  I felt like slapping myself in the head after discovering Prince’s Sign o’ the Times used for $18.99 a week after I bought it new. Apparently other CD buyers have been unhappy with their purchases (or gifts), since the used-disc stocks get bigger every time I visit the stores, which offer $4 – $6 trade-in credit towards other purchases.

But I’ve been burned on a few used purchases, finding myself buying albums that I never thought about getting before, such as Heart’s Greatest Hits or Bob Seger’s Like A Rock, which I picked up solely on impulse because I didn’t want to leave the store empty-handed. I didn’t feel any better to find I only liked the few tracks that I already knew from radio play.

Probably my biggest new CD disappointment has been A Classic Case: The London Symphony Orchestra Plays the Music of Jethro Tull. A long-time fan of the band, I figured the classical marriage would take Ian Anderson’s songs to new heights. While Case sounds especially clean, it tends to get a bit tenuous. Try to imagine a high school marching band playing the opening to “Aqualung.” My serious CD-buying friend forewarned me: “Don’t waste your money on that crap; buy real classical music!” He was right.  On the other hand, recent releases from the Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel, Robert Cray and Paul Simon have been absolute joys that I’m sure I enjoy even more because of the improved sound from the digital technology.

A Classic Case: The London Symphony Orchestra Plays the Music of Jethro Tull, album cover.

I also realized that getting a CD player would give me the opportunity to finally start learning about music that had been previously foreign to this rock and roller’s ears, namely jazz and classical. The only jazz album in my 1,000 or so record collection was The Chuck Mangione Quartet, and I don’t have any idea how it got there, and for classical, a set of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, which was a gift. My CD forays into jazz and classical have been more cautious than rock. Going on a few recommendations, I picked up Wynton Marsalis (his first, and Black Codes), Miles Davis (Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain), Gil Evans (Out of the Cool and The Individualism of Gil Evans) and John Coltrane (A Love Supreme). I really like all of these a lot, except for the second Marsalis, which has been the second-best jazz CD as voted on by Digital Audio readers. Maybe in time it’ll grow on me.

One of the frustrating things about the classic jazz albums on CD is that a lot of them are short, such as the Coltrane selection (33 minutes), which, if the music wasn’t so great, I’d regard as a rip-off. It’s a shame that more record companies have not taken Motown’s lead and taken advantage of the format’s expanded programming possibilities.

As far as classical, I’m still a little overwhelmed, having only a rudimentary understanding of composers and their works. For the time being, my only real classical CD is Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic on Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue and Bernstein’s West Side Story. I knew I couldn’t go wrong with these. Not quite classical, but I’m not sure how else to classify the disc is Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill. Knowing nothing about the German composer (other than that he wrote “Mack The Knife”), my curiosity was piqued after reading about this interesting album, which features contemporary Weill interpretations by a bunch of rock and jazz artists including Sting, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Todd Rundgren, Marianne Faithful, and Carla Bley to name a few. My favorite track (of 20) is by the Armadillo String Quartet. The entire hour-long disc, which has become my favorite is extremely different from anything I’ve ever heard before. Perhaps only a music appreciation course will reduce my classical music anxiety, since I know I like particular composers and pieces; I just don’t know who and what they are.

Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill, album cover.

No matter what musical genre, probably the best thing to do before buying is to borrow the album from a friend or library when possible, so you’ll know what you’re getting into. What makes CDs far more preferable to conventional records or cassette tapes, aside from the sound quality, is the ease of playing them.

The reason why CDs have finally caught on after being introduced by Sony and Philips about four years ago is that the hardware prices have come down to affordable levels. It’s my guess that CDs will follow growth patterns similar to what videocassettes and VCRs experienced. By the end of last year, there were 2.8 million CD players in American homes. In 1986, sales up were up 50 percent. This year is projected to even better on both counts. Now that US factories have begun to produce discs domestically, thus cutting import costs, it’s feasible that software prices will drop, so that regular-priced CDs go for $10 to $11 instead of $14 to $16. Polygram, CBS and other record companies have already introduced such budget-price, back-catalog titles.

Despite some predictions, CDs probably will never replace records entirely, but will coexist with vinyl. Since the advent of rock and roll, between 2,000 and 4,000 albums have been released annually. Most of them will stay out of print, let alone make it to CD. Hence, turntables will always be needed. I wonder whether other CD buyers have pondered this technological revolution as much as me.

Also, I wonder whether a CD owner talks himself or herself into liking an album because he or she is paying more for it, and therefore thinks it ought to be good. And if so, will the purchaser give the CD more repeated listenings than if on record so that the album will grow on him or her? Of course, the answer lies in an individual’s sense of aesthetics and why we like what we like: in short, in the mystery of music.

The ephemeral nature of ephemera: The November 2002 issue of Medialine, no longer published, which the author edited.

Copper contributor Larry Jaffee is author of the book Record Store Day: The Most Improbable Comeback of the 21st Century, and was editor of the CD production trade magazine Medialine from the format’s sales peak in 1998 until 2005. He is the co-founder of industry trade organization Making Vinyl. More information is available at www.larryjaffee.com.

Over the past 130 years or so, very little has changed in disk recording, mastering and record manufacturing. The shift from acoustic recording to electrical recording took place in the 1930s, the transition from wax blanks to lacquer blanks happened shortly thereafter, and that was followed by the introduction of vinyl as a material for pressing records, which replaced the Flintstones-esque ground slate with shellac as a binder that had been used extensively up until the 1940s. The final big change occurred in the late 1950s, with stereophonic records beginning to take over the market. However, even the early acoustic recording era shellac pressings still follow the exact same underlying principles as modern stereophonic vinyl records.

Looking at the bigger picture, the disk record is by far the longest-standing information carrier in the entire history of sound recording and the media industry. The manufacturing side of this business is one of the most stubbornly conservative sectors in industry that the world has ever seen. The majority of this industry still relies on machinery manufactured around 70 years ago. The presses would make any serious steampunk enthusiast weep with joy, as they are still steam-heated, water-cooled and rely on high-pressure hydraulics with nitrogen accumulators for their operation.

Steampunk appeal aside, disk records have always been a horrible medium to manufacture! It is incredibly difficult to make a good record, and taming the archaic behemoths required to make records is not a task I would wish upon anybody.  It is, quite frankly, a terrible job! Stressful, time-consuming, physically and mentally exhausting, and quite a liability in case anything goes wrong. Why would anyone make records, when, with far fewer skills, they could be a head of state, get paid much more, do far less, and never have to be held accountable for messing things up?

If it wasn’t for a well-made record offering one of the most rewarding auditory experiences one could possibly have, nobody would be making them!

Nobody! The entire industry was ecstatic when the CD finally caught on, and they didn’t have to suffer through the disk mastering, electroplating and pressing stages for vinyl records anymore. In some cases, record presses were even ceremonially dumped in the ocean, with irate record label executives screaming, “so long, and thanks for all the fish” as the multi-thousand-pound chunks of cast iron went splash. If it were up to them, these presses and all the disk mastering lathes in the world would forever decorate the deepest abyss of the deepest ocean. They would even mark the exact spot on a map and pass it on to their head of state friends, as a potential site for the underwater detonation of nuclear warheads, for purely “scientific” purposes, of course.

Unfortunately for such individuals, while the future looked bright for a while and everyone was getting excited about the possibility of throwing all the CD manufacturing equipment in the sea as well, marking the end of the cumbersome, complicated and not-as-profitable-as-it-could-be physical distribution of media, to be replaced by digital distribution models, the market suddenly decided otherwise. The demand for vinyl records started rising again, and along with it, the severity of heartburn among those in the industry who had been more than happy to contribute steampunk sculptures to marine ecology. The vinyl record is now back with a vengeance, but the manufacturing process is still as archaic, complicated and demanding as it has always been. But is this part of the appeal?

Günther Loibl didn’t think so. He founded Rebeat Innovation GmbH in 2017, with the aim of dragging vinyl record manufacturing out of the steampunk era and into the space age. He called his idea “HD Vinyl.” By 2018, Rebeat Innovation GmbH had attracted $4.8 million in investment capital to develop the new technology required to turn his idea into an actual product. Günther Loibl and Rebeat Innovation GmbH were based in Tulln, Austria, not far from Thal, the birthplace of Arnold Schwarzenegger. If Arnold could become the Governor of California, then there is nothing that could stop Günther from becoming the King of Vinyl, or its Terminator! Or, as it turned out, neither of the two.

But, how would he change the manufacturing process? What is HD Vinyl? The idea behind HD Vinyl was to entirely eliminate the process of disk mastering, which has traditionally involved cutting a master disk on a lacquer blank. The lacquer master disk would then be electroplated to create a negative (the term here used in a context similar to a negative in film photography), which would have ridges instead of grooves. The negative would be made of nickel and could then be used as a stamper in the molds of a press, to stamp out thousands of copies of a vinyl record. HD Vinyl would also eliminate the electroplating process. Instead, the idea of HD Vinyl was to directly create the stamper, bypassing several manufacturing stages (and the associated costs, as well as the possibilities of things going wrong).

Günther Loibl proposed cutting the stamper using laser technology. Over several years, the company attempted to prove that this would be technologically viable, but did not succeed in presenting a functional solution. While CNC laser-cutting technology is in a mature stage and in widespread use in various sectors of industry, it is not normally suited to applications requiring high precision and a good surface finish. The commonly-encountered laser cutting systems produce a surface finish in the 3-digit micrometer range and accuracy in the low micrometer range at best, while for a successful record groove (or ridge), a surface finish in the very low nanometer range is required, with accuracy in the picometer range! Furthermore, laser cutting is typically a two-dimensional process. The laser removes material straight down from where the lens is aimed. However, the material removal process, whether due to thermal evaporation or ablation, is hard to control geometrically in a three-dimensional space. In industrial applications, laser cutting is used where geometric accuracy is not a critical parameter. In a record groove, or stamper ridge, the geometric accuracy is certainly a most critical parameter.

In addition, all cutting, material removal, or even most additive manufacturing operations produce unintentional “tool marks” that disturb the surface finish to some extent. Any given surface will only appear to be flat until you use enough magnification to see that it is not flat. This is a fact that metrologists are intimately familiar with. With the conventional disk mastering process, where the groove is mechanically cut on a lathe, the inevitable tool marks are in the direction of the cut. The playback stylus is therefore unable to trace them. In laser cutting, however, the “tool marks” are in the direction of the laser beam, which is at right angles to the direction of cut. The playback stylus would therefore trace then, unless they were made infinitesimally small. The biggest obstacle to turning HD Vinyl into reality would be that the technology to enable the cutting of stampers using laser does not yet exist, and it is not yet certain if it could ever exist. The whole project was enormously ambitious in this respect. It was not a case of adapting existing technology for a new purpose, but a case of starting from scratch and developing the technology required to produce a stamper in this manner.

The material of the stamper was also an important consideration, and Rebeat soon decided to use a ceramic material instead of nickel, most probably in hope of achieving a higher degree of accuracy in the cutting operation. The thermal properties of a different material, even if a stamper could be successfully cut on it, would not necessarily make it possible to use on a typical record press to produce vinyl records. There were countless technical challenges and plenty of uncharted territory to be explored, but the company ran out of funds and filed for bankruptcy in August 2022 (just a few days before this article was written), without having demonstrated their proposed technology, or that it would even be viable at all as a concept.

What they did do was to create some of the simpler aspects of the process. Rebeat Innovation GmbH developed software that would generate a topographic map of the groove/ridge structure on a disk, as a sort of complex CAD (computer aided design) drawing to be used in interfacing with the CAM (computer aided manufacturing) software that would control the CNC (computer numerical control) part of the laser cutting equipment. They also developed software that was essentially a virtual model of a Neumann VMS-80 lathe, which would virtually cut a record and tell you where the problems would be if you were to cut that material on an actual record, using a conventional mastering lathe. The latter appeared to be a diversification attempt, in case the original idea of HD Vinyl did not work out.

It’s not easy: cutting a record on a Neumann VMS-80 lathe with a Neumann SX 74 cutter head. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Rainer.Maillard.

Even if the technological hurdles would be overcome, HD Vinyl would primarily succeed in potentially lowering the manufacturing cost of vinyl records while eliminating the need for some of the skilled workforce that would traditionally handle the cutting and electroplating. Their claims of louder and longer sides were debatable, considering that even with 1930s technology, it was possible to cut records loud enough that no modern playback equipment would be capable of reproducing.

The entire process would of course be software-based, requiring the audio to be presented in a compatible digital format. DSD would likely create difficulties unless converted to PCM and all analog formats would need to be converted to digital for this concept to function. As such, HD Vinyl would never be able to replace all-analog tape-to-disk transfers that are still done to this day, resulting in some of the finest-sounding records I have had the pleasure of listening to (recent events in this sector notwithstanding, there are companies out there that do genuine all-analog disk mastering directly from the original master tapes). HD Vinyl would also never be able to do direct-to-disk recording, so it would not really be a replacement for the finer pleasures in grooved media! However, as evidenced by the success in securing investment capital, there is a very active interest in lowering manufacturing costs and eliminating as much of the complexity as possible from the manufacturing process.

Industry people were divided in two camps over this. Many were very skeptical and suspicious right from the start. Many seasoned veterans of vinyl record manufacturing tended towards the opinion that the proposed technology is not actually realistic. Many avoided public comments, while others were far less diplomatic, and the hashtag #hdvinylsucks started appearing on Instagram. On the other side were those who believe that all new ideas were not considered possible at first, and that if innovation is to be encouraged, it is the crazy big impossible ideas that should be supported (and funded with large sums).

While the latter opinion is valid to some extent, the former group were also skeptical of such ideas originating, not within the industry, but with someone who had little contact with the nitty gritty of the manufacturing process prior to this venture.

In fact, on August 19, 2022, an article by Paul Resnikoff on digitalmusicnews.com, quoting Günther Loibl, stated that the “sobering discovery” that the traditional process of disk mastering produces sub-nanometer accuracy “took a while to realize”! The article proceeded with a quote by Loibl, comparing the accuracy required for disk mastering to microchip fabrication, concluding that chip manufacturing “is 5 – 10 times less precise than a cutting lathe.”

Loibl concluded that “Sometimes failure is necessary because it teaches us what doesn’t work. But with the huge amount of knowledge we’ve gained about vinyl production, we have a shortcut on future development.”

Interestingly, the aforementioned sobering discovery, complete with the comparison to chip manufacturing, had already been published in Copper on July 29, 2019 (Issue 90, “The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of the Vinyl Record”), perhaps demonstrating the immense research value Copper brings to the industry.

While I had written that piece, making $4.8 million worth of subsequent research revelations freely available to the public (I think this may be a strategic moment to request a pay raise), I cannot take credit for discovering any new information! That was merely the result of doing basic math on the most fundamental, long-established standards of disk recording, already published and peer-reviewed many decades ago.

Which begs the question: is the concept of conducting a literature review, before embarking on multi-million-dollar research, that much of a lost art?

After all, the invention of the smartphone (as an example for innovation) did not transpire out of thin air. The underlying principles were first developed in theoretical form in the 1930s, the operating system (Unix and its derivatives) has been in continuous development since 1969, and the various existing technologies were finally brought together into a single unit by industry giants with decades of relevant experience in the 2000s.

Most major departures from established industrial processes have resulted from continued development efforts aiming to maintain a competitive edge, by those who were well known for getting their hands dirty in their sector. The major developments in disk recording and manufacturing were primarily the result of efforts to develop or maintain competitiveness, by well-established players in the industry, with a long track record of innovation and the required engineering background. Developing an entirely new technology that would revolutionize an industry that has largely defied modernization in 130 years will probably need several decades of research and development, along with industry participation in every step of the process. Indeed, Loibl eventually realized that “the tools to achieve such a precision digitally will not be available for the next 15 – 20 years.” Which, in itself, is a good reminder to take aggressive marketing claims of the universal superiority of digital technology with a generous amount of skepticism.

