Issue 29

The March meeting of the River City Audio Society in San Antonio, Texas took place at longtime dealer, Bjorn’s. The system this month included a Threshold Stasis amplifier, Audible Illusions preamp, Sony SACD player, modified Denon turntable, Spatial Hologram open-baffle speakers, and a PS Audio P5 Power Plant AC power regenerator. A last minute set of Magneplanar speakers completed quite a lineup! All components were brought in by our members except for the Power Plant, which was loaned by PS. We have not had the same system twice in over six years, which has been a lot of fun. Our equipment manager Matt is responsible for assembling the systems.

Last month we used another product that “cleaned up”AC power but was not a regenerator. It was quite interesting, did help, and we all debated the amount of difference the device provided.This month we really were anxious to hear how a true “regenerator:” would affect the music. I would say the results were conclusive. The starting power line distortion was measured of course, and the number of 2.8 was reduced to .02. This difference had immediate impact on the bass and sound field (in my opinion). Digital also responded more noticeably than did analog, although both were improved. Again, to me the bass was cleaner, tighter and the most improved aspect of performance. Our modest club meeting area is not the same as a home setup so I think we may not have heard the full capability of the unit. Regardless, eyes were opened as members learned a bit about how important good clean power is for their systems and enjoyment of music.

The RCAS was founded in 2011, and is a diverse group of music and audio enthusiasts  representing a wide range of musical tastes and equipment preferences. Our membership includes audio equipment reviewers, audio engineers, retired military, audiophiles, videophiles, professional musicians, teachers, audio salesmen, and audio enthusiasts. We enjoy discussing music and good equipment in a relaxing environment.  Every member is valued for his or her unique perspective and their musical and equipment preferences.

We have meetings monthly, usually on the afternoon of the third Saturday. Our regular meeting location is at Bjorn’s Audio Video in their conference area. Meeting dates and venues are announced on the club website; in addition to our regular meetings, we also host social events such as a summer BBQ and a Christmas party.

Meetings follow the format of: general club business, news, guest presenters, and technical topics/equipment comparisons. We identify each piece of equipment used during our meeting, and as said earlier, have not repeated a system in over five years! We devote at least half of each meeting to music listening, appreciation, and discussion. Members provide the music.

The success of our group is due to the fact that the RCAS truly is a member-supported club: everyone is encouraged to assist with equipment, music, presentations, room setup, and whatever else is needed. Join us today, and we’ll help each other reach even greater heights in the enjoyment of this rewarding hobby!

—Bob Guerin, Co-Founder, River City Audio Society
godzilla56@sbcglobal.net

[We invite audio societies to send us announcements of upcoming meetings and reports of recent meetings. Pictures help! Just send to us via the email link at the top of this page. —Ed.]

’ But they do, oh they do. And they crush it, every time. The three-man band appears to communicate during shows through some visceral language which only a Cerberus could understand. As I return to this album time after time, it continues to reveal new little moments and nuance that I didn’t pick up on previous listens. Highly recommended, and worth the effort. Favorite Side and Tracks of the album: Side B 4. "The Alps & Their Orange Evergreen" 5. "Set 'Em Free, Pt. 1" 6. "Gravelly Mountains Of The Moon" httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=862ggp_4iwg

Much has been made of the decline in number of independent audio retailers; blame for the phenomenon generally falls upon Amazon and big box stores like Best Buy. We commented upon the phenomenon with the cover cartoon of our very first issue of Copper, and managed to ruffle a few feathers.

But what if there’s another phenomenon at play? What if there are just too many stores out there, period?

Having assiduously avoided working in retail my whole adult life, I stumbled upon some stats which caught me by surprise. The United States has double the retail space per capita of the next country on the list, the United Kingdom. The numbers are not completely up to date, but the relationships remain the same: the US has nearly 50 square feet of retail space for each of our 319 million folks. The UK has about 23 sq ft per person, for their population of 64 million. Other countries have far, far less:  Canada has 13 sq ft per person; Australia has half that, at 6.5 sf. Further down the list, India has only 2 sq ft per person; Mexico, only 1.5 sq ft per person.

As is always the case, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and can result in incorrect conclusions. I could find no comprehensive list which includes every major developed country, and the inability to find stats for Japan and China is particularly maddening.

Having said that, anyone visiting New York, San Francisco or any of several gentrifying cities will quickly arrive at the question: just how many Sephora stores does the world need? How many can the world support?

For many retail chains, the answer to both questions is an embarrassed, “umm, not as many as we thought.” As seen in these pieces from Time, The Motley Fool,  and Forbes, many major retailers have had to trim back their operations by closing stores—in the cases of Sports Authority, American Apparel and The Limited, all once booming and prosperous, closing ALL their stores.

Buh-bye. Last one to leave, turn out the lights, okay?

Even the ubiquitous drugstore Walgreen’s is closing down locations. Retail leaders Sears and JC Penney, geared to the needs of the middle class, find their very existence in question following post-recession  downturns in middle class incomes, allied with some remarkably boneheaded business decisions (like Sears buying Kmart and JCP choosing an ex-Apple guru to guide them).  In its latest 10-K filing with the SEC, Sears admitted what many have said for years: “Our historical operating results indicate substantial doubt exists related to the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.” Yes, Sears—SEARS—just said they might be doomed. The company that defined retail selling in America might be going goodbye.

As usual, there is a contrarian contingent. In an interesting piece from The Atlantic, Amanda Kolson Hurley points out that ,”If 3.4 percent of malls are dying, then 96.6 percent of them aren’t.” She also quotes another writer “asking a longtime worker at a dying mall in Dallas where all the customers had gone. ‘Better malls,’ she said.”