However, if you were hoping to invest millions in vinyl record manufacturing technology, do not despair! A lot has been going on in the direction of much-needed infrastructure and technology in the industry, in line with its long history and conservatism, with no need to reinvent the wheel or depart from what has passed the test of time. New record presses are currently being made, along with new electroplating equipment, new disk mastering lathes, and new stylus manufacturing equipment, and there are discussions of starting a new lacquer manufacturing plant.

All of these are based on proven technology with small improvements where needed, developed by companies with the necessary collective wisdom/knowledge/experience among their workforce, with the functionality of the product routinely being demonstrated. HD Vinyl may have not brought a major revolution this time, but the good old vinyl record still reigns after 130 years of surviving relatively unmolested, still using the same technology and machinery used by our great-grandparents to manufacture and enjoy these time-defying historical artifacts. Vinyl encapsulates and preserves our achievements, our industrial development, our technical progress, and our cultural heritage, to be passed on, generation after generation in a single format that can be played back again and again, on new or vintage equipment that adheres to established standards. What other format can claim to have achieved as much?

Header image courtesy of Pixabay.com/davidfoxx.

When was the last time you went to a really trendy dance club? How about one that caters to an in-the-know young crowd? What about one of New York City’s premier queer venues that features Alaska Thunderf*ck, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, singing Taylor Swift songs? I ask these loaded questions of myself as I quickly approach senior citizenship and prefer to stay home listening to my own records and gear. The last time I heard a pumping club system was, oh, about 40 years ago at Studio 54. I was interested in audio, even as a teen, and tried my best to peek into the DJ booth. It’s an odd thing to want to do instead participating in Studio 54’s other activities, but I wasn’t the only one who was enamored with the equipment. I could have never imagined that I would someday be auditioning a set of speakers designed by someone influenced by the same system at Studio 54.

Like the renowned designers of two-channel home audio components, clubland has its own luminaries. Some of the most legendary names are Alex Rosner and Richard Long. Rosner designed sound systems at New York’s Limelight, Max’s Kansas City, and 1970’s era Copacabana. Long, who once worked under Rosner, went on to create systems at Bond’s International Casino, Paradise Garage, and, the big daddy of them all, Studio 54. However, there’s another designer, a protégé of Long’s who also contributed to the beloved Paradise Garage, a 10,000-square-foot disco with an open-door policy in SoHo that was open from 1977 to 1987. He was the late Gary Stewart, famous for systems in the Hamptons, Ibiza, London, and Singapore.

Shortly before his death in 2012, Stewart achieved new heights through a collaboration with Pioneer Pro Audio. His pre-fab GS-WAVE speaker stack was a departure from most great-sounding club systems which are built from the ground up with custom cabinets and crossovers, but Stewart made it much easier for smaller venues to capture his signature sound without having to undertake a custom build.

Located in Brooklyn, on the border of Williamsburg and Bushwick, 3 Dollar Bill is housed in an old brewery built in 1858. It’s a cavernous brick structure with accents of original wood, metal, and masonry that are incorporated beautifully into a network of several bars, dance areas, and even an expansive yard big enough for the upcoming Oktoberfest. There are sound systems everywhere, but the main dance floor and performance space is where the GS-WAVE towers over the room. This is where I met with 3 Dollar Bill’s production manager, Kris Anton.

Timeless architecture: the entrance to 3 Dollar Bill.

Kris has spent the last 25 years operating and building light and sound systems for theater, live shows and dance clubs, as well as for bars and restaurants. He’s worked with Big Audio Dynamite, Fishbone, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers, and numerous drag performers, many of them familiar from appearances on TV shows. Since COVID-19, Kris has been a jack of all trades at 3 Dollar Bill, creating a unique atmosphere and filling nearly every nook and cranny with lights and sound.

Although Kris sent me photos of his showpiece, the two 12-foot, 1,438 lb. speaker stacks, there’s nothing like seeing them in person. Set in a stereo configuration about 15 feet apart and firing onto the dance floor, each GS-WAVE stack is comprised of:

• One 18-inch subwoofer in a folded-horn cabinet.
• Two cabinets containing 2 15-inch drivers for the bass and low midrange.
• Two compression drivers behind an adjustable lens to handle the high-mids and high frequencies.
• Hanging over the dance floor is an associated super tweeter pod with four ultra-high-frequency drivers.
• An optional 275-lb. horn extension is included with each speaker stack to increase bass delivery without the need for additional amplification. However, for Kris’s maximum capacity of 350 people, the horn extenders would overwhelm the room.

Power comes from two 8-channel and five 4-channel Linea Research amplifiers rated at 1,500 watts per channel at 8 ohms. To keep the system functioning efficiently, each amp has onboard DSPs (digital signal processors) to manage the crossover points, EQ, and power requirements for each driver. All the information is fed through a computer in the DJ booth where adjustments can be made. Kris also installed a complete main stage PA system of Pioneer Pro Audio XY-122 2-way speakers (also designed by Gary Stewart) and active JBL arrays. Additional XY-122 fill speakers and 18-inch subwoofers compensate for dead spots in the room and create a surround-sound effect. Using calibration software by System Engineer and his ears, Kris meticulously tunes 32 speakers to the space. With that many speakers, extreme volume is not required to achieve a gut-punching yet well-balanced musical presentation.

Clarity and balance: the GS-WAVE main speaker stacks.

Behind the scenes: Linea Research amplifiers and associated equipment.

I make it seem like Kris did everything by himself, but designing and assembling a system this big requires collaboration. Kris would like to acknowledge Alex Graham and Peter Gotfredsen from audio brokers Purplesound NYC, and David Sullivan from Pioneer Pro Audio. Ron Lorman, a recording engineer with several Miles Davis albums under his belt, lent his expert ears for tuning. But enough tech-talk for now: let’s get back to GS-WAVE.

Sound system designer Kris Anton. Courtesy of Courtney Bradley.

Kris played a number of selections, some rock and some dance music, but what would I play if I had the system to myself? So, Kris pulled up “Spirit of Radio” by Rush and sent it through the stacks. They suddenly transformed from “disco speakers” to the ultimate rock and roll speakers of my teenage dreams. For all their size and power, the GS-WAVEs delivered balanced, defined clear sound as good as any high-end home systems I’ve heard.

I had never given much thought to club audio before, dismissing it a necessary evil. Ironically, the bad-sounding systems are more memorable than the good ones. I recall dive bars of the Lower East Side which were so loud that no one could hear themselves talk over the noise. The culprits were usually speakers, too few and badly placed, playing beyond their specs, powered by inadequate amps, and operated by a person who has no experience outside of their basement.

Dance floors are certainly not audio shows and most people are not contemplating the timbre of the drum machine, the analog purity of a cowbell, or that the synthesizer was particularly revelatory on certain tracks. I just assumed the target sound was lots of pounding bass and high volume, but maybe there was something I didn’t know. So, I asked Kris what was the most important aspect of his sound. The one-word answer: transparency. Mega-decibels and bass are great – that’s why we go to clubs and shows, but it’s the nuances of the mid and high frequencies that keep us engaged.

The kind of system that dreams are made of.

The control center for the club’s audio system.

The main system is augmented by fill speakers throughout the space.

Is a well-designed club system that dissimilar from an audiophile rig at home? Not really. The machinery is different but the objectives are the same. It’s worth noting the Alex Rosner was a hi-fi man back in the 1950s when stereo systems were just beginning to take off. Here is a bit of his philosophy in a nutshell: the purpose of a sound reproduction system is to tell the truth; a loudspeaker can never be too big; and $60-per-foot speaker wire is no better than lamp cord (I apologize to audiophiles about the last part). The sheer artistry of great club sound is making it seamless and unobtrusive while remaining visceral and immersive. Now that I have a new perspective on club systems, I think the greatest downside to even the best home systems is that we don’t have Kris Anton to do all the expert tweaking, tuning, and setup.

No matter your age or musical taste, go see one of Gary Stewart’s last GS-WAVE systems and hear Kris and his guest DJs play CDs, vinyl, and files. You will not be bored. There’s always something entertaining and exciting happening there. Some events even take place early in the day. Come to think of it, Oktoberfest oompah bands and beer tents fit perfectly into my schedule.

3 Dollar Bill is located at 260 Meserole Street, Brooklyn, NY, convenient to the L subway line and just a few blocks from the Montrose Avenue Station.

A view from 260 Meserole Street.

All images courtesy of the author except where noted.

The reasons for audio shows are basically to sell product. Am I being too cynical? Perhaps, but almost everyone involved needs to have a positive ROI (return on investment), a not-unreasonable expectation.

It does cost an awful lot of money to participate. On a purely logistical basis, audiophile gear rarely fits in your pocket, with the exception of personal audio. The rest can weigh a ton (literally), like the speaker system I saw at the New York Audio Show a few years ago. The reason I know it weighed a ton was because I asked the gent who made the speaker. I said, looking up at this huge object, “that must weigh a ton!” And he replied, “yes. Each speaker weighs a ton.” Stupefied, I asked, “how did you get it up here, I mean, the weight…” and he said, “freight elevator.” He was quite serious, and it wasn’t even set up on one of the huge exhibit rooms on the first floor; it was in a normal hotel room, several stories high, so the speakers filled the room. I still think it was hilarious. They sounded great. But a ton, seriously?

Shipping such heavy gear can cost a small fortune, and the value of the components in an ultra-high-end system can approach almost a million dollars, as astonishing as that might seem. Then there is the cost of staffing, hotels, entertainment, and expenses. So what, you might think; that’s just the cost of doing business. And it is. But I think that events like T.H.E. Show have a more complicated agenda.

You’ll notice that many of my photographs are of people, as opposed to the gear. That’s because while these shows might be about products and sales and rare opportunities to audition components and speakers, they’re also every bit about the human connection, meeting up with friends, both inside and outside the industry and outside. Audiophile clubs love meeting up at shows, as do far-flung Facebook and Instagram friends, all getting together for a common passion.

As I mentioned in Part One (Issue 169), T.H.E. Show organized a serious set of lectures from a variety of folks. At the top of my list was the panel discussing the challenges of audio mastering, featuring Kevin Gray (Cohearent Audio) and Mitch Anderson (eCoustics), with moderator Scott Lylander (T.H.E. Show) attempting to keep things on track. Anderson was practically in tears describing what it meant to be in Gray’s studio and sit with one of his heroes. Holding a master tape in your hands conjures up scenes from Indiana Jones, as that is truly the holy grail of audio. I had that experience at Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings where I was able to hold a Harry Nilsson master tape. I’m happy to admit I was quite giddy. I totally got Anderson’s joy.

A gathering of audio cognoscenti: Charlene Gray (Cohearent Audio), Jamie Howarth (Plangent Processes), Kevin Gray (Cohearent Audio), Mitch Anderson (eCoustics), and Shane Buettner (AudioQuest, Intervention Records).

Emiko Carlin, co-organizer of T.H.E. Show, with Oz Turan of High-End by Oz, and Maurice R. H. Jung, the other T.H.E. Show co-organizer.

The Bergmann Modi air-bearing turntable with a Thor arm and Hana ML cartridge, in the British Audio Guys/On a Higher Note room. It was nice to see a linear tracking turntable for a change.

A few of us were able to sit and talk with Jamie Howarth, of audio restoration specialists Plangent Processes. His patented process looks at information other than the audio on a tape in order to pick out minute variations in tape speed, and then compensates for it. For example, a slightly out-of-round rubber capstan or roller on a tape machine can impart wow and flutter to the audio. The Plangent process determines those types of errors and corrects for them, with the result being a restoration of the audio as it should be heard. Even what was once unplayable can be restored, archived, and listened to afresh. A list of the titles Howarth is responsible for includes the entire Bruce Springsteen and Grateful Dead catalogs.

It does bring up a load of questions, mind you. Some folks insist that the wavering of the piano at the intro to Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” is proper. But that’s just rubbish. The machine had a problem, and Springsteen was delighted to finally have it corrected. It reminds me of all those doctoral theses written about the dark and muted palette of the Sistine Chapel, when in fact it was merely dirt, tallow, wax, and more. Basically, it was like a window that needed cleaning. Thanks to Jamie Howarth’s work, Springsteen’s piano finally sounds like a piano.

I suppose if unrestored audio is your preference, take some uncleaned garage sale vinyl and play it on a Crosley. Me, I’ve loved the high-resolution audio revolution if only because it can compel labels to track down and document the provenance of the source tapes (used for remastering) with more thoroughness. The dedication and work done by folks like Howarth and Gray is a vital contribution to the audio world, and we are all the better for it.

Jamie Howarth of Plangent Processes pondering the question: what would Henry Rollins do?

T.H.E. Marketplace had a variety of vendors. Charles Kirmuss (Kirmuss Audio) was there describing the ins and outs of cleaning LPs (and gave a presentation on the subject during the show). There was a positive energy in the room, with headphones, audio components, records, accessories, and more for visitors to peruse. Deborah Kayser from Tweak Studio had wares aplenty and a huge smile to boot. eCoustics set up an area to show off different headphones, amplifiers, and DACs, cleverly naming the area “Headphonium,” which was filled to the brim with happy headphone lovers.

X marks the record cleaning spot, as Charles Kirmuss of Kirmuss Audio points out.

Deborah Kayser of Tweak Studio had plenty of cables, accessories and other audio goodies to offer.

A SonoruS Audio-modified Revox PR99 reel-to-reel deck along with the Bergmann Modi/Thor/Hana turntable/cartridge setup, Moonriver Audio 404 integrated amplifier, Shunyata Research cables and power conditioners, and Artesania Audio rack.

Peter Hansen of Audio Group Denmark, distributor of Ansuz Acoustics noise cancellation and signal-distribution poducts, Aavik electronics, and Børresen loudspeakers.

J.R. Boisclair of WallyTools suffered the same fate as some other lecturers: not having the proper connecting cable available to hook up his laptop to the projector. So, even though suffering from exhaustion, he powered through his lecture (“When Stylus Meets Groove: Advanced Analog Optimization”) by holding his iPad for attendees and walking around the room getting up close and personal. It was truly impressive to behold.

Bruce Jacobs of Stillpoints gave a seminar (“Room Control: Listening Position Correction”) on the impact of room design and listener location on audio, and the need for acoustic isolators. Naturally he mentioned the Stillpoints line of vibration control products. Another fun event was the Booze & Vinyl 2 book signing with one of the authors, André Darlington, on hand, with a long line of enthusiasts on hand to get their books signed. I didn’t ask if they were fans of Darlington, booze, or vinyl, but I figured a combination of all three. T.H.E. Show co-organizer Emiko Carlin held two screenings of her award-winning video, T.H.E. Human Side, featuring the stories of audio manufacturers, hi-fi dealers, audiophiles, musicians, and sound engineers, and the impact of music on their lives.

Once again, one of my favorites was the Prana Fidelity room, which showcased its loudspeakers and components, Their room offered an easy, uncluttered audio exhibit. It was a simple room, with minimal gear, yet it was one of my favorite listening experiences. Although certainly not entry-level, it presented a simpler audio chain, which is the kind of system I favor.

A speaker whose design took me by surprise was being shown by the British Audio Guys and On A Higher Note room. Licensed from a design from the BBC, the Graham Audio LS5/5f speakers sounded marvelous. (The rest of the system is listed in Part One of this show report in Issue 169.) It was an interesting experience, complemented by a display of paintings in the foyer before the audio room. On a Higher Note’s Philip O’Hanlon led us in a lively discussion about about jazz, and we listened to a pressing of Miles Davis’ Tutu, which resonated beautifully in the room.

It was a treat to see Dr. Mark Waldrep of AIX Records at the show, where be presented a lecture, “High-Resolution Audio:  The Myth, Mystique, and Marketing Mix,” and had a selection of his high-resolution discs for sale. Even more important was the presence of his beautiful dog, Charlie, a lovely border collie. We had a border collie ourselves, so that probably biases my reporting. Of note is the role Waldrep has played over years in his takedowns of what he considers ersatz high-resolution audio, with the stance that unless the audio was recorded in high-resolution, stayed in high-resolution through the post-production process, and was released as high-resolution, then it’s simply not high-resolution.

Dr. Mark Waldrep of AIX Records and Charlie.

The Triangle Art Ultimate LE turntable and Apollo cartridge, used with a P-200 tube phono stage.

Tyler Mueller, owner of Next Level Hi-Fi, and a stack of Aavik electronics.

Submitted for your approval: Wesley Katzim shows off gear from Los Angeles audio retailer Common Wave Hi-Fi.

Later, I realized how complicated the idea of provenance really was. Unlike a painting, where there is only one original, audio recordings can be really complicated, with lots of tracks recorded all over the planet, assembled and mixed, and even then, there might be many variations for the masters: a stereo transfer, a flat transfer, a radio mix, mono, compressed, non-compressed, and so on. Add to this conundrum, that when many record labels trashed their “old” tapes, it intensified the search for high-quality copies, even if second- or third-generation.

We won’t even go to the 2008 disaster that struck the music vaults at Universal Studios. I look back at my efforts as naive, and while well-meaning, not all that practical. Once, I was working on a project with MCA, and there was a Motown CD that was issued with a major error. The tape machine that was involved in the transfer started to slow down mid-track, and no one noticed till after the CD was issued. It was quickly recalled, but not before some folks in the office grabbed a few of the bad CDs.

While some labels saw this as an opportunity to put pressure on for better-quality CDs, others just didn’t care; it was just a way to make a quick buck, as per Matt Groening’s 1988 “Life in Hell” classic cartoon which stated, “So grab your wallets and rush right over to Akbar ‘n’ Jeff’s Compact Disk Hut…with Compact Discs you get no distracting artwork, no tedious lyrics…no weird, obscure, non-conformist music by unpopular artists you’ve never heard of.” If you want to see the cartoon, click here.

I was working with a few record labels at the time, so was aware of how hard some folks, like Rhino, for example, were endeavoring to locate master tapes, and just how difficult that was. Blue Note’s CD releases set a gold standard in my mind with their prominent mention of working from the original tapes, and inclusion of mastering chain information. They were luckier than most labels, as they kept their master recordings carefully stored, archived, and accessible. (Thanks to Joe Harley for the clarification). The Beatles’ last two release cycles went to a lot of trouble to explain the mastering process to the public, which was fantastic. Fortunately, many labels and artists do that today.

Back to the exhibits: two of the most enjoyable rooms were hosted by the folks from Audio Group Denmark. Peter Hansen, the American sales manager held sway over one room, while Tyler Mueller (Owner of Next Level Hi-Fi) held sway over the other. Spending time with Danish components from Ansuz, Aavik, and Børresen Acoustics and some really nice guys was a pleasure. It’s a rare treat to hear that gear. I was especially interested in hearing some Børresen speakers, which did not disappoint. They were a reminder of just how much great gear is out there.

Neal Cha, Richard Zhang, and friends at the Awedyo Audio booth.

Mike Jaramillo and Bruce Ball of A/V Luxury Group International.

Scott Lylander, T.H.E. Show ambassador, and Andrew Darlington, author of Booze & Vinyl Vol. 2.

In Oz Turan’s room (High End by Oz), it wasn’t only Oz having fun. Michael Vamos, the president of importer/distributor Audio Skies was there with Greg Beron, chief tape winder for tape deck manufacturer and audio dealer United Home Audio. Their late-night listening parties, which I heartily recommend, were as much about having a great time as being “forced” to drink top-shelf libations and listening to sterling reel-to-reel tapes. The sound was open, inviting, without a trace of harshness. Michael O’Neal, my colleague from Beginner Audiophile, brought a guest to the show who had never heard a real audiophile-level system, and she was suitably knocked out. Hanging out in a dark room, friends by your side, a cold health food drink in your hand, listening to superb audio – isn’t that how you should enjoy life?

Emiko Carlin of T.H.E. Show with Michael Vamos of importer/distributor Audio Skies.

The actions of Russia invading Ukraine was a quiet topic of discussion at T.H.E. Show, not so much the politics, of which we are all aware, but the impact on tube manufacturing and availability. While most agreed there were adequate supplies of tubes for now, the consensus was that the real solution was the creation of new vacuum tube factories, which are slowly coming on line. The global supply chain crisis is weighing on everyone’s mind, since not only is it difficult to fill orders if you don’t have parts, but the cost increases bite into everyone, from the margins of manufacturers and retailers, to the customers who have to shell out more. Hopefully, we will see a return to a more normal landscape.

Judging from the smiles all around the rooms and hallways, I’m pretty certain that everyone had a great time, and that next year’s show will be even grander. Till then, keep your wow and flutter to a minimum, and your tape stretch under control.

The Acora Acoustics room, featuring the SRC-2 floorstanding loudspeakers.

San Diego audio retailer Alma Music & Audio showcased the elegant Audio Alto AA R101FR single-driver loudspeaker.

Elegant design: the Alma Audio room featuring the Nagra Classic preamp and Classic Amp, an Innuos Statement music server, and an MSB Technology Premier DAC, connected by Kubala-Sosna cables.

Tammy Johnson of Kimber Kable and Peter Norbaek, president of PBN Audio.

Mops Dayal of dealer Quarter Note Acoustic, the happy raffle winner of the xDUOO Poke II portable headphone Amp/DAC, with Brian Mitchell, editor of eCoustics.

The MC Audiotech room featured their unique and well-regarded Forty-10 speakers, featuring the company’s double-curved spaced array and folded cube bass enclosure. The smaller TL-12 speakers are poised next to them. Other components included a Wolf Audio Systems server, Weiss DAC 501, Linear Tube Audio MicroZOTL preamp, EAR 509 amplifiers, and Audience frontRow cables.

Chadsen Kat of Katli Audio, showing off Usher speakers, Conrad-Johnson electronics, an Esoteric music server/streamer, and Cocktail Audio server/player.

Michael O’Neal (Beginner Audiophile, center) listens to retailer Sunil Merchant (Sunny Components), as Sunil explains that he is the baddest cat in town, while O’Neal emphasizes that he is, especially in light of his Pickleball rating.

Some folks have all the luck in the cool looks department. There was no one willing to challenge Eric Ghiese from HyperX, Dylan Wahl, principal engineer at Mark Levinson, and Grover Neville of Part-Time Audiophile, in the “Best Looking Couch Shot” competition. Rumor had it that some MP3-loving folks knelt before them while chanting, “We’re not worthy!”

We have a winner! Lenny Mayeux (Mobile Fidelity) and Emiko Carlin with Daniel Schultz who won a set of speakers during a raffle at T.H.E. Show. A good time was had by all.

Header image: the A/V Luxury Group International room with a Margules Audio TT-10 turntable and ACRH-3 integrated amplifier, and RSX cables. All images courtesy of the author.

With the myriad changes which have inevitably affected audio pursuits over the years – the return of vinyl, the decline in the numbers of print magazines and hi-fi shops – it’s worth reminding everyone of the value of the social element. I don’t mean hi-fi shows, which have miraculously survived not just the general decline in interest in audio but COVID-19 as well. Rather, I refer to a recent open-reel-tape-only experience which reminded me of a couple of the best evenings I ever enjoyed.

It’s over – what? 30-plus years? – since I was fortunate enough to attend a couple of meetings with the Westchester Audiophile Society. Hy Kachalsky (who sadly passed away on March 30, 1992), Arnie Balgalvis, and the rest of those industrial-strength high-end devotees welcomed me as a guest visitor. It was as flattering as could be for one who often suffers from Imposter Syndrome, especially when the typical guest would have been someone of the caliber of Dan D’Agostino or the late Jason Bloom, and I – a nebbish writer – had only been on the scene for under a decade.

What marked me forever was not the wealth of knowledge in the assembled throng in Hy’s listening room, nor the dazzling sound systems, but the camaraderie. It was a true mishpoche, some of the members playing the roles of whiny kvetching uncles, others arguing for the sake of it, most happy to groove to sound systems beyond their means without a salesperson breathing down their necks. Above it all was Hy, the most genial, warmest individual I have met in my 54 years as an audio casualty.

Now I am not about to suggest that hi-fi clubs have disappeared, as I still get the newsletter from the Boston Audio Society, and often see newsfeeds from groups in California and elsewhere. Rather, such organizations remind me of an often-overlooked element of our hobby, as we are too obsessed with minutiae, usually meaningless. When I think of the time spent debating oddities like magic stickers to put all over one’s hardware and walls, or green pens for CDs, or fetishizing over spikes, or other distractions, I now appreciate that the discussions weren’t time wasted.

Instead, it was and is our equivalent of “made guys breaking balls,” as beautifully realized in The Sopranos, or (politically unfashionable word trigger warning) ladies-who-lunch gossiping over the sushi. It added an element of involvement and social intercourse to what would otherwise be a solitary pursuit: sitting alone in the hot seat in one’s listening room. Hy mastered the art of sharing his system, of spreading the word about high-end audio at a grass roots level, which in turn provided a service for every guest manufacturer, giving them access to potential customers away from the pressure of a hi-fi store.

Although I am a member of another sort of community within audio, I have given up any travel until the aviation industry (and, in the UK, the perpetually-on-strike train drivers) gets its act together. As a usually gregarious sort, isolation has had its effect on my mental health, so the return of the UK’s AudioJumble was the first opportunity since COVID arrived for me to reconnect en masse with the hi-fi community.

My weekly fix, however, and on a much lower level, is regular meetings at a local coffee shop with friends I’ve known for decades, a gathering which one of the wives dubbed “The Sad Café.” We are united by our shared loves of cars (two are Lancia-only obsessives), wristwatches, and hi-fi. None are employed in the hi-fi business, nor is another dear friend (not a Sad Café attendee) whom I’ll call “H,” and who can claim a good half-century’s worth of ownership of high-end systems.

He and one of the Sad Café habitués, whom I will dub “J” and who is an audiophile of nearly 60 years’ standing, joined me in August at another friend’s home. Let’s name him “P.” Anonymity rules here because I don’t know if it’s illegal to make safety copies of 67-year-old tapes so they won’t be lost to posterity. Neither do I know the legality of his having a collection of master tapes gifted to him by his colleagues in the studio sector. Suffice it to say, the three of us were eager to hear both P’s impressive system (again, anonymity rules here) fed by three vintage open-reel decks and the tapes in his extensive library.

What prompted the get-together, and I repeat it was informal but hopefully not a one-off, was me retrieving a box of tapes which P was assessing for me, along with safety copies of the super-rare 1950s tapes I wished to be able to play for visitors to my listening room. The originals are simply too fragile and too difficult to replace to play repeatedly. P’s arsenal included a Revox A700 and a Studer B67 for making the 15 ips 2-track copies of my 7.5 ips 2-track originals. For playback of commercial 1/4-track tapes, he also had to hand a Revox A77.

The Revox A700 and Studer B67 tape decks.

The Revox A77 tape deck.

As for the latter, and as one already convinced that commercial 1/4-track tapes are the second-finest-sound media ever offered to consumers after half-track tapes, he played us Procol Harum’s A Salty Dog. It had H nearly in tears, as the tape categorically massacred any vinyl or CD alternative. H’s opinion mattered as it was one of his all-time favorite albums, he had it on multiple formats, and his ears are hallmarked, 24-karat golden. He stated how the bottom end was so tactile, so deep and extended that he was now craving a copy of the tape in the way that I was affected by Tim de Paravicini playing for me the US Capitol Records release of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Eat your hearts out!

What shook my, J’s and H’s worlds, however, were P’s master tapes. It wasn’t my first time hearing first-generation or second-generation master tapes, or God-knows-what-generation production tapes, having been to Abbey Road a number of times back in the 1980s, as well as a number of press events in studios. More illuminating was having visited Bob Ludwig’s Gateway Mastering in my hometown of Portland, Maine a few times. Bursts of Bob’s system are life-changing. Period.

Of greater concern over the length of my career is knowing that audiophiles who haven’t been in a recording studio have no idea of what they are missing. That’s the hard fact, just as you have no idea what a professional racing driver goes through until you’ve managed a few laps on a racetrack, or to use another analogy, tasted pizza in Naples. But this session was something else, for a simple reason. Nearly every studio I have been in (but obviously not all) has an aggressive, almost sterile playback system, which is as it should be. The studio’s system is a tool for assessing a recording. P’s system was categorically of studio quality and origins, but his amplification, cabling, etc., were transparent rather than nakedly forensic.

Avoiding the studio-vs-audiophile debate, suffice it to say that to describe what we heard as “revelatory” is to use extreme understatement. The scale of the sound, the impact, the clarity, the presence – while it didn’t quite drive me to the point where I could no longer face my own system, which is pretty good by most standards, it did open my ears to the limits of domestic sound systems. And that is something which every designer, manufacturer, retailer, and reviewer should be reminded of constantly.

But forget all that. Two hours-plus of intense listening, in a way not available at any hi-fi show nor in any shop – both for undeniable, practical reasons – reinforced my conviction that hi-fi is about more than reproducing music in the home to a high standard. If a social element is not just acceptable but encouraged in most other fields as a means of support and, yes, of proselytizing, maybe it’s one way we can save high-end audio’s appeal from diminishing even further.

One of the two tapes comprising The Beatles aka the White Album.

The Rolling Stones, Her Satanic Majesties Request, reel-to-reel tape with 3D cover!

Admittedly, enjoying music over a top-quality hi-fi system is an indoor pursuit, which involves bringing people into one’s home, and not all of us have the space Hy was able to provide. Because automotive gatherings are intrinsically outdoor pursuits, other than visits to museums and private collections, the car-loving community is probably the most active in the area of socializing with countless events. The two car clubs of which I am a member seem to have weekly get-togethers, ranging from rallies to short road trips to tours to concours to dinners.

I have no idea what stamp collectors, bibliophiles, oenophiles, or other enthusiasts do to share the love, but I’m enjoying group listening sessions even more than I did before COVID-19 f*cked up the world. As I write, I look forward to pending visits from Copper’s Jay Jay French and Magico’s Peter MacKay to Chez Kessler for a session with my vintage reel-to-reel tapes. And Beatles fanatic Jay Jay absolutely needs to hear the Capitol Sgt. Pepper, on the Denon DH-710F. Just as Tim played it for me.

As William Bell sang, “You don’t miss your water till your well runs dry.” I am happy once again to be able to drink deeply with friends. Roll on, vaccination No. 5.

Header image: Studer B67 tape deck. All images courtesy of the author.

Some of the most interesting paths in music (and in life for that matter) come with winding turns and heading into peaks and valleys. Few know that better than Duncan Sheik. He launched his career as a singer/songwriter with his 1996 self-titled debut album, which featured the chart-topping hit “Barely Breathing.” The song racked up 55 consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned him a Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. It would continue to be heard in hit television shows and films for over 15 more years.