Those are remarkably reasonable points, rarities in a topic rife with hysterical pronouncements. Hurley’s conclusion is also reasonable: shoppers are more pressed for time than ever, have less money than ever, and are forced to combine their required shopping with their recreational time. Therefore, the stores or malls which offer not just needed items but an experience to boot—will survive, and perhaps even thrive.

And indeed, stores in an unexpected sector appear to be thriving. Home Depot may be closing stores, but small, independent hardware stores are doing very well. There is an experiential aspect to visiting a century-old store with a depth of stock that allows them to match the hardware of the Queen Anne cottage you’re restoring—and there’s the aspect of experience, as well. One store owner was quoted in the linked article as saying, “we give you more expert knowledge versus somebody who just moved from the paint section to the grill section and is now in charge of the plants” —obviously slamming the type of help one might find at Home Depot.

What might all this mean for audio stores?

I would suggest that the twin forms of experience are needed to thrive: first, going to the store has to be fun, and entertaining—which is why we’ve seen new audio stores open up which have coffee bars, listening lounges, or record stores attached. Second, the audio specialist has to have specialist knowledge. Like the staff in a small hardware store, they’ll need to be able to really help folks. In the case of audio, the sales staff bloody well better know more than the average Best Buy blue-shirt.

Start with that, work to be a part of your community, and become known in the larger audio community outside your local audience. All this seems pretty obvious to me…but I’m a marketing guy. And admittedly, I’m not risking my own money in the brick and mortar world.

I appreciate those who do bet on themselves, and bring their professional expertise to a local audience. Best of luck to them all!

Your Questions – My Answers, continued

Continuing our look at some of the most discussed topics/questions at my audio seminars – (Example – RMAF 2010 – relevant topics begin at 10:37) –

 

Reader Hoytamundo selected this topic:

Why you need to have an audio system “road map”

This is a true story, and although it’s not about audio at first, it’s completely applicable… I was an assistant buyer in a (high-end) clothing shop for young men when I was in college. I came to love men’s clothing, but as time went by and I left that city, I rarely kept up with the latest trends.

When I was running my audio shop, I got to know the folks across the street at the city’s top men’s clothing store. This shop always had the coolest looking items. “Going across the street” became a constant temptation. Here’s where I made my mistake:

Twice a year, as the seasons were changing, this shop would have a sale. Their clothing was very expensive, so the sale prices held a special attraction for me. Plus, those guys were clients of mine, so I felt obligated. 🙂

Naturally, I would always go over to visit during the sale. I’d usually find one or more things that looked fabulous. The price was right, so I’d purchase them.

After about five or six years of doing this (twice per year), I had some really nice, fairly new clothing items in my closet. But then, at some point in time, I realized that I hardly ever wore most of the things I had bought on sale. 🙁

The next time I ventured across the street to the clothing shop, I looked for the fellow who always helped me. He was exceptionally gifted in his field, and I trusted him completely. But I hadn’t really taken full advantage of his expertise because I usually went in and bought the good deals.

I told him about the fact that I had so many items that I loved, but that I hardly used. Could he tell me why that happened?

He told me something that was especially impacting, because I had always insisted on doing it for all of my audio clients. Except that I had never thought of its application to ME! And he gave it a name…

He said that my problem was that I didn’t have a Road Map for my wardrobe. He said that if I would allow him, he could help me be sure not to waste any more money on great deal impulse items that were incorrect for my needs.

We set an appointment, and one night after both of our shops closed, he and his wife met Pam and me at his shop. We went through all of my clothing. He pointed out the items that were classic and were usable as a foundation for future coordinated purchases.

We identified a not-so-small stack of items that would be perfect for someone else, but made no sense at all for me. Sadly, almost all of that stack was comprised of items that I had bought “on sale” at his shop.

The Road Map that we established that evening for where I needed to go with future clothing purchases made a HUGE difference. Most items that I purchased using the Road Map are still in my closet and I wear them today, over twenty years later!

You ask, “How is this related to audio?” Here’s how:

Over the years, I’ve met countless audiophiles who had done with their audio systems what I had done with clothes. They bought something at a good price because of the “deal,” not because it was on their Road Map for where they should take their music system.  They had succumbed to a purchase impulse driven by price.  BTW – I am not saying that such an impulse is necessarily wrong.  If that “great deal” item is on your Road Map, go for it!  Even so, if it is “down the road” in your planned order of things, and will not be fully appreciated yet for what it can do, you need to consider if you want to deplete your system funds to make that purchase.

This gets us back to deciding why you’re contemplating a purchase and knowing what area needs to be improved to make your system more musically involving. I recommend that, if you can find someone whom you trust, someone who deserves your trust because of their expertise, get with them to help you come up with a reasonable Road Map.

If you don’t have someone like that available, then step back and think about your goals and aspirations for your music system. Design your own audio system Road Map.

And then, if I should ever visit you, you won’t have to hear me ask, “Did you actually plan this system?”

Reader Audiomano selected these two:

Why you should remove unused speakers from your listening room or short/cover them

I ran a successful high-end audio store throughout the ’80s. One thing we always did was to remove all the speakers from the demo room except for the pair that was being played.

I’m not sure when I first started doing this, but it had been quite a while before the Linn guys came around, touting “single-speaker demo-rooms.” But their visit encouraged my staff to continue doing demos this way, even though it was much more work.

Although I knew it was better sounding – if for no other reason than there is usually one optimum location for the speakers in a demo room, and all others will suffer by comparison. Plus, a single speaker demo is less confusing for the client.  Although I intuitively knew to do it, I had never actually listened to a comparison demo with extra, unused speakers in the room, versus only the pair being used.

The Linn guys showed us that the extra, unused speakers in the room caused a reduction of dynamics, and a loss of “tunefulness.” It was almost as if the notes from the speakers on demo were slightly out of tune (using simple acoustic recordings), compared to the same source playing with only one pair of speakers in the room.

So if you should happen to be storing some unused speakers in your listening room, get them out of there!