During that period, Duncan continued to record ambitious studio albums that put creativity at the forefront, but never delivered hits as strong as that debut. When his relationship with Atlantic Records came to a close, his career took what might be the most important turn he’d taken to date (or since). Sheik began work in the world of musical theater, and turned things on their head with a mold-breaking approach to composition that propelled his songs and scores for productions like rock musical Spring Awakening into a place that rightfully enjoyed remarkable acclaim.

After a seven-year break from studio recording, Sheik has just released a new studio album, his ninth. Claptrap is another musical expression that takes a decided turn from what his fans might most expect to hear him perform.  The record was created during the pandemic, in a studio apartment in New York City by Sheik alone. With Claptrap, Sheik has moved into a sound that features delicate acoustic elements that are augmented by a sense of atmosphere and space. While he might say that he was influenced on this album by the dynamic electronic music of artists such as Cocteau Twins and Talk Talk, I can hear sounds reminiscent of Griffin House and his 2005 EP series, House of David. Here’s his single, “Maybe.”

We caught up with Sheik and talked about the process of making the record, how his Buddhist faith has come to inform his writing, and whether he thinks that having a hit as big as “Barely Breathing” helps, hurts or forever defines a career. Lastly, we talked about his plans to get his entire catalogue out in front of fans live.

Ray Chelstowski: It’s been seven years since your last studio release of original material, Legerdemain, and six since the one before that, Whisper House, which was essentially a musical score. How do you know when it’s time to make a new record?

Duncan Sheik: Well, after the album Legerdemain came out, in quick succession I had American Psycho come out on Broadway and a bunch of other projects that I just had to get done because they were going to premiere in 2019. I had three shows [debut] in 2019, and then most importantly, we also had a daughter. So life just happened, and there wasn’t really an opportunity to spend time thinking about writing my own songs for a “Duncan Sheik record.” Really though, I think that when the pandemic happened, myself and many other artists were given the opportunity to get some other work done. I’m not trying to sound glib. I know that a lot of people went through a great deal and I went through COVID a few months ago and know that this isn’t fun.  But it did allow me to take some time out and experiment.

Claptrap, album cover.

RC: What is the process of creating an album like for you and how long does it take?

DS: In March of 2020 I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in New York City that was way too small for me to work in. So, I rented a studio apartment that was ten blocks away so I could literally just put some gear there and be a dad and be around, but also be in a space where I could be alone for three to four hours a day. I would go there where I had a [Roland] Juno 106 and a (Sequential Circuits] Prophet synth and some outboard gear and some nice microphones and guitars. I threw them into a space that was no more than 250 square feet. I’m surprised that I didn’t get kicked out, many times, because I was sort of loud for the entire 18 months I was in the space.

So, I’d go there and initially I was just experimenting. I didn’t know what these songs were going to be and I really didn’t even know if they were going to be songs. I was just trying to initially be as avant-garde as I could be. I was going to make some real “arty” music that was only going to appeal to four people. And then as I went down the road with that process, things became more song-like and evolved back into something that more resembled a “normal pop song.” In the end, I think the final product is more approachable.

RC: The song “Scorpios” includes some tasty guitar playing. Why don’t you put more of your guitar skills on display in your work?

DS: I appreciate that. The truth is frankly that it’s the first time I’ve ever done that. Part of that was because I’d worked previously with Gerry Leonard, who played guitar for David Bowie, Rufus Wainwright, and Susanne Vega. Gerry’s a real genius player and I’d let him do the “pyrotechnics.” Now, because it was only me in this little studio apartment making my own stuff, it was like how it was when I was 12 [years old]. Then, I had my first four-track recorder and I’d be playing a lot of guitar in my bedroom. I was getting back to that experience, rocking out, and trying not to do anything that’s too embarrassing.

RC: Your faith seems to have informed the message of this record.

DS: For what it’s worth I was raised Catholic. Then I went away to boarding school when I was 12. By the age of 15 I was doing all of that boarding school stuff like reading about existentialism. For about five years I didn’t practice [religion] at all. Then when I was in college I felt like as though I needed to find a “practice.” I started studying Eastern religions and when I was 19 I started practicing Buddhism officially. I’ve been a practicing Buddhist for thirty years now, but when the pandemic happened, and I had my first daughter, I went through my late midlife crisis. I had nothing to complain about, but I had a lot of questions I had about how I was feeling, even with everything good [that was] happening. This gave me clarity and those things that were conflicts slipped away. I learned that happiness is about equanimity.

RC: You last charted a single twenty years ago with “On a High.” How freeing is it to simply make the kind of music that you want?

DS: The last time I had any single on the radio was with my last Atlantic record. After that I wondered what would happen to me – would I need to find a new career? Part of that is what allowed me to focus on [creating] Spring Awakening and doing the theater stuff. That was a real boon. Not just in the financial sense, it [told me], I can actually do this and people will want to listen to the music I make. [I had] a crisis of confidence for a while.

RC: The song “Barely Breathing” is one of those songs that appeared everywhere. It launched your career. Has it ever held it back?

DS: If “Barely Breathing” had not been a top radio hit that [had] Atlantic Records [behind it], I might have had have a different career. But that’s not what happened, that [wasn’t] my destiny. You’re being silly if you entertain the idea that you “screwed up” by allowing [a song] to become commercial. Now I can do more “arty” stuff and maybe it’ll become successful. The fact that I [even] have the freedom to do that is amazing.

RC: If you take this record out on the road, what will the band look like?

DS: The challenge is that I now have a whole bunch of theater projects that are lined up through the fall and spring, so I’m probably not going to be able to tour until next summer. I’m frustrated about it. If I tour this record I need a five- or six-person band, and I want to do it properly. I just have to wait for the right moment.

It was explained to me that Penthouse magazine would not be using manufacturer’s product shots, because they did not want “Technomania’s” content to look like any other magazines. (The story of how they signed me on in the late 1990s is in Issue 168.) Good idea, I thought, and that spoke to their commitment to the column. I would be collaborating with a photographer (Bob Lorenz) who they hired to shoot the products that I chose.

The good news was that the photographer’s studio was one block away from my apartment building. The bad news was, well there really was not any bad news. The layout for “Technomania” covered two pages, and after a few years it was occasionally bumped up to four pages a month. That entailed featuring six to 12 products, which included my copy. I had to find these new products and make the necessary arrangements to get them into the studio in time for the photo shoot, which normally took one to two days. The studio was a big multi-purpose room at street level with its own entrance in a prewar office building on 16^th Street just east of Union Square. The room was big enough to be a nightclub. Bob rented it for the days he was shooting. That meant that I had to arrange for everything to be shipped to me. Again, not a problem. I would load up a truck cart and schlep the stuff over on the designated day.

File this under the heading of, you think you know, but you do not. One day Bob arrived at the studio and was using his key to open the front door, when it was opened from the inside by someone he did not know. Bob stepped in and was promptly arrested. He had walked into a police raid. Looking around, he saw blackjack and poker tables. There was even a roulette wheel and a full bar. Apparently, the studio was a part time high-end gaming hall. Las Vegas Night in New York’s Flatiron district. Bob spent the night at the 13^th Precinct. In the morning he was cleared and released. He told me the police were nice to him and constantly asked him if he was OK or needed anything. As far as he knew, nothing more ever happened with the room being used for gambling. He continued to use the space as a studio for years. In retrospect, he found it amusing.

Penthouse gave me the freedom to pick and choose my editorial content and use my discretion. My deadline was the 15^th day of the month. Additionally, my column was not a product review-type feature. I was told that If I was not happy with a product, then toss it and move on to something else. My beat was what was new in consumer technology, cool stuff, gadgets, or as I would put it when people would question why Penthouse was interested in such products, “toys for boys.” The only other input from any of the editors was the rare suggestion of covering a certain category, or featuring an assortment of different types of products. As time went on, I needed to cover more products due to me doing more pages. Overall, they allowed me to make the creative decisions and treated me well (just like Copper magazine does). I responded by never being late on a deadline, communicating with the editors when necessary, and never giving them problems or unpleasant surprises.

A few months later it was time to attend my fourth CES. I was bumming a taxi ride from fellow consumer electronics writer Brent Butterworth, and he said to me, “congratulations; you now are working in mainstream media.” “Really?” I exclaimed. Hmmm, I guess so; Penthouse’s subscription base was close to a million, plus the impulse sales (from newsstands, airports and other outlets) were among the highest of all magazines at that time.

Brent was right; my stock had risen, big time. Suddenly I was considered legitimate press. Not to everyone, but by most public relations firms, and manufacturers. The fact that Penthouse was an “adult” magazine was not a concern. Once, and only once, a small inventor asked me not to include his product in “Technomania.” I understood his religious considerations and respected his wishes, but he was passing up some great publicity.

When I first went to CES, I stayed at the Hotel Continental (now the Silver Sevens Hotel and Casino, formerly known as Terrible’s) at 4100 Paradise Road in Las Vegas. It was a dingy run-down hotel with ripped carpeting. It was depressing. The casino was always active, so I tried my hand at blackjack and that proved not to be in my skill set. The curious thing was that everyone at my table were employees of some of the big casinos on the Strip. Why would they come to this run-down place, I asked? The answer was that it was not cool for employees to gamble where they worked. Win or lose, it was not good for one’s career. While casinos love gamblers, they did not want their employees to be gamblers.

The unglamorous life: Terrible’s, formerly the Hotel Continental , now the Silver Sevens Hotel and Casino. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/graham.

My second year at CES I was still on a budget. I shared a room with an editor colleague, George Mannes (now senior editor at AARP: The Magazine), and that made the Hotel Continental less depressing. The next year George and I stayed at a nicer hotel on the Strip. That third year I caught a killer cold or something and I had to push myself hard to work the show. Back in New York at an event a few months later consumer electronics journalist Stewart Wolpin accused me of giving my cold to him, and fellow CE reporter Ron Goldberg said to Stewart, “Hey man, don’t blame Ken; you could have caught that anywhere at the show.” Many CES attendees get sick – there’s even a term for it, the CES Flu. Hell, we (myself included) might have been the first people in America to get COVID-19. We are talking about early January 2020. The CES attendance numbers in 2020 were more than 170,000 people. The second week in January in Las Vegas, the town is so packed it is a Petri dish.

Priority number one then and always was my commitment to working the show and making the most of my time. I would get up early and be there for the pre-show press conferences. I never had to concern myself with food; great food was everywhere and always free. At these morning press conferences there would be bagels, cream cheese, yogurt, small boxes of cereal with milk, and sometimes scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, coffee, tea and an assortment of juices. In my early years I went to all of the press conferences and that solidified my relationships with quite a few public relations companies. I covered all the name manufacturers, but so did everyone else. My quest became finding unique products. What became interesting to me were the unusual or innovative new products that would become game changers. I would do an overview of the big guys, like Sony, Panasonic, and so on, but most of their announcements became common knowledge by the time a monthly magazine could get the story out.

Winter CES, 1988. Courtesy of Frank Doris; this was his first CES.

This being my fourth CES and now knowing my way around, I concentrated on smaller outfits that gave me “aha!” moments. Also, I covered car, phone, boating and outdoor gear, not just home consumer electronics, looking to find things that were cool but off the beaten path. This was what I did initially with Taser International (now Axon; I mentioned them briefly in Issue 168). Then, they were a small company with less than 10 employees, but with an interesting concept. I was the first mainstream press person to write about them.

The idea for the Taser was conceived by the Smith brothers (no cough drops or beards) from Phoenix. They informed me that the first night my story came out they sold over a hundred units. They were so excited. I asked them why they would manufacture a stun gun that used compressed air instead of the normal gunpowder. Their idea was to make a legal stun gun, something that was a safer, non-lethal self-defense tool. They had lost their best friend to gun violence and felt there had to be a non-lethal method of protecting oneself. (There was more, but I would be going off track it I went into it here.) Today, they supply most of the police departments in America, along with offering retail sales. That is a long way from the video the company once did of the two Smith brothers in their suburban Phoenix backyard, taking turns Tasering each other while standing in a toddler’s wading pool. (They showed the homemade video to me to prove you wouldn’t be electrocuted or permanently injured by a Taser.)

Some of the other then-small companies I covered went on to become major industry players, like Valve Amplification Company (VAC), maker of tube audio components; Meridian Audio, one of the first to offer a complete high-end audio playback solution including a music server, and Runco International (now part of Planar Systems, Inc.), a manufacturer of video display devices. In fact, founder Sam Runco was the one who coined the term “home theater.”

Runco QuantumColor Q-6501 video projector, circa 2012. Runco was once a dominant force in high-end home theater projectors.

In my first few years attending CES, most press conferences were on the second floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The room most used was N247 if my memory serves me correctly. Every year the show grew larger and in 2002 the South Hall was added, and the main press room was moved there. Also, many of the press conferences took place in the rooms next to the big press room. There were some press events that were off-site in other hotels and restaurants. Those were potentially a problem for me. An off-site press conference could be around 50 minutes long, which was normal. However, even if everything went according to plan, it would cost me more than two hours when you added in the travel time to get there and back to the main Convention Center. I feared being stranded away from the show. Even getting a taxi took at least an hour of waiting, and even if transportation was provided by the company holding the press event, it still took a big chunk of time. Traffic is a killer on the Strip, and it was always in gridlock during CES.

Toshiba once had a press conference in what is now Planet Hollywood, and they had a bus at the Convention Center to take us there. After the press conference there was no bus for the return trip. I asked the PR person what arrangements were made to get us back, and he said, “none!” while giving me an annoyed look. Even if you planned carefully, sh*t happened. In the 1990s and early 2000s there were some incredible press events. I met Lady Gaga, P. Diddy, Shaq, Drew Brees and countless others at these events. Not to mention private concerts, including one by John Legend.

Back then, some companies had really big budgets. That year, the Fuji blimp was in town, and I was invited for a ride. In the early evening, Fuji provided transportation to North Las Vegas Airport. When we got there, they were not ready, so I had a chat with the captain. This would be filed under things I did not know and never thought about. The Fuji blimp is part of a fleet that includes the Goodyear and the MetLife blimp and every other blimp that hovers over big sporting events. OK, you might have figured that out, but I have to point out that keeping these blimps airborne is an incredibly detailed and organized multi-team effort. They are always flying around the country. Each blimp has a group of professionals that are divided into two sets of ground crews who leapfrog to accommodate the blimp. There must be one crew at liftoff and another crew waiting when the blimp arrives at its new destination, and no, you cannot try to race the blimp to its destination. The blimp will always get there faster.

It is somewhat like a Formula One race team. blimps need a mind-boggling amount of maintenance. There are four or more tie lines that are held and guided by the ground crew. These prevent the blimp from being blown sideways or into other structures, and the ground crew has to carefully coordinate releasing them when the blimp takes off. When it arrives at its destination, quite possibly hundreds of miles away, the other ground crew is already there to bring the blimp in for a soft landing. It is a hell of a lifestyle, and it must be good because there is not much turnover among crews.

Co-pilot Ken in the Fuji blimp.

We are ready to go, and we board the blimp. It is me, Stewart Wolpin, and two other people I do not know. We float up to a couple of thousand feet and head towards the northern end of Las Vegas Boulevard., the Strip. In what seems like slow motion we glide south to Fremont Street, holding our altitude above the spectacle below. The sun is starting to set while we are cruising the Strip southwards above and between the neon-lit hotels. The sunset with all of its spectacular colors and the light-up Vegas Strip was a beautiful thing. Out of this world! The route along Las Vegas Blvd. takes a little more than a few minutes and when we get to the Luxor hotel, we take a slow and wide U-turn westward and head back to North Las Vegas Airport.

As we head downward to a spot of asphalt near a hangar, I see the ground crew spread in a circle, which I assume is the blimp’s landing spot. The tie lines go out and each member of the ground crew grabs a line. The engine seems to go quiet, and the crew pulls the blimp down for a soft landing. The ground crew ties everything down. We line up to get off and walk down the steps where the pilot is standing. He gives each of us Fuji wings and shakes our hands. Or should I say he attempts to. As I step up to him, he sneezes into his hand and then sticks his hand out to shake mine. I decline to shake, mentioning the sneeze, and he realizes why, smiles, says thanks for joining them, and hands me my Fuji wings.

The Fuji blimp over Manhattan.

Header image courtesy of Pixnio.com/Donald Riesbeck Jr.

When it comes to live albums, many music fans have a wide variety of personal favorites. A large cross-section of top choices would likely include recordings from David Bowie, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Eagles, George Benson, Frank Sinatra, Jaco Pastorius, Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Prince, the Rolling Stones, the Roots, Hall and Oates, Pink Floyd, The Boston Pops, Willie Nelson, KISS, Michael Bublé, Harry Connick Jr., Pearl Jam, The Three Tenors, and countless others. The aforementioned all have something in common: their live releases all had engineering help from David W. Hewitt.

Launching his career during the early 1970s at Regent Sound Studios in Philadelphia and then the Record Plant recording studio in New York, Hewitt was one of the foremost pioneers in designing remote multitrack recording studios and putting them into practice, with thousands of concert recordings from hundreds of artists all across the United States and abroad. His innovative work in bringing state-of-the-art recording technology to the mobile truck led to Hewitt being constantly in demand by top artists in the music industry over the last half-century, capturing their historic concert performances for posterity and live releases.

On The Road: Recording The Stars in a Golden Era of Live Music is a memoir/diary of that era, with stories that draw from a huge list of famous and even legendary concerts. Told from the ultimate insider’s perspective, On The Road recounts Hewitt’s involvement to preserve those moments in musical history.

Although On The Road can be considered an autobiography of sorts, David W. Hewitt is impressively humble about his many accomplishments and contributions to the industry, describing such historic events as his recording involvement with Live Aid, Eric Clapton’s Crossroads concerts, the No Nukes concerts, the post-9/11 The Concert for New York City, and other landmark performances from a fan’s perspective, rather than that of the consummate professional engineering specialist that made these concerts available to the millions who could not attend.

David W. Hewitt’s Aerosmith backstage pass. Courtesy of David W. Hewitt.

Hewitt’s behind the scenes account of the 1979 Havana Jam illustrates some of his “fan” mindset. He was wowed by Stephen Stills’ performance with Bonnie Bramlett and Mike Finnegan doing the Nash and Crosby parts for Crosby, Stills and Nash songs; the one-time only live performance of The Trio of Doom (Tony Williams, Jaco Pastorius, and John McLaughlin), a legendary, short lived ensemble whose only recording was not released until nearly 30 years later; and Billy Joel, whom Hewitt had recorded multiple times in the past, and whose show in Cuba was, in Hewitt’s view, “one of his best performances ever.”

Hewitt sadly recounted that he had been ordered by Joel’s production staff to make sure that his performance would not be recorded, so the magic of that night is one of few that Hewitt can confirm only exists in memory.

Additionally, he also recalled that due to Cuba’s strict Communist surveillance and control over any visitors, their assigned government “minder,” from whom they got separated during the concerts, frantically ran up to them at the airport restaurant before they boarded, crying, “Thank God I found you! If I lost you I would have been arrested!”

Billy Joel, Live at Yankee Stadium, album cover.

Early in the book, Hewitt amusingly described his serendipitous live recording beginnings in 1973 as a remote-recording engineer: being “hijacked” by Frank Hubach, who was in charge of the Record Plant’s then-new mobile recording department, because Hewitt was one of the few qualified assistant engineers at the time with any road experience. This first live remote gig for Hewitt turned out to be for the D.I.R. Radio Network’s King Biscuit Flower Hour show, an eclectic radio program featuring recorded live concerts from a huge mix of musical artists. The headlining artist was jazz-rock fusion avatars the Mahavishnu Orchestra and the opening act was none other than Aerosmith, who would become longtime friends and clients of Hewitt in decades to follow. The Aerosmith relationship with the Record Plant, due primarily to producer/engineer Jack Douglas, resulted in Hewitt providing the remote truck at Aerosmith’s rehearsal warehouse for the recording of the albums Rocks (1976), and The Cenacle estate for Draw the Line (1977), and numerous other live concert recordings at the Boston Garden and other venues.

The King Biscuit recordings, and TV programs featuring live performances such as The Midnight Special and In Concert, caused the demand for remote recording capabilities to explode, as consumers demonstrated an appetite for recorded live music that extended far beyond Woodstock in 1969. No longer merely a revenue platform for ticket sales, concerts became a valuable revenue source for record companies as live recordings began to proliferate and go gold or even platinum.

With the Record Plant in New York evolving to become one of the premier recording facilities in the US, Hewitt kept assiduously up to date on the latest and most in-demand equipment required for professional multitrack recording projects. As the artists began to demand the same level of quality in their live recordings as in their studio albums, Hewitt helped modernize the aging “White Truck” they had been using and designed the new-generation Black Remote Truck. Now the powerful modern diesel Peterbilt and heavily-isolated recording studio could easily travel the entire country without strain. Custom power and audio cabling systems allowed faster load in and out even at the most difficult locations. As he gathered and trained full time crew members, the remote business grew rapidly. It became a major player around the country.

Combined with an indefatigable work ethic (when he was injured in a 1989 crash that destroyed one of his remote trucks, Hewitt’s concern over getting a replacement remote recording truck to fulfill a Harry Connick Jr. concert contract took precedence over notifying his family of the accident) and a quick, problem-solving attitude honed by his earlier experience as a member of a pit stop crew for professional sports car races. Hewitt’s innovative customizations to the Record Plant “White” and “Black” trucks led to his becoming one of the music industry’s most in-demand remote recording engineers.

The trust that developed between Hewitt and superstar artists like Neil Young, for example, extended to film and video projects, such as Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Neil Young Red Rocks Live (2000), and the Jonathan Demme-directed Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006). Hewitt would become the first-call remote recording truck specialist and engineer for concert documentaries like the Taylor Hackford-directed Chuck Berry tribute, Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll (1987), U2’s Rattle and Hum (1988, directed by Phil Joanou), Martin Scorcese’s Rolling Stones concert film, Shine A Light (2008), and others.

There is hardly any major concert event between 1975 and 2015 in which David W. Hewitt or his company’s remote recording trucks were not involved. In addition to talking about the recording and production of televised awards shows like the Academy Awards, Tonys, Grammys, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Country Music Awards and others, he devotes an entire chapter of On The Road to what he has dubbed “The Monster Shows,” which include:

• No Nukes: The MUSE Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future (Madison Square Garden, five days, 1979)
• Night of 100 Stars (Radio City Music Hall, five days each, 1982 and 1985)
• Live Aid (JFK Stadium, four days, 1985)
• Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary (MSG, four days, 1988)
• Bob Dylan’s 30th Anniversary concert (MSG, three days, 1992)
• Woodstock ’94 (Saugerties, NY, seven days, 1994)
• Woodstock ’99 (Rome, NY, four days, 1999)
• Super Bowl 1996, 1997, and 2009

Woodstock ’99, album cover.

Additionally, Hewitt devotes an entire chapter to his lengthy body of work with Eric Clapton, which included providing remote trucks for all of the Crossroads festivals, the Cream reunion concerts, and other releases, starting with the live album E.C. Was Here (1975).

The insights and behind the scenes first-hand observations that Hewitt cites about these landmark concerts are well worth the read for any music history buff. Meticulous about technical details, he also includes comments from colleagues and other crew members. For example:

• David Brown explains that during the pre-computer-memory analog days of recording the No Nukes concerts, there were several big-name engineers, such as Shelly Yakus and Jimmy Iovine, who wanted to save their respective EQ settings for different bands – all on the same remote console. This was accomplished by the extremely dangerous process of “hot swapping” API equalizer modules while the power was still on, which Brown describes as “the electronic equivalent of changing a wheel on your car while it’s driving on the highway.”
• The anticipation for Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band’s set was so strong that the crowd’s unison chants of “Bruce!” combined with foot stomps actually shook the fifth-floor concrete slabs of Madison Square Garden up and down almost two inches, resulting in the 400-plus pound Ampex 1200 multitrack machines shaking in the truck. An assistant had to use his body as a wedge to keep them in place while the tape was running!

Although rock, R&B, and country music get the bulk of coverage in On The Road because these genres comprised the largest chunk of Hewitt’s projects, classical music and jazz are also documented, with insights into classical music concerts by Yo-Yo Ma, Beverly Sills, Isaac Stern, Virgil Fox, Kathleen Battle, Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, and many others, as well as jazz from Dave Brubeck, Diana Krall, Hugh Masekela, George Benson, and more.

On the Road also offers a special, heartfelt section on Hewitt’s reminiscences and contributions to The Concert for New York City at Madison Square Garden on October 20, 2001, a month after the tragic attack on the World Trade Center.

Chock full of anecdotes and interspersed with technical comments filtered through the purview of a truly dedicated music fan, David W. Hewitt’s On The Road is a fascinating read that gives many fly-on-the-wall glimpses into a panoply of iconic musical events.

******

An in-depth interview with David W. Hewitt will be appearing in forthcoming issues of Copper. For now, here’s a sample:

John Seetoo: You have recorded countless historic concerts that have been released as recordings (Rust Never Sleeps), broadcast on radio programs (The King Biscuit Flower Hour), on television (MTV Unplugged), and in films (Hail! Hail! Rock n’ Roll). Can you compare the differences in the demands on your work by the artists and producers for each of these mediums, and recount some of the unusual workarounds you had to devise to both keep everyone happy and ensure that the final product met your personal standards?

David W. Hewitt: Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps 1978 tour [resulted in] one of my all-time favorite recordings. Neil and his long-time crew had it together for a cross country run from Boston to San Francisco. Long tours require advance work for all the travel routes, permits, flights, hotels, etc. and coordination with the band crew, sound, lighting and production crews and so on]. It changes every day and every gig. [Some] stories are in Chapter seven in my book.

The old tour motto is, “the show is that little inconvenience between the load in and the load out.”

There can be dramatic differences in our “mission,” [beginning with], “who is the client?”

[Let’s talk about] radio. For many years we recorded shows for later live radio broadcasts: King Biscuit Flower Hour, the RKO Radio Network, the ABC Radio Network and live local stations WPLJ, WNYC, and my favorite jazz radio station, WBGO! I always loved radio, from [my] childhood in Montana to a lifetime of travel worldwide.

My first remote recording for the Record Plant in New York was for King Biscuit; it was also their first show! Snowbound in Buffalo, New York…the fusion Band Mahavishnu Orchestra was absolutely brilliant, with some rock band called Aerosmith opening for them. The crowd went wild! Then, [there was] another show back in New York, where a guy named Bruce was opening for a folk singer at Max’s Kansas City. It was Bruce Springsteen. This show started the many successful years of King Biscuit’s Sunday radio program, until, like the song, video killed the Radio Star.

Of course, film and live TV had long been showing bands, but now with stereo radio simulcasts making mono TV obsolete, it had to change. Movie theaters had a head start on large sound systems, and now touring gear made for great feature film sound like the Chuck Berry documentary Hail! Hail! Rock n’ Roll.

Hail! Hail! Rock ‘N’ Roll, original motion picture soundtrack album cover.

Now this is a long story, best read in the book, but the short version is that Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and a host of stars produced incredible shows [that were] filmed by director Taylor Hackford. Chuck Berry was a hero to Keith and so many of the British musicians as they learned the history of the blues. And boy did Keith pay Chuck back, with such dedication, and patiently playing whatever Chuck decided to play.

We recorded at Chuck’s old club in St. Louis, Missouri, his studio at Berry Farm (his home), and the historic Fox Theatre in Atlanta. We were joined by the great engineer/producer Michael Frondelli, who would follow the project through. This is one monumental film, made while Chuck Berry was still Chuck Berry!

My recording career started out in the studio, recording musicians for records and the occasional film soundtrack. When I accidentally landed in a remote truck, that all changed. Suddenly these people with cameras started showing up needing odd sync signals and time code. WTF was that?

With MTV Unplugged, well, they unplugged some of the musicians’ instruments, but the [plugging in] always seemed to find a way back. The show that really made MTV Unplugged a success was the 1992 Mariah Carey episode. I had recorded Mariah starting with the first show [that] Tommy Mottola, then head of Sony Music, produced for her debut. After several successful studio albums, she still was shy of live performances. This early MTV Unplugged live performance became a surprise hit, going multi-platinum around the world. Certainly helped my engineering career as well! I recorded Pearl Jam on that same gig. Nirvana and many others followed.

Mariah Carey, MTV Unplugged, album cover.

My favorite “unplugged” recording was the incredible 1997 MTV concert for Babyface with Eric Clapton playing. Now go listen to them play “Change the World” and you will hear what I mean.

Working in retail perhaps may better be thought of as a portal to another world, another dimension of possibilities and unexpected outcomes. I thought it would be fun to share some of my experiences with you here. (As some of you may know from previous Copper articles, I managed a guitar shop in the UK in the early “noughties” from December 2000 onwards.

I specifically remember a particular gentleman entering the shop one day. He was middle-aged, of slim build, and relatively smart in his casual clothing. He didn’t have much in the way of hair on his head, perhaps as a result of genetics, or perhaps as a result of the worrying disposition he had about his general approach to buying stuff.

Our dear customer was looking for a guitar, and suggested that money wasn’t particularly of concern, but rather the reputation of the guitar brand that he would be buying. He wanted a quality product: a guitar to be proud of, with excellent build quality, attention to detail, and a guarantee of manufacturing excellence. Indeed, something that would “look the part” and be something to be proud of.

Fair enough, I thought. Here’s a customer who is after my own heart. Someone who appreciates great quality and demands high standards. It’s going to be a pleasure to serve someone who will appreciate the details and quality in the products we have meticulously curated here on display.

Little did I realize I was about to enter a chasm of recounted retail victory stories our dear customer had won, over numerous experiences, in his purchases and dealings with seemingly any company he chose to relate.

Before the matter of considering what guitar to buy, it was evidently necessary that our dear chap was obligated to regale, at length, how he had successfully battled against one particular laptop manufacturer, for six months, and eventually had come off the winner in extracting a new monitor display for the unit, even though it was apparently outside of warranty. Hmm. Interesting, I thought.

Don’t get me wrong. I get it. Sometimes customers may suffer from feeling a little daunted by what could be called “showroom intimidation” and feel the subsequent urge to reiterate that they’re a savvy consumer and assuage some sense of insecurity. The thing is, he didn’t have to put on this show of strength, so to speak. We were a mom-and-pop store and pretty down to earth, easygoing and well respected in the business. We carried some fantastic product lines, though, and I was always heartened by where we stood comparatively with some of the big-name stores in London that had significantly bigger reputations.

So, I thought little more of it and went on, intending to introduce some of our higher-end brands of instruments to him, identifying their cool features, tones, electronics and so on. But before I could get going, I was then subjected to hear about how he had successfully won a legal battle against a company which had installed windows in his house, which resulted in having every pane replaced because of some issue that had arisen.

I acknowledged his concerns and moved on with suggesting some instruments that might prove to be of interest to a discerning buyer, with features like locking machine heads, AAA-grade birds-eye maple necks, custom pickup configurations and so on. My suggested presentations were interrupted by the customer with his additional raconteuring of further battles won against a bank, and a credit card insurance issue.