If your situation requires that they remain in the room, there are some steps you can take that will help:

-Hook up a jumper wire to short the + and – terminals.

-Cover them or lay them face down if possible. If they’re ported, cover up the port as well.

-If the extra speakers are hooked up to some amplifier (such as a multi-channel surround amplifier), turn that amp on, but turn the volume all the way down. The idea is to keep the driver voice coils of the speakers that you are listening to centered as best you can, in one way or another.

Believe me, you don’t want those unused drivers to zag when your main speakers zig…

 Why you shouldn’t place equipment or furniture between your speakers

I’m always amazed when I see demos at dealer showrooms or at places like CES and the dealer or exhibitor—who should know better—has his equipment rack between the speakers, even if it’s against the wall and the speakers are into the room a bit.

The most obvious issue is the compromising of a believable soundstage. Reflections off the cabinet, even if it’s a couple of feet behind the plane of the speakers, will damage some of the inherent time arrival information encoded into your recordings.

This is a major factor in producing an excellent acoustic wave launch – or not.  It has a major impact on the sense of Presence – IMO, one of the Top Three major factors in musical involvement.  It’s easily addressed, even in homes where the resident design person won’t allow the speakers to be brought forward into the room.  But this is a topic for another time, if there are any questions.

Then there’s the distraction issue. It’s hard to suspend your disbelief if you’re looking at a rack of components with their lights in your face!

Keep those questions coming!

 

Note, these answers are edited versions of topics from Get Better Sound and the companion Quarter Notes newsletters.

If you would like to submit a topic for discussion, you can find the list from Copper #26 here.
You can also read Jim’s work at his website, www.getbettersound.com   

We lost James Cotton on Thursday, March 16, 81 years old.  The last breath of a monster harp player with the power of an airplane engine was taken by pneumonia.  Weird.

Cotton met Sonny Boy Williamson II, called by some the Father of the Modern Blues Harp, when Cotton was a boy (that shit just ain’t fair).  Cotton used to claim Williamson took him in but that story later turned out to be false.  But James did play with Sonny Boy’s band enough that he learned the style and the percussive nature of Williamson’s playing.  Sonny Boy left the business for a minute for an ex-wife when Cotton was a teenager and left the keys to the band in the young lad’s hands, but Cotton was too young and Williamson had taught him too much about girls and liquor for him to control a grown up band.  But here’s a little about what Sonny Boy II taught Cotton.

 

In the early 50’s, Cotton being maybe 17 years old played with Howlin Wolf, and in 1955 at 20 years of age Muddy Waters came looking for him and hired him on with his band.  This was amazing enough given his age, but also because Muddy already had Little Walter in his band, who along with Sonny Boy is often called the Father of the Modern Blues Harp and in my opinion the granddad of power harp.  Cotton definitely learned well, showing Little Walter’s power style in his own.  Here’s a 50’s recording by Little W that showcases what Cotton was listening to as a very young man.

 

Shiver me timbers.

Muddy Waters was a shit heel as a person but he was certainly a blues god and man he could put a band together.  Cotton and Walter shared harp duties (loved to have seen THAT band live) until Walter left in 1957 to pursue a solo career and Cotton took the lead.  To keep from being called the Father of the Modern Blues Harp, James Cotton became Mr. Superharp.

Harp players and true blues enthusiasts know Sonny Boy and Little Walter but Cotton became the harp man in my generation because the dude played with EVERYBODY, so no matter what you were listening to the dude kept popping up.  He toured with some of the best blues and rock bands as either a member or with his band opening.  Besides all the blues players he backed or fronted like Muddy, Howlin, Sonny Boy, Hubert Sumlin, Billy Boy Arnold, B.B. King, Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith, Paul Butterfield, Johnny Winter and Taj Mahal; he played with Elvin Bishop, Mike Bloomfield, Joe Bonamassa, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Freddie King, Steve Miller, Keith Richards, Todd Rundgren, Santana, and Johnny Winter.  (Yeah, I put Johnny in twice.  More on Himself another day).  Cotton was one workin blues man.

Of course it helped that he was around for so damn long.  Here’s a recording from 2013.  You can hear Little Walter in there, but Cotton had his own style.  His bending and runs, and warbles are unmistakable Cotton Mouth.  77 years old and the dude could still breathe.

Yeah.  And that’s Joe Bonamassa on the guitar.  Tasty.  Another corn hole but a full on sweet picker.

This is an old story now but we started listening to bluesmen like Muddy, B.B. and Cotton when Eric Clapton, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones told us to.  I remember very well being disappointed at first, thinking the music was repetitive and not as rocking as the guys I was listening to.  I have no excuse.  Early dementia.  But I came around.

See the boys from across the pond discovered the blues and it took them to rock.  Those encounters, those early Sun and Chess records, were found by teens that were used to skiffle, a particularly tidy, uncluttered music and the raw energy of what Muddy Waters and B.B. King were up to, blew up their world.  We discovered rock and it blew up our world but sometimes got lost tracking it back.  Not all of us.  I had friends who got it and kept me at it.  But I was really pointed to it later by my own son.  Before he was a teen I was pushing Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin and he was a staunch Metallica fan so most of the fencing was about that dynamic.  Then one day, when he was maybe 12, he watched a documentary on Stevie Ray Vaughn and I heard the top of his head peeling off from upstairs.  He came bounding into the kitchen.  This also happened a year earlier when he heard me listening to Duke Ellington.

“Why the heck didn’t you tell me about THIS stuff!”  Uh, I was busy.  Oh yeah, Stevie Ray.  He died the year you were born and he was a beast.  The kid’s first inkling that maybe Pops ain’t all that.  Dean followed back down the path from rock to blues with a passion, dredging up the Kings, Blind Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Little Walter, etc.   Dean has a more astute and grasping musical mind than mine so he got it.  And he dragged me into the pool.  Thanks buddy.