At this point, alarm bells had been ringing quite clearly in my head, to the likely reality that this particular individual would be somewhat…challenging to satisfy, mostly due to a deep-seated purchasing insecurity or anxiety. Or was it a just a desire for him to flash the cash and play a power game? It seemed like a combination of both.

Dutifully doing my best to close the sale, with due care and attention to all warranty concerns, after-sale support, the assurance of future services such as free sixth-month guitar setups, and of course any further help we could offer down the line, events culminated in a sale, with smiling faces and reassurances all round. Happy days…

Sure enough, a few days later, back comes the customer, but this time bubbling with enough heat pouring out of his collar that you could power a steam engine. He was rude, offensive, really irate, and beyond placating with any offer to exchange the instrument, which incidentally was perfect and arguably better-made and set up than many more “household name” brands.

Courtesy of Pexels.com/Andrea Piacquadio.

He had taken it to someone else who didn’t like it, and this person had fed him with all the paranoia needed to pop a blood vessel or ten. The issue was resolved with a readily-provided full refund – no problem. And, because of the customer’s verbally violent disposition, a request to leave the store with a ban on future entry.

After he had left the store in a cloud, another customer came in and purchased some strings and other accessories. But then, in stormed our friend who was still piping hot with rage, who blurted out, “And I don’t expect you to talk to other people about me behind my back!” He then turned and charged off with the same drama as his arrival. Both myself and the string-buying customer looked at each other in complete surprise, as we hadn’t discussed any preceding events, and were left to ponder the nature of the stresses that would drive someone to such intensity and inner turmoil. Perhaps he had been the victim of some terrible injustice that one could only imagine how tragic it had been for him, and which had left him on a resolute quest to crush all potential enemies in life – sadly before they could even be a friend. We had no idea.

What surprised me most was his opening gambit. Surely, if you are going to create a spirit of trust and goodwill with a retailer, you don’t commence your conversation with a silo of stories damning multiple previous retailers. In customer service training, we were never taught to welcome a customer by relating how bad all customers are. His attitude was perturbing and I felt sorry for him.

But on another occasion, I had another experience which stayed with me, for which I was particularly grateful.

Since I was a small boy, I have suffered with anaphylaxis; the condition which if the wrong type of antigen enters my system causes me to swell up like a balloon. If accidentally ingested, it’s like eating liquid fire, which then requires an immediate shot of adrenaline and medical treatment at the hospital and so on. It’s not very pleasant, but at least I know what the causal food triggers are and I can readily avoid them. There are plenty of worse conditions to be afflicted by.

One day, I got to chatting with a customer, an older man, who had what I considered to be one of those worse conditions. I subsequently became ever-mindful that I had my problem and not his.

His problem was related to any pressure applied to his skin. Anything too pressing, abrasive or tight would cause him to swell up with an overproduction of histamine. He told me that he had to wear loose-fitting clothing and that wearing shoes was a nightmare to manage. He couldn’t even shake hands with someone, as this would trigger a cascading reaction in his immune system. I don’t know how he managed to play guitar, or have much in the way of an intimate relationship.

It certainly has been true in my case that experiencing some of the contexts of others’ life experiences has been extremely beneficial in helping me to count my blessings. I’m grateful to my retail days for deepening my appreciation of this too.

Courtesy of Pexels.com/Gustavo Fring.

Header image courtesy of Pixabay.com/hawk5555.

PS Audio’s Octave Records label is honored to tell everyone that The Complete Bach Cello Suites by world-renowned cellist Zuill Bailey is now available as a four-LP vinyl box set in a limited, numbered edition of 500 copies signed by the artist.

The six Bach unaccompanied cello suites are a cornerstone of the classical cello repertoire, and Bailey offers a compelling interpretation of Bach’s masterworks informed by decades of immersion in the suites.

The vinyl LP set is available in a limited, numbered edition of 500 copies at a suggested retail price of $149.

Mr. Bailey is widely considered to be one of the world’s premier cellists. He is a GRAMMY award-winning performer, artistic director and teacher. Bailey has collaborated with such conductors and artists as Itzhak Perlman, Stanislav Skrowaczewski, Jaime Laredo, János Starker, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and others.

Because Bach left no musical annotations in the score, the interpretive skill of the performer is vital to making the music come alive. Bailey noted, Bailey noted, “the difficulty in playing them is that they’re so revealing – there’s nothing to hide behind if you’re a musician. There are no markings in the score, so everything that is played is where we as musicians are. You can feel very fragile when playing them in public.” Bailey first recorded the suites in 2008 on the Telarc label. More than a decade later, these Octave Records performances reflect Bailey’s mature yet daring approach, captured with remarkable realism in stunning high-resolution sound using PS Audio’s exclusive Pure DSD process.

The Complete Bach Cello Suites is pressed on 180-gram virgin vinyl using the highest-quality Neotech vinyl compound, NiPro Optics electroplating and GrooveCoated stampers from Gotta Groove Records. State-of-the-art temperature control is maintained during the manufacturing process using a closed-loop heating system. Each record is scrupulously hand-inspected and listening tests are conducted to ensure the ultimate in pressing quality.

“When I was a kid, the Bach Cello Suites were not played in public – they were so difficult that people were afraid of them,” said Zuill Bailey. “After attending Juilliard, about five months after being out of school I felt very alone in the world, and I was trying to find myself. I opened up the Bach Cello Suites and just started at the very beginning. In my 20s and 30s they became my guide and have remained so.”

When the pandemic hit, Bailey didn’t touch his cello for weeks. When he resumed playing, he once again turned to the Bach Cello Suites. “I began playing Bach very differently – simpler. I found it purifying.” He stated, “the less I tried to ‘interpret’ the music, the better it sounded.”

The Complete Bach Cello Suites was recorded at the Ikeda Theater in the Mesa Arts Center in Mesa, Arizona for Octave Records by Robert Friedrich of Five/Four Productions, Ltd. with co-engineer Gus Skinas, and produced for Octave Records by Five/Four’s Thomas Moore, a GRAMMY award winner. It was recorded, mastered and mixed using Pure DSD technology.

Click here for a video about the making of The Complete Bach Cello Suites.

This was of particular importance in capturing all the subtleties and tonal shadings of Zuill Bailey’s distinctive 1693 Italian Mateo Goffriller Ex Mischa Schneider “Rosette” cello, an instrument that is bigger and of a different construction than most cellos, not cut down in size like many surviving vintage instruments. This gives it a more robust voice, with a deeper tonality and rich harmonics. “This cello was made when Bach was eight years old,” notes Bailey, “so it was the sound he would have heard when composing the Suites.”

In addition to the four-LP box, The Complete Bach Cello Suites is available in a variety of high-resolution download formats up to DSD256 and 24-bit/352.8kHz, as well as a two-disc DSDDirect Mastered gold SACD’CD set.

Note: portions of this article appeared in Issue 141.

By the 1970s, disk recording had pretty much disappeared from all sectors, with the sole exception of cutting masters for the industrial manufacturing of vinyl records. Radio stations had moved to magnetic tape recording and so did the small recording studios that would, in earlier decades, record artists direct to disk, using a single microphone. The motion picture industry had developed elaborate systems that would allow film cameras to be synchronized with tape machines, gradually weaning from disk recording lathes as well. With the introduction of cassette tape, dictation, logging of information, promo copies of recordings, band copies, and various other applications all moved away from the disk medium. While the vinyl record was still king among consumer media and professional disk mastering lathes were still in production and active development, an entire sector that had been manufacturing lathes that were less-sophisticated, and primarily intended for cutting one-off records rather than masters for subsequent plating and pressing had pretty much collapsed.

Lathes for cutting one-off records had always been much more plentiful than those intended for mastering. There were many more manufacturers all around the world and their products were made in much larger numbers than mastering lathes. Although any lathe could technically be used to either cut masters or to cut one-off records, mastering lathes were usually much larger, and offered more features and a higher level of performance. While noises and speed instability may be tolerated on a one-off recording (especially when this was only done to comply with various legal requirements, such as regulating authorities’ requirements for radio stations to log their output, and it was expected that nobody would ever listen to the result), the expectations were much higher when a master disk would be cut, which would be used to manufacture several thousand identical copies, the sound quality of which at best would only ever be as good as the master. As such, mastering lathes were designed to offer a much higher level of sound quality and as this was (and still very much is) easier said than done, they were priced accordingly.

The 1970s was the decade during which only five companies were left in the entire world that were manufacturing disk mastering lathes and electronics: Neumann, Scully, Lyrec, Westrex and Ortofon. Companies such as Presto, Rek-O-Kut, Fairchild, RCA and several others had either folded, or left the disk recording sector. Very few lathes were still being manufactured and sold to cater for the needs of the vinyl record manufacturing sector. The attempts of the 1940s to introduce a consumer-oriented sound recording device that would be based on grooved disks had long been abandoned in favor of the much simpler process of recording on tape, which proved much more compatible with domestic environments than the oily machine tools of yesteryear. After all, the average consumer is supposed to want something that is easy to learn and simple to do. Very few out of many cassette deck owners ever managed to do a high-quality recording on tape, and even fewer owners of consumer-oriented disk recording lathes ever got anything decent out of their machines.

Tape was much easier to deal with and carried a substantially lower risk of damaging expensive equipment (cutter heads) or personal injury (the recording blanks were made of nitrocellulose lacquer, the same material as modern smokeless powder for firearms ammunition).

Strangely, given the introduction above, it was during the 1970s that Japan reintroduced the concept of the consumer-oriented disk recording lathe, even though they were already leading the cassette market. Despite the complexity and precision manufacturing requirements of disk recording lathes, it was not the big players that were behind the newly-introduced lathes.

The Hararokuonki Saitama company in Tokyo introduced a few different models under the Hara brand name, built into suitcases for portable recording. They had everything built in, so all you needed was a supply of blank disks and a microphone or a line signal from another audio playback device. The Hara Disk Recorder M-180 was a very small and portable disk recording lathe, with a 7-inch platter that would spin at 45 rpm.

Two Hara M-180 disk recording lathes with Agnew Analog Type 1765 power supply units, which allow them to correctly function with European power (230 VAC/50 Hz). Courtesy of Agnew Analog Reference Instruments, photo by Sabine Agnew.

It was idler-driven and the motor would lock to the powerline frequency, which in Japan was 100 volts AC at 60 Hz. If used in Europe or other parts of the world with a powerline frequency of 50 Hz, even through a step-down transformer to ensure that the correct voltage would be applied, the motor would run at the wrong speed.

The only cure was to modify parts of the mechanism, so that it could spin the platter at the correct speed at 50 Hz. Portable though it may be, there were still geographic limitations to the machine’s portability, in the form of the requirement for power of the correct voltage and frequency.

The leadscrew is belt driven from the platter spindle and advances the carriage by means of a disengageable piece of wire, rather than a more conventional half-nut. The cutter head is a monophonic moving iron design, covering a frequency range of 50 Hz to 8 kHz, +/- 3 dB, according to the screen-printed text, partly in Japanese and partly in English, on the machine itself. The same text also claims that the machine will operate at 100 V, 50-60 Hz, and while it indeed will operate, it won’t be at the correct speed, unless the correct frequency is used.

The leadscrew mechanism inside a Hara M-180. Courtesy of Agnew Analog Reference Instruments/Sabine Agnew.

The underside of the Hara M-180: motor, main bearing and pulley, cutting amplifier printed circuit board, power transformer, carriage, and leadscrew. Courtesy of Agnew Analog Reference Instruments/Sabine Agnew.

Motor capstan, idler wheel and bearing spindle on a Hara M-180. Courtesy of Agnew Analog Reference Instruments/Sabine Agnew.

Two Hara M-180 disk recorders with Agnew Analog power supply units, undergoing final assembly and testing upon restoration on the patio at Agnew Analog headquarters. Courtesy of Agnew Analog Reference Instruments/Sabine Agnew.

The blank record is held down by means of a clamp that screws down on the spindle. The platter automatically starts spinning as soon as the carriage arm is manually advanced to the starting diameter of the 7-inch record. A hand crank on the side of the machine actuates a pair of bevel gears that advance the leadscrew to create spirals between the selections, and lead-in and lead-out grooves.

There is a lever provided on the side of the carriage arm for lifting and dropping the head and a little lever to adjust the depth of cut, along with a small brush to keep the chips out of the way of the cutting stylus.

The very basic built-in audio electronics included a microphone preamplifier, a phono stage for plugging in a separate playback turntable to check your cuts, a line amplifier for line-level signals (whatever this may mean in terms of signal level), level control knobs, and even a VU meter! All within the space of a lightweight suitcase that measures approximately 14 x 10 x 7 inches! In the 1970s, this was probably the smallest disk recording system ever made. The sound quality was as would be expected of a system of such dimensions; not exactly stellar!

VU meters, inputs and controls, along with the carriage and cutter head, on a Hara M-180. Courtesy of Agnew Analog Reference Instruments/Sabine Agnew.

However, the serial numbers on the various examples I have personally encountered to date would suggest that over 1,000 of these little devices were manufactured and successfully sold. Despite efforts made to screen-print information in English on the machine itself, and in the manual, it appears that these units were originally only sold in Japan. By now, they are being exported all around the world and converted to run from the power available where they are being operated.

To complement the Hara Disk Recorder M-180, a larger version was introduced, the Hara Recording Machine 805 VA. This was very similar to the M-180, but with a 12-inch platter and a sturdier carriage running on guide rails. When purchased along with an additional suitcase holding the audio electronics in the form of a more elaborate mixing board (instead of the built-in audio electronics of the M-180 and the basic 805 VA), it was known as the “Recording System 805.” The RM-805 VA measured approximately 20 x 14 x13 inches and weighed a bit over 55 lbs. The voltage and frequency situation were similar on the bigger Hara.

The Hara 805 VA disk recording lathe at Groovefarm Analog Recording Company, in Heath, situated in the picturesque countryside of the Peak District in England. Courtesy of Liam Walker.

A Hara 805 VA disk recording lathe and associated recording equipment in the studio. Courtesy of Liam Walker/Groovefarm Analog Recording Company.

Japanese brochure for the Hara 805 VA recording machine and the 905 Recording System. Courtesy of Liam Walker/Groovefarm Analog Recording Company.

Very few of these are still around nowadays, so I assume they were made in much smaller numbers than the M-180.

In the next episode, we will be looking at the other offerings of disk recording lathes manufactured in Japan.

Header image: Two portable Hara M-180 disk recorders with Agnew Analog power supply units, undergoing final assembly and testing upon restoration on the patio at Agnew Analog headquarters. Courtesy of Agnew Analog Reference Instruments, photo by Sabine Agnew.

Part of post-punk’s essential nature was to acknowledge that musical genres were not generated spontaneously but developed through history. The Butler brothers – Richard on vocals and Tim on bass guitar – had this in mind when they founded the Psychedelic Furs. After several other names, the band settled on the term “psychedelic” as a nod to the music of the late 1960s, which other punk bands pretended didn’t matter.

When the Furs started in London in 1977, Roger Morris played guitar, along with Duncan Kilburn on saxophone and Paul Wilson on drums. They gigged for a couple of years before John Ashton joined as a second guitarist. The 1979 lineup, which remained until 1982, also replaced Wilson with Vince Ely on drums.

The following year, the Furs signed with Columbia Records and released their debut album. It was produced by Steve Lillywhite, already known for his work with Siouxsie and the Banshees and XTC. The Psychedelic Furs was released in different versions in the UK versus the US: besides a scrambled track order, the American release cut the song “Blacks/Radio” for being racially problematic. Instead, the band added two other tracks: “Susan Strange” and “Soap Commercial.”