In the 70’s we used to see the James Cotton Blues Band play the Shaboo Inn in CT.  The Shaboo was a great venue, large enough for bands like Cotton, NRBQ (!!!) and Roomful of Blues but intimate enough for John Hartford and Roy Buchanan (whom I saw play by himself in a chair with a hollow body guitar and a small Fender tube amp).   They were all great but Cotton, man he raised the roof in that old barn.   Here’s a vid of him at the Shaboo from sometime in the 70’s, with Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy.  Cotton and one tenor sax could sound like a whole horn section.  Check out how close the audience is.  Imagine sitting that close to this guy.

 

In a 2013 Rolling Stone interview he was asked why he never retired and he answered “You work so hard to get it that once you get it, you don’t want to let it go, because at that point, it’s yours.  You paid the price for it, and it’s yours.”

And then you gave it to us.  Thanks, and rest in peace.  Say hi to the boys for us.  Gotsta be some crazy jam sessions going on up there.

General Wireless Operations Inc. Commences Voluntary Chapter 11 Proceeding

[As you can imagine, it’s not good when a press-release reads like a legal document.  Radio Shack came out of bankruptcy a couple years ago, and now the trimmed-down private company is heading back in, and closing a number of stores. For techies of a certain age, this is sad news—but neither the market nor the Shack are what they used to be. —–Ed.]

RadioShack Website and Stores Currently Operating and Serving Customers; Selected Stores Will Close in the Coming Month

Company Looks to Preserve Jobs with Transition Agreement with Sprint Corporation

FORT WORTH, Texas, March 8, 2017- General Wireless Operations Inc. (“RadioShack” or “the Company”), doing business as RadioShack, the neighborhood electronics convenience store, today announced that the Company filed voluntary petitions under Chapter 11 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (“the Court”).

RadioShack.com, stores and dealer locations across the country are still currently open for business and serving customers. The Company is closing approximately 200 stores and evaluating options on the remaining 1,300. The Company and its advisors are currently exploring all available strategic alternatives to maximize value for creditors, including the possibility of keeping stores open on an ongoing basis.

“For nearly 100 years, RadioShack has proudly served local communities across the United States, offering consumers unique, high-quality products at a great value,” said Dene Rogers, RadioShack’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Over the course of the past two years, our talented, dedicated team has worked relentlessly in an effort to revitalize the Company and the RadioShack brand, while providing outstanding service to our customers. We greatly appreciate their hard work and dedication.”

He continued, “Since emerging from bankruptcy two years ago as a privately owned company, our team has made progress in stabilizing operations and achieving profitability in the retail business, while our partner Sprint managed the mobility business. In 2016, we reduced operating expenses by 23%, while at the same time saw gross profit dollars increase 8%. Over the same time, we integrated FedEx pickup / drop-off into 140 RadioShack locations, delivered to customers over 700,000 Hulu login pins and sold more than a million RadioShack private brand headphones and speakers delivering high quality, value- based audio products to consumers across the country. However, for a number of reasons, most notably the surprisingly poor performance of mobility sales, especially over recent months, we have concluded that the Chapter 11 process represents the best path forward for the Company. We will continue to work with our advisors and stakeholders to preserve as many jobs as possible while maximizing value for our creditors.”

About RadioShack

RadioShack, the neighborhood electronics convenience store, is a leading national retailer of innovative personal and home technology products and services, and power supply needs. Founded in 1921, RadioShack is owned today by General Wireless Operations Inc., which acquired the storied brand in April 2015. The new RadioShack has over 1,500 company-owned stores, including 1,200 Sprint Stores at RadioShack, and 425 independent dealers located nationwide.

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Sonos Wins Suit Against Denon/D+M

[This is a little trickier than most newsbites, as there’s been no press-release issued on this subject, only reporting through news outlets.  In 2014 Sonos filed suit against Denon and its parent company D&M Holdings, alleging that Denon’s Heos distributed sound products infringed upon a number of key Sonos patents. As often happens in such cases, D&M counter-filed, alleging that Sonos’ patents (pertaining to design elements like remote volume controls) were in fact devoted to “ineligible subject matter”—meaning that patents had been granted to technology that was unpatentable.

The judge ruled that Sonos’ patents were valued, thus throwing out D&M’s countersuit. Even after 2 1/2 years in litigation, this is far from done, as Sonos continues to pursue final judgment and damages. Another wrench in the works is that D&M Holdings/D+M was recently purchased by the Sound United group, as reported in Copper #28—and the new owners will likely have a say in how the case proceeds.

A summary of the case can be found here, including a link to Judge Richard G. Andrews’ Memorandum Opinion. A news story detailing the circuitous trail of litigation can be found here.–-Ed.]

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Which Terry Riley?

I first heard A Rainbow in Curved Air before I heard Steve Reich, but I didn’t identify the album as being a part of anything, except the great exploratory music of the time. It was only retroactively that I heard it that way. But Riley is very much a progenitor of both Reich and Glass — though he rarely stays in one place.

It’s so hard to pin Riley down that I would have chosen NOT to write about him, but for a sense of obligation to the form. Not that I don’t love his works —- I do. It’s just very hard to know what to say. You begin near the beginning and who knows where you end up? (And by now, you know whether what I’m writing about in these pieces on “minimalism” is for you or not.)

Riley is credited historically with the invention of this form of music on his famous album In C (CBS Masterworks MK-7178) in 1968. The form probably came out about simultaneously in a number of places, and the circles I hang out in correctly attribute it to La Monte Young, if to any one person. But “In C” (1964) was the first “popular” composition in the genre; its recording followed in ‘68[1].