Those changes didn’t help the Furs much in the States, but Britain, Europe, and Australia quickly fell in love with this new sound. The song “Flowers” is a good introduction, encompassing both the grim lyrical style (opening lines: “See the people dead in cars/see the bodies bleed”) and the intensely energetic rhythm drawing from early rock and roll.

It was the Furs’ second album, Talk Talk Talk (1981), that got them serious attention in America. They made it into the Billboard 200 partly because of their choice to ease up slightly on the darkness and let in a glint of pop. The song “Pretty in Pink” was a hit in the UK, and American director John Hughes used it as the inspiration for his movie of the same name.

This is not to say that the Furs suddenly became a mainstream pop band. There’s plenty of haunting madness to enjoy on the second album. For one thing, Richard Butler’s voice remains at its eerie best. And then there are a few tracks, like “I Wanna to Sleep with You,” that are unabashedly frantic and weird. The deranged sax solo at the end is the icing on the cake.

For their 1982 album Forever Now, the Furs had shrunk to four members. Guitarist Morris and saxophonist Kilburn both left the band. The remaining foursome moved to America in hopes of finding a producer to enhance their traction there. They found the right partner in Todd Rundgren, who also played keyboards and marimba on the album and hired a cellist, all of which changed the Furs’ color palette significantly. The result was their most successful album yet as well as their best-selling single to that point, “Love My Way.”

On “No Easy Street,” the multi-talented Rundgren stepped in as saxophonist. There’s a painful loneliness about this song, especially in the way the bassline repeats the same figure all the way through, the first three notes of a minor scale, rising and falling forever.

The band’s success continued to grow with Mirror Moves in 1984, helped in part by the distinctive look of their music videos, which prompted frequent plays on MTV. That album was produced by Keith Forsey, who had recently helped Billy Idol become a star. For 1987’s Midnight to Midnight, the Furs tried a different approach to production by teaming with Chris Kimsey. Kimsey’s resume included producing and engineering several albums for the Rolling Stones. As noted above, rock music history mattered to this band.

Although the album was their best charter in the UK – or perhaps because of that – Richard Butler has publicly complained about the record’s lack of substance, and critics expressed disappointment in its steps toward synthpop. You can hear that shift in the song “Shock.”

Book of Days, from 1989, marks the first time the Furs are listed as producers, collaborating with synthpop and goth master David M. Allen (The Cure, Human League, Depeche Mode). Two big singles came from this record: “Should God Forget” and “House.” Besides the regular Furs quartet, session personnel included The Saw Doctors’ Anto Thistlethwaite on several instruments and Joe McGinty, who had been the Furs’ regular touring keyboardist since 1987.

Furs fans often remark that Book of Days is a return to the band’s darker, heavier sounds from before they jumped into the synthpop pool. “Mother-Son” is a good example of the distressed harmonies, rhythms that grate at the psyche, and lyrics that are both dour and threatening.

By 1991, the Furs were ready to call it quits. Drummer Vince Ely had already left, so World Outside was recorded with the two Butlers, John Ashton, McGinty, Don Yallech on drums, and Knox Chandler on guitar. To co-produce with them, the band tapped Stephen Street, known for his work with the Smiths and the Cranberries. The album garnered them one more major hit, “Until She Comes.”

Like Book of Days, this album sounds substantive and serious. One critic at the time described the pair of albums as a “surprising comeback” for a band that had suffered “a descent into teenybopper limbo.” Indeed, there’s an aching beauty in songs like “There’s a World Outside.”

Happy critics notwithstanding, World Outside was the Furs’ last studio album for 19 years, although they did put out a live greatest-hits collection called Beautiful Chaos in 2001. After such a long silence, a lot of people were surprised by the release of Made of Rain in 2020.

Of course, there were personnel changes, most notably the addition of keyboardist Amanda Kramer. She’s had an auspicious career as a session and touring musician with groups like 10,000 Maniacs and the Golden Palominos. Saxophonist Mars Williams had been touring with the band since the early 2000s, but this is his first Furs album. The producer is Richard Fortus, the Guns N’ Roses guitarist who also had a long touring history with the Furs.

As of this writing, the Psychedelic Furs continue to tour in support of Made of Rain. You can visit their website https://thepsychedelicfurs.com/ for details. The world has a lot of darkness and angst these days, so maybe Richard Butler singing “Ash Wednesday” in every corner of the planet is just what we need.

Header image courtesy of Sonic PR, photo by Reed Davis.

Day Two: “Big Bucket, Big Bridges, Big Tree, Big Day”

A big day indeed, as we would travel through parts of three states today. As it turned out, the bulk of the day was spent traveling through Ohio. Our first checkpoint was to find “a very old log cabin hit by a massive tornado” in Xenia, Ohio. This was the Galloway Cabin, built in 1799 by James Galloway Sr. near the Little Miami River. Galloway was a hunter who provided game to the Army during the American Revolution. The cabin was moved in 1936, and then moved a second time in 1965 to its current location as the home of the Greene County Historical Society. A tornado in 1974 destroyed a lot of the town of Xenia, and damaged the cabin, which was restored.

The Galloway Cabin.

After finding the county courthouse in the town of Washington Court House, Ohio (yes, you read that correctly – it is the county seat of Fayette County), we had to find a house of another kind – the Octagon House, in Circleville, Ohio. This house was built nearby and moved to its present location, where it is awaiting a restoration. Presumably, the octagon shape was deemed “healthier” by its designer Orson Squire Fowler. The house was built by George W. Gregg in 1856, and was then sold with the attached farmland to the Crites family in 1920, who visited the house but never lived there. Tenant farmers lived in the house until 1998, and it was scheduled to be demolished in 2000 to make way for a Super Walmart store. As part of the deal, the Conservancy which owns the house was deeded the building and two acres of land at the back of the farm, and it took four months to roll the house half a mile across the field to its present location.

Unfortunately, due to the “No Trespassing” signage, we could not enter the property to get a better picture.

Octagon House.

Once departing Circleville, the rally entered an hours-long stretch through the Hocking Hills in southeast Ohio on various state and county roads. On top of the twisting and turning roads, it had started raining, so much of the day looked like this:

Driving through the Hocking Hills.

After checking in at the John Glenn Astronomy Park, and locating Woltz Road as another checkpoint, we had to find the Nelsonville Brick Plant in Nelsonville, Ohio. Established in 1877, the brick plant was producing as many as 25 million bricks per year by the mid 1880s. The bricks were used as pavers as well as for constructing buildings, and were sold under brand names such as Nelsonville Block, Hallwood Block, and Hocking Block, and examples of these can still be found around the country. With the eventual rise in usage of concrete and asphalt, demand tapered off and the company closed up permanently.

Some of the brick kilns were thankfully spared from demolition and are now part of the historic Nelsonville Brick Park.

A brick kiln at Nelsonville Brick Park.

Our next checkpoint was to find the Big Muskie Bucket near McConnellsville, Ohio. Being from a state where fishing is a major tourism draw, I had mental images of something to do with a fish. Instead, the Muskie Bucket is a 220 cubic yard, 240-ton bucket used in the largest coal mining dragline ever built, assembled over the course of more than two years on site at the Muskingum Mine. The bucket was dragged along the ground to strip away soil and rocks to get at the high-sulfur coal beneath. It operated between 1969 and 1991 until it became too expensive to operate and demand for the coal had declined. The entire dragline was disassembled and recycled, but the bucket remained on site and is part of the Miner’s Memorial Park inside Jesse Owens State Park.

The Big Muskie Bucket.

Our “Find It” clue of the day instructed us to find one of the historical markers for a naval wreck in the area. Navy ships can’t make their way this far inland, obviously, but the clue also mentioned it was also the site of the “first ZR-1 crash,” which probably grabbed the attention of Corvette enthusiasts. The ZR-1 was a zeppelin, the USS Shenandoah, which encountered turbulence during a storm, broke into three parts, and crashed in various places in the area.

After locating the historic Monroe Theater in Woodsville, Ohio, we had to drive to the Great Stone Viaduct in Bellaire, our final stop in Ohio. Driving through town, it is hard to miss, as it crosses the Ohio River and winds through town. The viaduct, built in 1871, was originally comprised of 43 stone arches. The CSX railroad abandoned a 20-arch section which was later purchased for preservation, development and education. Parts of the viaduct still remain in use today. The steel trestle bridge crosses the Ohio River, leading to the arched viaduct through town.

Great Stone Viaduct.

From Bellaire, the rally’s course took us over a bridge into Wheeling, West Virginia, where we had to locate the temporarily-closed Wheeling Suspension Bridge (originally constructed in the mid 1800s). Following that, we embarked on a route that would send us through the most rural of mountain roads in West Virginia, barely two cars wide and poorly patched over the decades. The beaten, narrow roads and dark canopy of trees led us to our next checkpoint – a Hare Krishna temple!

New Vrindaban is the location of this temple, which features Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold. Unfortunately, given all the activity in the area during that time of day, and our strict instructions to respect the property and privacy of others, I was not able to get in closer to see these buildings, beyond a glimpse of the temple through the trees. The history of the property is very interesting and worth reading about.

Near Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold.

Our time on these dicey West Virginia roads was not over, however. The route took us back down to another country road, and it turns onto a handful of others, where we had to locate the Biggest Tree in West Virginia. Apparently it is not the biggest tree, but in 1963, the Forestry division held a Big Tree Contest, and of all the nominations received, this particular tree, a sycamore estimated to be about 400 years old, scored the highest. It has a 311-inch circumference and stands about 117 feet tall.

The Biggest Tree in West Virginia.

Since our route took us through that tiny section of West Virginia pinched between Ohio and Pennsylvania, our final checkpoint of the day was to locate one of the many covered bridges in Washington County, Pennsylvania. The closest I could find on the route, and the closest to an Interstate highway, was the Brownlee Covered Bridge.

The Brownlee Covered Bridge.

Our stop for the night was in Pittsburgh, with an optional post-rally meet-up at Klavon’s Ice Cream Parlor downtown. As not many had arrived, I left after a few minutes to make my way up to the hotel, about 20 minutes north of the city. I looked forward to another evening of plotting the next day’s stops and getting some much-needed rest.

The final part of the Rust Belt Ramble series takes us from the birthplace of the Jeep up to a relocated piece of Detroit history, which was not in the rally booklet.

Header image: some of the more colorful rally participants. All images courtesy of the author.

One of the most astonishing periods of European music history was the 16^th century, when composers like Josquin Des Prez and Giovanni Palestrina rocketed polyphonic vocal writing to new levels of beauty. Among that exclusive group was Orlande de Lassus, who was recognized in his own time as one of the best crafters of music for voice. Several recent recordings serve as reminders of his tremendous skill.

Lassus (also known as Orlando di Lasso, among several other variants) was born in the Habsburg Netherlands, which is today called Belgium, in about 1532. When he was 12, he received his musical education in several Italian cities, including Mantua and Milan. His compositional career began in Naples, where he found a patron, only to be hired away by the wildly rich Medici family to serve them in Rome. The Catholic Church commissioned some pieces from him there as well. As a Netherlander working in Italy, Lassus followed in Josquin’s footsteps from more than a generation earlier (learn more about Des Prez in my piece for Copper in Issue 132).

One of the new Lassus recording reminds us of the range of wealthy patrons he worked for. Le nozze in Baviera, featuring Ensemble Origo on the Naxos label, includes the music Lassus was commissioned to compose for the wedding of William of Bavaria and Renate of Lorraine in 1568. The contents of this album are fascinating. As Ensemble Origo’s director, Eric Rice, explains in the liner notes, the moresca was “an Italian musical genre that caricatured Black Africans.” If you’re starting to squirm, that’s exactly what’s intended. Rice, who is white, has taken it upon himself to confront these racially problematic songs head-on.

Moresche were considered entertaining in mid-1500s Italy, at least among the upper classes, so including them in any elaborate gathering was desirable. It’s quite a dose of reality to learn that a revered church composer like Lassus contributed to this genre. There are eight of them on this recording. According to Rice, although there are no instruments mentioned on the surviving vocal score, it’s reasonable that instruments might have played along at a well-funded affair. Therefore, Rice has written them into his arrangement.

“O Lucia, Miau Miau” is an example of a morisca. It’s written for two voices, to which a viol line has been added.

The idea of the moresca is to caricature the speech patterns of North Africans (“Moors”). If you would like to see the libretto (warning: explicit language), you can do so here:

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/24/000139142.pdf

Origo’s singers are not always spot-on with intonation, but their timbre is convincingly 16^th-century. While this is not the first recording of these moresche, they are usually misclassified as other genres, such as madrigals or villanelles. It’s intriguing, if disturbing, to see them presented for what they really are.

The William/Renate wedding celebration lasted 18 days, so Lassus needed to write a lot of music! Since a ceremony in church was involved, some of that music is sacred polyphony. Gratia sola Dei would have been sung at the wedding itself. If not as intense in sound as some Lassus sacred recordings, the Origo performance is reverent, and the high-frequency viol sounds give the piece an unusual color. That late in the Renaissance, it is possible that strings might have played along even in a church, even if this is not the standard interpretation of this music.

Lassus is much better known for his sacred than his secular work, and he’s rarely recorded using instruments. For a recent and more conventional approach, there is much to be enjoyed in Lassus: Inferno, a collection of the composer’s Latin motets on Harmonia Mundi, with Cappella Amsterdam under the direction of Daniel Reuss. By the 16^th century, the term “motet” referred to polyphonic vocal settings of texts from the Bible, as it would through the 19^th century. (Originally, in late medieval music, a motet could be sacred or secular, and sometimes both at once, with multiple texts being sung simultaneously.)

“Circumdederunt me dolores mortis” (“The sorrows of death surrounded me”) is Lassus’ six-part setting of Psalm 17. It’s a late work, from 1601. Cappella Amsterdam’s sound is dense and smooth, as Lassus likely intended in order to take advantage of church acoustics. The slight tugs at the meter and the way the group leans into dissonances shows how well Reuss understands the emotional transparency of Lassus’ style. That’s something the composer would have learned from Josquin’s music. 

Cappella Amsterdam is a small choir, with a few singers assigned to each part. Lassus’ music takes on an even more intimate sound when only one person sings each line. That’s what distinguishes Psalmus, the latest recording by the Munich-based, six-member group called Die Singphoniker. The all-male ensemble records for CPO in collaboration with BR Klassik.

The centerpiece of this project was to preserve the special setting of the Seven Penitential Psalms that Lassus did as a commission for Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria. What makes this setting special is its purpose, to be part of what we would today call a multimedia presentation: a book with the Psalm texts, music, and paintings that illustrate their meaning. The last element was provided by Hans Mielich, a painter based in Munich, and the whole thing was published in a two-volume codex (the term used for a manuscript that binds together multiple items).

Unfortunately, the CD booklet does not include any reproductions from this codex, which is held at the Bavarian State Library. Here’s one breathtaking example: (click on this link).

The music is just as richly appointed, and Singphoniker – plus special guests soprano Helene Grabitzky and countertenor Andreas Pehl – show off its magnificence with clear, ethereal singing. The voices are superbly blended and the phrasing gives a continuous sense of motion.

Although Lassus wrote hundreds of short works like madrigals, moresche, and psalms, he also received many commissions for larger-scale pieces. His surviving setting of the St. Matthew Passion rivals Bach’s for gorgeous and dramatic polyphony (no new recordings, but the 1994 Harmonia Mundi disc with Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices is spectacular). More commonly, he wrote Masses. There was a constant need for new musical versions of that often-used liturgical material.