The Wiki: “In C consists of 53 short, numbered musical phrases, lasting from half a beat to 32 beats; each phrase may be repeated an arbitrary number of times. Each musician has control over which phrase they play: players are encouraged to play the phrases starting at different times, even if they are playing the same phrase. In this way, although the melodic content of each part is predetermined, In C has elements of aleatoric music[2] to it. The performance directions state that the musical ensemble should try to stay within two to three phrases of each other. The phrases must be played in order, although some may be skipped. As detailed in some editions of the score, it is customary for one musician (“traditionally… a beautiful girl,” Riley notes in the score) to play the note C in repeated eighth notes, typically on a piano or pitched-percussion instrument (e.g. marimba). This functions as a metronome and is referred to as “The Pulse”[3]. Steve Reich introduced the idea of a rhythmic pulse to Riley, who accepted it, thus radically altering the original composition by Riley which had no rhythm.^”

It was worth reproducing that explanation in full because it’s hard to imagine now just how revolutionary “In C” would have been at the time. But Riley’s next CBS album was a near complete change of direction. A Rainbow in Curved Air / Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band is an album of two studio improvisations, using techniques and ideas found in the recordings of Bill Evans and in Hindustani music[4]. And you might like this music if you enjoy listening to north Indian music (or vice-versa). You also might not. It’s impossible to talk about improvisational music, so for a description of what’s here look at this Wikipedia article. 

I honestly can think of no way of conveying what’s on these recordings, except to say that they’re sumptuous; droning, but not; with frenetic elements, but also very still.

Rather than go through a number of albums individually, I want to leap decades into the future, and discuss his solo piano recordings a little. I saw him in an improvised solo recital in Philadelphia in 2008. This man can play — I mean really play. The closest comparison I can make is to McCoy Tyner; it’s not that the music is similar, but to watch someone have so much joy spilling out of their hands…

The Padova Concert[5], like The Harp of New Albion[6], presents improvisations on a piano tuned in just intonation — in the case of the Padova, a highly treated piano. But unlike other recordings, he uses accidentals all over the place. The result is highly strange — and for ME to say something is strange, well…

They take some adjusting to listen to; your ear has to be attuned to the new and the weird. But if you can make that aural leap, it pays off. (But be warned, they’re very different recordings, quality-wise. The Padua Concert is small and mono; The Harp of New Albion is sort of vast. Nonetheless, I think my preference is for the Padova record.)

Shortly after I saw Riley, my pal Henry Kaiser recommended The Lisbon Concert[7]. Now this is an album on the level of some of Keith Jarrett’s recordings, minus the gospel (and all on one tonic). It’s more closely miked than Jarrett’s, but it’s just as far ranging. It’s lyrical, it boogies, it pounds. Is this jazz? Is it new music? Do I care? No, it doesn’t sound like you’re in the audience, it sounds as if you’re living inside the piano. But, man, is it good.

Spend a little time with Riley, he goes so many places, there’s bound to be something that appeals.

[1]

 

[2] “Chance music”, or randomness

[3] Played on the CBS album by Jon Hassell’s first wife, Margaret. See how it all comes together?

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKg_R1W94G0

[5] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQVY1aiJEdS4_-DndUV-yJfxcZfEw9vJT

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmgWeioQoTU

[7]  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPOXq9rsiVPMenigOAjsHqC3Ip4lNzX7y  

There is a certain pleasure to be found in driving a vintage car. Many have a purity of purpose and directness of response that are absent in the overweight, safety-cage vehicles of the infotainment era.  On the other hand, practical concerns rear their ugly heads:  if I drive that 50 HP Beetle, can I merge into traffic without being obliterated by a semi? Or—having recently been through a wreck in which the airbags in my Saab deployed—how would the vintage Alfa I covet do, if that semi hit me? Would I live?

With blessedly few exceptions, such concerns don’t exist in our listening rooms…and if they exist in your listening room, you may want to re-think your domestic arrangements!  When it comes to using vintage gear, a few caps may need replacement in order for amps to work up to snuff, or speaker drivers may need new surrounds. Unless you’re dealing with some mad-scientist homebrew rig slewing kilovolts, your home stereo will probably not kill you. Probably.

There are folks who delight in refurbishing old gear, replacing those caps, gluing surrounds, cleaning up solder traces, filling the air with a cloud of Deoxit. Just to be clear: I am not one of those people.

As is the case with cars, I’m a really good diagnostician…but when it comes to hands-on repairs, things happen. Those one-in-a-million freak accidents become almost a certainty. So while I appreciate the joys of vintage gear, the putzing and fussing around is not a thrill for me. I like to come in after things have been brought up to snuff.

For the non-DIYer, then, what are the benefits of going vintage? There may be pride in owning something that took more effort to obtain than a readily-available new component. There may be a certain aesthetic satisfaction in the styling of older equipment, finding gear that blends into that mid-century modern home, rather than sticking out like that giant flatscreen does. There may be pleasure in the heft and mass of an old Sansui receiver, compared to today’s plasticky mass-market AV receivers. There may be pleasure in something that is simply built to last. Finally, as is often the case with vintage cars, there may be the fulfillment of a longtime lust, dating from the days of penniless teenagerhood.

Some combination of all those has led me to own half a ton of vintage speakers, ranging from the freakish and justifiably-rare (Plasmatronics) to the weird but wonderful (Spica Angelus) to big and brutish but kinda-mainstream (Altec Valencia). I admit that both the Spicas and Altecs appeal to my Eames loungechair-loving side, apart from their sound. There can be no such justification for the Plasmatronics, which look as though they barely escaped from the lab of a defense contractor…as was indeed the case. The Plas will never be daily-drivers; I approach them with them same wariness I’d have when firing up a large laser.

But: vintage electronics? No thanks. Not interested. There are enough excellent amps out today that I just don’t want to bother with old electronics, given my aversion to upkeep, tweaking, and so on. Yes, I can appreciate the joys of  vintage Marantz, Mac, H-K, Fisher, even Western Electric gear. I’ve owned them, and they can be lovely indeed.