On Decca Eloquence’s Lassus: Choral Music, two renowned British choruses join forces to present four of Lassus’ Masses plus a few motets. Stephen Cloebury conducts the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and Simon Preston leads the Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford. This is a rerelease of recordings from 1996.

The sound and style could not be more different from Singphoniker’s. Nowadays, when early-music historical performance practice influences every attempt at music written before 1800 (and sometimes these days, music before 1900), it’s surprising to hear a Renaissance work presented with a massive choral sound. Very 1960s. But there’s no denying the power of two great choirs singing great compositions under the direction of two great conductors. At the risk of being trite, the atmosphere seems to pulse with a throng of angels singing. Crank up the volume, and you’ll see what I mean.

Lassus would have gotten chills.

Header image courtesy of Wikipedia/public domain.

In my previous articles, I have alluded to the fact that there are many factors that determine the sound quality of an LP. The quality of the original recording is of course an important factor, but in my experience, different releases of the same recording on LP can sound very different, and even individual LPs within the same release can sound different. This is because the act of cutting what has been recorded on tape (or digital file) onto lacquer often involves compromises, and the priorities of the mastering engineer, as well as his/her skill and experience will affect the end result. Many audiophiles believe that LPs should only be produced by an all-analog chain. I won’t get into an argument over this point, but only say that I have heard some absolutely fabulous LPs that were cut from digital materials, and of course, plenty of horrible-sounding LPs cut from analog sources.

The number of old recordings being reissued on LPs nowadays is truly staggering, and the few remaining mastering engineers still active, such as Kevin Gray, are even busier now than back in the heyday of LPs during the 1960s and 1970s. The number of new LP reissues is limited only by the availability of mastering engineers, lacquer disks and record presses, as the demand seems insatiable. This is surprising, since there are still probably billions of old LPs sitting in second hand stores and people’s homes. These new reissues are not cheap, starting at around $30, with some special editions aimed at audiophiles, such as Mobile Fidelity’s Ultradisc One-Step LPs, costing over $100 each. (My MoFi LPs were all made in the 1980s.)

I have already mentioned the Electric Recording Company (ERC) LPs (in a previous article), produced with a complete tube mastering chain from the 1950s, that now cost over $500 each. Many audiophiles swear by some of the new reissues, whereas many record collectors believe that only the original releases are worth having. This has kept prices high for old LPs, sometimes in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Some prominent bloggers and vloggers of both camps have become so adversarial towards each other that normal politesse and decorum have been thrown out of the window. You can search for some of these videos on YouTube. Who is correct? Record collectors and used-record dealers have an obvious financial incentive to sing the praises of rare old LPs, whereas people involved in the reissue business have the same motivation to do the opposite.

There are arguments to support both sides. The original releases were cut just after the master tapes had been freshly made, and magnetic tapes do deteriorate over time, especially some old formulations. Moreover, the original producers and artists would have been involved in the whole process of producing the original releases, potentially making the sound more “genuine.” Some audiophiles also prefer the sound of tube equipment, the primary reason given by the owner of ERC for his effort to restore and maintain his ancient equipment. On the other hand, it is hard to believe that technology has not improved in the last 50 years. Modern reissues are produced in much smaller quantities, with more care and attention to detail. They are often produced with audiophiles in mind, which might or might not be a good thing. In my experience, most of the time, a modern reissue LP remastered by one of the reputable engineers will sound better than a random original LP, but you can also find original LPs that beat the pants off the reissues if you look hard enough.

Contrary to popular belief, the initial full-price releases from the major labels are not necessarily better than the later mid-price or even budget-price reissues. I have many Decca Treasury reissues that sound better than the original SXLs, and the same is true for RCA Living Stereo and their Victrola reissues. The vaunted matrix number (the number etched into the black space between the record label), which collectors rely on for valuation, is not a reliable guide to sound quality either. The only sure way to know is to buy many copies of an LP and grade the quality of each by ear, or buy from a dealer that grades (and prices) the LPs they sell by sound quality, such as Better Records.

I have been into open-reel tapes for more than 20 years, initially as a means of making live recordings at a time when good digital recording equipment was expensive, and professional analog tape recorders were cheap. Now, it is the exact opposite. Over the years, I have got into the circle of tape enthusiasts and collectors, which is quite separate from the audiophile and record collector circles. The former are mostly people involved in the recording business, usually ex-engineers, who have built up a collection of master tapes. The provenance of the tapes is very important. The original session tapes (edited work parts) are rarely available, since the studios tend to hold on to these zealously (or not so zealously, judging by what happened at Universal Studios). There are exceptions, and I know some people who have acquired the original masters from Westminster Records and Elite Recordings of New York, both of which made amazing-sounding recordings. Production masters, which are often directly copied from the original masters by the studios, are the next-best thing, but they are hard to come by as well. The studios also made safety masters, which are basically back-up copies, usually from the original master or the production master. These are also of the highest quality, and multiple copies usually exist. Some of these were disposed of when the labels digitalized their archives, usually taken home by employees and then finding their way into collections.

The labels have sent many distribution copies over the years to mastering studios around the world, and these have sometimes found their way to eBay and the like. Many of these came from Eastern European countries. Jugoton in the former Yugoslavia, for example, licensed many recordings from the West for release in the Eastern Bloc, and the tape library got disbursed during the dissolution of the former Communist country. I also know someone who acquired a large collection from the state-owned studio in former East Germany. The collection contained a large number of releases from Deutsche Grammophon between the 1950s and 1970s, and many Decca recordings as well. Melodiya in Russia also represents a rich source of high-quality recordings, and many of these were released in the West by EMI.

Depending on how many times these distribution masters have been used for mastering, some of these tapes might be quite worn. Copies that were professionally made by the labels or mastering studios usually lose very little in terms of sound quality, and even fourth- or fifth-generation tapes can sound amazing, especially when compared to LPs, which require many more steps during the production process.

Starting from the early 1970s, many master tapes were Dolby encoded. In my experience, these tapes tend to lose a bit of transparency compared to the earlier tapes, but this could also be due to the early transistor equipment of the era. I tend to prefer early stereo tapes made with tube equipment from the late 1950s to the late 1960s.

Commercial pre-recorded open reel tapes were available from the early 1950s until the mid-1970s, when the compact cassette tape took over, but they were always niche items and expensive back in those days. I have seen pre-recorded tapes in 15 ips format released by several specialized Japanese labels as late as the early 1980s. The Tape Project managed to reach agreement with several music labels to release tape copies in the early 2000s and started a trend. There are now several legitimate sources for high quality pre-recorded tapes from the major labels, as well as more than a dozen smaller labels that are releasing tapes of their own recordings. The quality of these tapes tend to be more consistent than reissue LPs, since directly copying master tapes is more straightforward than remastering LPs. It is just a matter of making sure the machines and the source tapes are in top condition. Some major labels, notably Decca and Mercury, are still reluctant to license their recordings for fear of piracy, even though it is far easier to copy a digital file or even an SACD.

Audiophiles who are serious about analog sound really should experience the sound of master tapes, for this represents the ultimate level of sound quality possible. Yes, the cost is high, but as a group, audiophiles are not known to be shy about spending money, even on things that are of dubious utility. Cables, no matter the cost, cannot reduce the distortion and the compression inherent on your LPs. Most people don’t realize their LPs sound compressed or distorted until they hear the original recording on tape. I have heard comments such as, “why on earth did HP put this recording on his Super Disc LP list?” This is because the LP of the recording you have heard does not do justice to the recording! Therefore, I would like to reevaluate the merits of some famous recordings by going straight to the source.

Granted, even if the tape sounds good, it does not mean you will be able to find an LP that sounds good, because in some cases, it is just extremely difficult to make a good LP. Some classical works are of a length that is practically impossible to fit onto one side of an LP without compromising the sound. The solution would be to chop the piece or the movement into two, but this is obviously unsatisfactory from a musical point of view. This is the most obvious advantage of digital. With tape, I can fit 33 minutes onto a 10-1/2-inch reel at 15 ips, which is usually sufficient for classical music, or 48 minutes if I use thin tape or a 12-inch reel when necessary. The thinner tape might lose about 1 dB in signal to noise ratio, and has a higher risk of stretching and print through, but the tradeoff is very small.

In my last article (Issue 164), I mentioned a new source for legitimate tape copies of EMI recordings. The Italian magazine Audiophile Sound (http://www.audiofileshop.com/en/) is releasing three EMI recordings on tape, and I have already discussed the mono Callas recording. The other two are stereo recordings. Here is some information on these tapes, which was provided by the magazine’s editor, Pierre Buldoc.

Maria Meneghini Callas Sings Operatic Arias, Audiophile Sound reel-to-reel tape cover.

“As far as the three titles are concerned, the masters are all on 1/4-inch tape. Abbey Road [Studios], using a Studer A80, duplicates for us, [with] flat [EQ] and back-to-back, the original masters (edited work parts on 1/4-inch tape) onto another Studer A80, this time, however, equipped with 1/2-inch  tape heads. Like this, we lose very little in the making of our production master, maybe 1 dB. The production master on 1/2-inch tape therefore becomes our master and is then played back on an Ampex ATR 102 which then sends the signal straight to the duplicating recorder, another Studer A 80, this time modified by the late Tim de Paravicini. Cabling is all by Yamamura.”

There is a choice of copying the recordings onto the RTM (Recording the Masters brand) SM900 studio mastering tape, or their thinner LPR90 long-play tape, which will save a little bit of money and space. The customer can also choose between IEC/CCIR or NAB equalization. For 15 ips, I prefer IEC/CCIR.

I can verify that the tapes are of very low generation, since the tape hiss is extremely low even for the ancient Callas recording, and the sound is very transparent. Based on my descriptions above, the tapes that customers receive are of a lower generation that what was normally used for cutting lacquers in the old days.

Image from catalog included with Maria Meneghini Callas Sings Operatic Arias. Courtesy of International Audiophile Recording Ltd, UK.

I want to add a bit of information about the Callas tape. The recording was made in September 1954 at Watford Town Hall, an excellent recording venue. It was made on a ¼-inch one-track recorder running at 30 ips. The higher speed tends to limit low-frequency extension, but this is not a problem for the soprano voice. Having re-listened since my last article, I can confirm that the sound is very transparent, with excellent presence and impressive dynamics.

Maria Callas and Giovanni Battista Meneghini, her husband and manager.

The other two currently-available titles are in stereo. The Rossini Overtures with Carlo Maria Giulini conducting London’s Philhamonia Orchestra is not a well-known recording, and there is only one modern reissue on 45 rpm LPs. The recording was made in 1962 and 1964 at Kingsway Hall by Douglas Larter on 1/4-inch tape running at 15 ips and the LP was first issued on SAX2560 in 1965. The most famous Rossini overtures recording is the Decca SXL2266 with Pierino Gamba conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, and these two recordings have three pieces in common, including The Thieving Magpie, the William Tell Overture, and Semiramide. The other two pieces on the EMI tape are Tancredi and Cinderella. The sound of the EMI tape is very transparent with lovely highs and impressive dynamics. However, the low end is a bit anemic compared to the many Decca Kingsway Hall recordings I am familiar with. This gives the overall sound a more lightweight presentation. The depth of the soundstage also seems a bit flatter than the best Decca recordings.

Rossini Overtures, Audiophile Sound reel-to-reel tape cover.

I examined several more EMI tapes from different sources and I can confirm the general impression that the EMI sound is flatter and more lightweight than that of Decca (or Mercury for that matter). I wonder if this was deliberate, since the Kingsway Hall acoustics were very favorable for the low frequencies. This presentation in no way detracts from the enjoyment of the recording, and in fact works well with this music, where excessive low frequencies can make the music sound heavy and ponderous. The performance is incisive and idiomatic, as one would expect from this brilliant maestro. The Philharmonia was considered one of the best orchestras in the world at that time, and this is clearly evident in this recording. The Gamba recording was made in Walthamstow Town Hall, another great venue, by the celebrated Kenneth Wilkinson. I do not have a tape of this recording, and I prefer the sound of the EMI tape to my Speakers Corner-reissued Gamba LP, which has distortions in several places.

Above: original tape boxes for Rossini Overtures. Courtesy of International Audiophile Recording Ltd, UK.

The other stereo tape is the famous Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli recording of the Ravel Piano concerto in G and the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto. No. 4 The original recording was made at Abbey Road’s Studio One in 1957 by Christopher Parker, widely considered the best recording engineer at EMI. Mysterious and aristocratic, Michelangeli was as elusive as he was brilliant. His public performances were infrequent, and he was known for cancelling concerts. He did not make many studio recordings, and much of his discography comes from live concerts and broadcasts. The original LP (ASD255) of this recording is rare and expensive, and you should expect to pay at least $200 for a decent example. I have the SXLP reissue from 1974, which some listeners find preferable to the original ASD, but I find the sound quality nothing to write home about. The tape is something else altogether. It has a fuller and warmer low end than the Rossini recording, with the transparency and tonal qualities I usually associate with recordings from the vacuum tube era.

Michelangeli, Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 4 in G Minor and Ravel Concerto in G Major reel-to-reel tape cover.

This recording leaves one in no doubt of Michelangeli’s technical prowess (he was Maurizio Pollini’s teacher, after all), as the Rachmaninoff concerto is very difficult indeed, but it is the delicacy and elegance of his playing that fully reflect his aristocratic disposition. Rachmaninoff’s second and third piano concertos are far more frequently performed and recorded, but Michelangeli was a great champion of the Fourth, and with good reason. In his hands and under the baton of Ettore Gracis, there is a great deal of excitement as well as the composer’s trademark romanticism. After hearing this performance, one cannot but be convinced of its place in the pantheon of great concertos.

The Ravel Piano Concerto in G is one of my favorite pieces (as are most Ravel compositions). The opening movement never sounds rushed or frenzied, as it can be under the hands of lesser mortals. Control is perfect throughout, the phrasing and rubato as natural as breathing and never sounding forced or contrived. The master’s use of subtle micro-dynamic contrasts are best reflected on tape, as I find some of the finer details are obscured in the LP. The adagio movement is some of the most beautiful music ever written, and on first listening, Michelangeli’s playing can sound surprisingly cool. The reason is because he never makes abrupt changes in dynamics and tempo, or takes excessive liberty with rubato. However, it takes intent listening to bring out the subtle and refined shaping of the phrases and the fine dynamic shading that make the experience utterly mesmerizing. And I always find myself listening much more intently while playing tape, perhaps because there is just so much more detail than any other medium. This experience reminds me of the last time I heard this piece performed live at a concert in France with Jean-Yves Thibaudet on the piano, and I was transported once more to the venue, which was the Chateau de Clos de Vougeot in Burgundy.

The jazz-inspired final movement is full of excitement, and Michelangeli shows that he can do excitement as well as anyone. The long, sweeping runs are executed with laser-like precision and clarity, and again, nothing sounds hurried or frenzied. After listening to this performance, I can understand why he has a god-like aura amongst pianists.

The cost is 200 Euros for each album, which is a considerable sum when one can get a reissued LP for one-fifth the price. On the other hand, the tape is guaranteed to sound closer to the original performance than any other medium, including the original LP, which sells for far more in the case of the Michelangeli. And for me, time is the most valuable commodity, so why waste it on inferior-sounding LPs when something better is available?

Custom EQ50 tube equalizers at Abbey Road Studios, used in the production of the Audiophile Sound reissues. Courtesy of International Audiophile Recording Ltd, UK.

Header image: Maria Callas in 1960, photo © by Ken Veeder, courtesy of International Audiophile Recording Ltd, UK.