But just as I would no longer tolerate a daily driver with a hand-choke or an iffy starter that required me to park on hills (both of which I lived with in my younger days), I want things to be enjoyable. And for me, part of that is just not having to worry about the equipment.

Your mileage may vary, of course. I envy those with enough zen in their makeup that they can build amps from scratch, or rebuild old gear. Maybe someday. Maybe when the memories of that wreck are farther in the past….

[ To get perfectly nerdy: if you drew a Venn diagram showing the overlap between metal fans and audiophiles, the union indicating common members would probably be tiny. And that’s a damn shame: both groups can be fanatical about music and sound quality. Jay Jay French may not be well-known to most audiophiles, but he is indeed a hardcore ‘phile: while traveling the world as a member of Twisted Sister, Jay Jay tracked down the most esoteric and obscure gear imaginable. He has stories about audio, the music biz, and pretty much everything else, and he will be sharing them in Copper. He mentions PS here only by way of intro—Ed.]

I first contacted Paul McGowan in 1987, seeking to upgrade my PS Audio 200c power amp to a 200cx. This upgrade was just the latest move in my lifelong search for the ‘holy grail’ audio experience.

Like me, most audiophiles could write an episode of “In Search Of….” I’m not sure how and when this group-think comprising of mostly males and beginning in the early to mid 1960’s, decided that the search for better audio would become a life-long obsession.  At some point I will list, if for no other reason than to establish my cred, the very long list of gear that I have owned since this all started with a Sony receiver and a pair of KLH 6’s in 1968.

Suffice to say that in 1984 I bought a pair of Acoustat 2+2’s and the PS Audio power amp at Sound by Singer in Manhattan, after having walked out of Lyric HiFi due to the a very rude and disrespectful salesman. At that time, my band, Twisted Sister, was at our commercial peak having dominated MTV and the national FM radio conscience with the songs “Were Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock”.

At that time both Stereophile and The Absolute Sound dominated my reading lists and, because of our worldwide fame, I was able to indulge my audio habit in many of the countries that we toured in.

While the other band members would make arrangements with the local promoters to visit nightclubs or strip joints on our days off, I wanted to go to the audio factories or shops that were located in or near the cities that we visited (and yes, I will be telling some of those stories in future issues of Copper).

I spent my afternoons in search of audio gear and because of my new found celebrity, there were people who were excited to for me to find it and buy it. I bought Koetsu cartridges and a Nakamichi Dragon in the funky back rooms of appliance stores in the Akihabara in Tokyo, bought a preamp during a visit to the Perreaux factory in New Zealand, and purchased Quad pre- & power amps with  B&W speakers in London.

I came back home after our first world tour with tales of audio purchases for my friends.

I was in audio heaven.

This is not exactly the Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll  story that you may have wanted to hear but….this is an audio magazine so get used to it…

This brings me back to my talking to Paul McGowan.

In 1987 Twisted Sister stopped performing live. In 1990, with the 200cx still rocking my system, I was driving through the west on a vacation. Paul had invited me to stop by and visit him and his family in Vail, Colorado— you know how those kind of phone conversations  go: “If you’re ever out my way, please come on over for dinner”….Like someone is really going to take you up on that…

Well, I did. My wife Janice and I spent a great evening with Paul & Terri.

It is now 27 years later: both Twisted Sister and PS have morphed into something much greater than either Paul or I could have imagined.

It has been a very long and strange trip for both of us.

I now contribute business articles for Inc.com called “The French Connection” http://www.inc.com/author/jay-jay-french,

A Beatles column for Goldmine Magazine called “Now We’re 64!”

http://www.goldminemag.com/article/serendipity-plays-role-jay-jay-french-collects-records

And features for the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper.

http://forward.com/scribe/364925/playing-in-the-shadow-of-hitler/

Over the next several months, thanks to an offer from Paul, I will indulge my audio fixation with stories that I hope you find interesting. Trust me when I tell you that, with high-end audio often as a backdrop, my life took turns that you won’t believe.

Oh yeah— Paul & Terri, get dinner ready. I will be over again, real soon!

[Remember, Jay Jay…they’re vegetarians! —Ed.]

Can we put Arnold S. on hold for a bit? I need to growl and shake my old chew toy, style.

For the style-obsessed, composers seem to come in two flavors: Style Aggregators and Style Disruptors. Some creative types study, prune, preserve: they aggregate music, curating its best moments. (See Bach, J. S.) Others make a contribution by blowing things up. Time for a change, they say. Check this out, they say. If you’ve been paying attention, you get the message.

Schoenberg was pretty obviously a Disruptor, born like Beethoven into an age of multiple disruptions. His music matched the times.

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the death of Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767), by all accounts a prime Style Aggregator. His music broke no rules, introduced no new sounds whatsoever. It was wildly successful in its day and remains so. Brace yourself for a blizzard of new Telemann releases in 2017.

This is a good thing. We should be glad that the timeline for “classical” music has broadened so much in the last half-century. Everything from medieval chant to the Brooklyn School now lies at our fingertips. Case in point: a new album, Metamorfosi Trecento, from lutenist Michele Pasotti and La Fonte Musica (Alpha Classics 286). It is devoted to the Greatest Hits of the 14th Century, a style period commonly called the Ars Nova. I taught this music to undergraduate music majors for years, although I never listened to it outside the classroom. It’s overly abstract, full of intricate rhythms nearly impossible to perform, and based on poetry prized by the One Percent back in the day but ignored since then.

And yet listening to Pasotti’s way with French motets or Italian ballate, I discovered grace, charm, and profound feelings just under the (busy) surface. Pasotti and crew do a better job of turning this stuff into music than anyone else I’ve heard. Their performing style makes 14th-century Mannerist compositional manners palatable to 21st-century listeners. Let’s break it down.

First, the epoch: be glad you didn’t inhabit any part of the 14th century. Famines, wars, and plagues broke out everywhere, continually. The church suffered from scandals and power struggles; secular authorities met with revolt. Yet it was also an age of intense scientific ferment, as Richard Taruskin reminds us in his monumental Oxford History of Western Music. Patiently and at length, he explains how the “new music” (!) of the day self-consciously took its rhythmic cues from advanced mathematical inquiries:

The Ars Nova innovations were a by-product of the theory of exponential powers and one of its subtopics, the theory of “harmonic numbers.” It was in the 14th century that mathematicians began investigating powers beyond . . . the simple geometry of squares and cubes. . . . Nicole d’Oresme’s Algorimus proportionum was the great theoretical exposition of 14th-century work in “power development” (recursive multiplication) with integral and fractional exponents; but it was precisely in Jehan de Murs’s music treatise [Ars novae musicae] that the fourth power first found a practical application. [Taruskin vol. 1, p. 248]

Whereas triple meter and relatively simple subdivisions of it had dominated the 13th century, now musicians found literally every combination of rhythms theoretically available to them. The result was music just as precious, erudite, and enigmatic as the poetry it set. Pasotti’s people render it attractive in a number of ways. First, they include not only the most mathematically abstruse French music but also its Italian counterpart, which has melodies more obviously meant for singing, not algebraic meditation. Second, they vary the manner of presentation (aha, style!), making us more aware of a song’s individual qualities. Finally, they’ve gathered together texts that address a single theme: metamorphosis both literary (“I was a phoenix and my life was pure and tender / And now I am transformed to a turtledove . . .”) and mythological (“Calisto, an earthly lady / Made such a sweet sacrifice to Jupiter / That he placed her, as his true wife / High upon the throne . . .”).

Some clips are in order. First, the lively three-voice “Sì dolce non sonò chol lir’ Orfeo” (“Orpheus with his lyre did not sound so sweet”) by Francesco Landini (c1325–97):

Then, Jacopo da Bologna’s pensive “Fenice fu’” (“I was a phoenix”), which adds imitative moments and hocketing:

Last, a textbook example, Philippe de Vitry’s “In nova fert/Garrit gallus/Neuma.” Its title reflects this motet’s simultaneous use of three different texts. In Pasotti’s arrangement, what you will hear first, all by itself, is “Neuma,” a fragment of Gregorian chant used as the structural basis of the work. When it’s sung or played within the piece, it is set to an arbitrary rhythmic pattern and usually goes unnoticed. In this performance, it’s set apart as the intro, with a drone accompaniment; the music then proceeds as written, only now you’re more aware of the chant fragment’s presence in the motet, even with two chattering voices—set to separate texts—racing around above it. Nice.

Since we seldom dock at the 14th century, let me mention another new release you might find interesting: the Orlando Consort’s Beneath the Northern Star (Hyperion CDA68132), which traces English sacred polyphony during the same period. Here’s a sample:

You’ll notice immediately that the English liked full harmonies, often moving as parallel chords. It’s a pleasant medieval sound, and it made a huge influence on the French when they heard it from English musicians during the Hundred Years War. The Orlando Consort doesn’t offer the color variety or performative freedom of Pasotti and La Fonte Musica, but they illuminate an important corner of history.

I guess this makes the Trecento crowd basically Style Disruptors. Faced with the opportunity to transform their craft rhythmically, they lit out for the border. Their shenanigans—along with the full harmonies of la contenance angloise—cleared the decks for a more coherent, graceful pan-European style, i.e., Renaissance polyphony from Dufay to early Monteverdi.

Speaking of coherent and graceful, I do recall mentioning Telemann a few paragraphs ago. Let’s get back to him: If you are somehow short of good old Georg Philipp, here are two new releases and one older standby that’ll provide you with high-quality GPT for a while.

First up is a new collection, Telemann (Alpha Classics 245) from my favorite Baroque ensemble, Giovanni Antonini’s Il Giardino Armonico. Antonini made his mark as a recorder virtuoso; no surprise, then, that Telemann consists largely of suites, concertos, and sonatas with recorder. Fireworks occasionally erupt:

Such moments are skillfully balanced with the languid and lyrical—more typical pieces of pastoral style (!) for the 18th-century recorder. Antonini also includes a sonata for two chalumeaux, forerunners of the clarinet:

A couple of years ago Martin Gester directed some Ouvertures pittoresques (programmatic orchestral suites) with crack Polish ensemble Arte dei Suonatori (BIS-1979; SACD). Telemann was famous for his ability to craft charming, humorous character studies within dance types. So here we have “The Nations,” fanciful sketches of Turks, Swiss, Portuguese and others; a Suite tragi-comique depicting diseases and cures both real and imaginary; and concertos on Polish folk tunes. Telemann’s Turks sound like this:

Finally, for anyone who needs A-List background burbling, or music to accompany insomnia, I heartily recommend this aggregation: Telemann’s 12 Fantasias for Solo Flute (Alpha Classics 267), with François Lazarevitch the fully awake flutist. At 3 a.m. or thereabouts, it’s enjoyable yet unlikely to rouse your tired soul into full consciousness—no disrespect there for Telemann, who knew what he was doing. Definitely worth a shake, not a growl.

I am listening to one of the earliest high-resolution digital recordings ever made.  It is an emotionally powerful recording, if not quite in the way you might be interpreting that phrase.  Just how old is this recording?  Well, for a start it handily pre-dates the introduction of the CD in 1982.  It is older than Claude Shannon’s famous paper of 1948, and even pre-dates the 1924 paper of Harry Nyquist upon which Shannon’s work was built.  At this point it would be cool to suggest that it even pre-dates Edison’s 1876 invention of the phonograph … but it doesn’t, although its ‘low-resolution’ counterparts could be said to do just that.  Nope, we’re talking about the year 1905, and if you haven’t already guessed, we’re talking about the player piano, or pianola.

In a large sense I am being somewhat smug in my cleverness, because the word ‘digital’ can be read to mean ‘of the fingers’, and a pianola does indeed record finger movements.  But no, a pianola recording is truly digital.  The idea is that holes are punched on a paper roll, with 88 (or thereabouts) sets of holes each corresponding to an individual piano key.  A hole in the roll (digital ‘1’) indicates that the corresponding key is to be pressed, whereas no hole (digital ‘0’) indicates that it is not to be pressed.  As the roll, with its 88-bit words, traverses across the mechanism, the piano keys beneath the holes are played, resulting in music.

The earliest recorded player piano design was believed to have been the one described in Frenchman Claude-Felix Seytre’s patent of 1842, although the device as described is hardly practical and indeed may never even have been built.  Surprisingly, perhaps, the underlying technology is actually centuries older than that, being based on Musical Boxes.  But by 1900, first-generation player pianos had become quite well established.  I describe these as ‘low-resolution’ digital audio devices because, while they could identify which notes were being played, and when, they could not indicate how hard the keys were being struck, or convey any sense of interpretive phrasing.  The step to ‘high-resolution’ would require this additional information to also be stored, and utilized on playback.

The years 1904-1910 bore witness to a rapid rate of development in this area.  For the most part, the technological approaches relied upon a second person, in addition to the pianist, who would sit by the piano and separately record the ebb and flow on a “dynamics” track, hopefully managing to capture the artistic intent of the player.  Other technologies relied on artificially creating the dynamics track as a post-editing process.  But the first horse out of starting gate was arguably the best of the lot, the remarkable Welte-Mignon.

The Welte-Mignon was the product of a number of years of secret development prior to being announced at the Leipzig Autumn Trade Fair of 1904, where the press lauded the development as the eighth wonder of the world.  Today, reproduced Welte-Mignon piano rolls produce an uncannily authentic sound.  Playback was typically accomplished using a so-called “Vorsetzer” device, a machine which is placed in front of a regular piano, and plays it using felt-tipped ‘fingers, one for each piano key, and so could be adapted to work with more or less any piano.  Quite how the Welte-Mignon recorder worked, however, remains shrouded in mystery, as the company were incredibly secretive about it, always taking great pains to dismantle the apparatus after use so that nobody could figure out its secrets.  And indeed, those who held those secrets took them to their graves.  However, a lot of informed speculation does exist, although it is beyond the scope of this column to delve into that.

The key aspect of the Welte-Mignon ‘digital recorder’, and one that separated it from its peers for a surprisingly long time – almost 20 years – was the fact that the ‘dynamics’ track was laid down automatically, which meant, among other things, that the pianist making the recording could listen to what they had recorded immediately afterwards, and if necessary do another ‘take’.  It is said that a goodly number of accomplished pianists, hearing their work played back to them, expressed surprise that they could detect mistakes and other flaws that they were not aware of having actually made.

It is believed that the dynamics track was laid down on the master roll by way of an ink trace.  We say “it is believed” because virtually no Welte-Mignon original master rolls – let alone any of the recording hardware – are known to have survived.  An ink trace is clearly visible on one surviving fragment.  However, it is not clear how that ink trace could be used to generate anything approximating immediate feedback for the performers, a feature which is clearly described in a lot of Welte-Mignon’s surviving promotional materials.  In any case, for commercial distribution, conventional punched-hole piano rolls were transcribed from the Welte-Mignon originals – a form of Mastering if you like – and these are what are typically used today to reproduce original Welte-Mignon recordings.

Welte-Mignon adopted a marketing practice for which we can all be thankful today.  They apparently had no problem persuading a number of prominent pianists of the age to record samples for them.  Some incredible people recorded on the Welte-Mignon.  Carl Reinecke was born three years before Beethoven died.  He was a friend of Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms.  He heard Chopin play.  He taught Albeniz and Grieg.  And now we can listen to him play.  His Welte-Mignon rolls illuminate a style of playing which we can assume is fully representative of the Classical Romantic period and would otherwise be inaccessible to us.  At the other end of the spectrum, they recorded a young and precocious Vladimir Horowitz.  Welte-Mignon also recorded Saint-Saëns, Grieg, Debussy, Scriabin and Puccini, famous composers who gave a precious insight into how they might have viewed some of their own compositions.

Which brings me to the album I am listening to right now.  On November 9^th, 1905, on the Welte-Mignon premises in the Popper & Co. factory site in Leipzig, Gustav Mahler laid down four piano roll tracks, including piano arrangements of complete movements from his 4^th and 5^th symphonies.  I have a huge reverence for Gustav Mahler.  He is my personal musical Titan.  And here I am, listening to him playing his own compositions in lifelike fidelity on an album called Mahler Plays Mahler, released in 1993.  That the actual sound quality is as poor as it is reflects more on the 1993 recording than on the original Welte-Mignon transcription.  But the touch, expression, and phrasing are totally lifelike.  Although we perhaps get to hear some of the limitations of the system in the most complex passages, the overall sound totally vindicates the gushing sentiments of the World’s press back at that Leipzig Trade Fair.

What we hear today on these Welte-Mignon transcriptions is a Mahler who is a competent, workaday pianist.  Little is made in the historic record of his prowess on the piano, so we are to expect little in return.  Brendel he is not, as he accompanies soprano Yvonne Kenny in the sehr behaglich of his 4^th symphony.  But these are his own piano arrangements of his own compositions, played with his own hands, so these recordings – the only four recordings of Mahler ever made – are truly historic treasures.  Not to mention, arguably, some of the world’s first ever high-resolution digital recordings.