Issue 40

Jethro Tull was a intriguing lawyer and agriculturist whose life straddled the turn of the 18^th century.  Tull passed the bar in 1693 but soon developed some lung problems that prompted him to travel through Europe looking for a cure.  He spent a great deal of time studying the differences between agricultural techniques in France, Italy and his home in England.  Yes, Jethro must have been quite the charming traveling companion.

I’ve just been prompted that some of you may have expected an article about Jethro Tull the band.  My apologies.  But bear with me and I’ll suck you in, to use an agricultural term.

Anyhow, when Tull returned to England he had some brainstorms about using mechanical devices to aid farming.  He developed a hoe that could be pulled by a horse.  He revolutionized hoeing culture by convincing neighboring farmers that well hoed soil not only kept back the weeds, but provided a safe environment for seeds to grow without being drowned by rains, but still kept moist by the daily morning dew.

His innovations were credited with being important to the British Agricultural Revolution, an event we all remember.  He was helped by wacky guys like Steven Switzer who engaged Tull and his believers in lively debates about proper hoeing, fallows vs. row seeding, and the proper use of manure.  Here is one of Tull’s innovations, the seed drill:

Seed drills had been in existence in many forms but this was the first of such a mechanical design for three rows at a time and multiple seedings.  I particularly like the drawing of a wrench.  Leave it to a farmer to invent a machine and immediately invent a tool for when it breaks.  Much like Isaac Newton conceiving of his ideas for the universe such as gravity, then inventing the math to prove his theories.  I know, I know you can’t compare that to a seed drill certainly.

Eventually though, everyone reaches a point in Life where arguing about hoes and manure loses its um, glory.  Jethro Tull reached that point late in Life.  He learned to play the flute and started a rock and roll band.

 

Truthfully, and I know fringe fans who only know the song  Aqualung from FM classic schlock radio will be shocked, there was never a person in Jethro Tull named Jethro Tull.  In 1967 (AGAIN with the 1967) a couple of school boys in Flemanshpurkinshire England started a blues band.  They weren’t very good, and had to changes their name frequently so they could get rehired at clubs.  I was in one of those bands once.  Eventually they improved their chops and got a management agency.  The management staff was in charge of the name changes, and there were times the band would show up for the gig and would know the name that was theirs because it was the only one they didn’t recognize.  Eventually a staff member, being a history buff, remembered that wacky Jethro Tull guy.  The name stuck.

So Ian Anderson, who started on guitar and eventually took up the flute, and John Evans, who started on piano but switched to drums because Ring Starr was so bloody amazing, then changed his name to John Evan because he thought it was cooler, had a band.  A bit fickle was John.  They recruited a school boy chum Jeffrey Hammond on bass, (replaced by Glenn Cornick) and added Mick Abrahams on guitar before recording and releasing their first album This Was.  In the beginning there were problems with the name, and a bootleg was actually credited to Jethro Toe.  Alas.  Not everyone knew their agricultural history.

This Was had distinct and even straight ahead blues cuts on it, but songs like Beggar’s Farm (above) and My Sunday Feeling showed a direction and foreshadowed how the band would eventually sound.  Mick Abrahams left to pursue straight ahead blues, starting a band called Blodwyn Pig.  I actually remember that band.  But also frustrating Abrahams was Anderson’s emergence as the leader, with Anderson wanting move into more challenging ground and taking over writing.  Just listen to the cuts, even the blues cuts, that feature Anderson’s flute playing, his breathy presentations, and his ability make this distinctly non-rock instrument into an iconic rock sound, and remember he’d been playing flute for about a year.

Tull had to find a replacement for Abrahams.

Now here is the specter of 1967 again.  JT had released one album which had reached number 10, but they were hardly a powerhouse and had not yet really defined their sound.  But they still managed to work with Mick Taylor who was in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and he decided to stick with Mayall.  Then went on to the Rolling Stones and the Jack Bruce Band.  JT put an ad in the paper and tried out Tommy Iommi (sound of metal fans sucking in their breath) who decided starting Black Sabbath would be a better idea.  The amount of talent that was around at that time is staggering.

After a few misfires they settled on a new guy, Martin Barre.  Last I looked and JT was still touring, Barre was still in the band, his years in JT only surpassed by Ian Anderson himself.  The story goes that Anderson was impressed with Barre’s technique, but Anderson himself in an interview once said what he was drawn to was Barre’s real lack of technique or expertise.  Anderson claims to have spent many hours before Stand Up getting Barre into the sound that was becoming Jethro Tull.

 

Stand Up was recorded in the summer of ’68 and released in September.  It went to #1 on the UK charts, and at the same a non-album single Living in the Past went to #3.  The band went on their first headlining tour of the United States including the Newport Jazz Festival.  The album is a delight and includes a rendition of Bach’s Bouree in E Minor that gave wings to a rumor that Anderson was classically trained.  Not true, but certainly a testament to the bands willingness to try any direction.

In 1970 Tull recorded and released Benefit.  This group was added to by drums by Clive Bunker and the return of John Evan, now on keys.  The album received tepid reviews, most by reviewers who love you yesterday and crap on you tomorrow.  The complaints revolved around this being not as large a change as between This Was and Stand Up.  Anderson himself described the album as a ‘guitar riff’ album, which was the path to glory in 1970.  But with new innovations of recording techniques, the additions of Bunker and Evan, and the maturation of Barre’s guitar playing created for me a distinct work with some of my all-time favorite Tull songs.  Like this one.

 

For the fans out there you can hear the beginnings of Barre-type licks that would define the next album.

In 1971 I was a truck driver for one of those companies that put meals on airplanes.  I had become a truck driver because I no longer wanted to be a dishwasher.  Working in the dish room one Sunday the manager ran in and asked if anyone knew how to drive a truck; there was a last minute emergency run to the tarmac .  I immediately raised my hand.  My dish room buddy Jim, who had gotten me that job, looked at me wide-eyed.  He sputtered some irrelevant nonsense about my not having a driver’s license, never having driven a manual transmission, and in fact had never behind the wheel of a car, let alone a truck with 10 gears, blah, blah, blah.  Undaunted I ran to my destiny.

I had SEEN my father drive a manual transmission, so of course I was eminently qualified, as long as they gave me a minute to figure out that stick thingy with the weird switch on the top.  Also, there appeared to be an extra pedal on the floor.  The boys loaded up the truck with racks of food (on wheels) with Jim standing on the dock, wiping his hands on an apron, with a ‘this I gotta see’ look.  I found out which was the clutch when I made the rook mistake of starting the truck in gear.  The truck lurched forward accompanied by the sound of crashing racks in the back, and I set off on my new career afraid to get out of first gear once I got the hang of it.  The truck and I careened out of the lot with the manager in my rear mirror looking as though he’d just found cat poop in his oatmeal.

But I digress.  A fellow truck driver took me under his wing and taught me the ropes.  In talking about music I said I had a new 8 track by the Who Live at Leeds,   Neil asked to trade for an 8 track he had by a band I was unfamiliar with.  I didn’t want to part with the Who live album which was quite spectacular, but Neil had really saved my ass on several occasions, so I relented.  Thus, my introduction to Jethro Tull’s Aqualung.  Boy I was grabbed by the demon and he never let go.

Released in early 1971 this put Tull resolutely in the arms of a huge public, becoming one of the iconic bands of that era easily mentioned in the same breath with Led Zeppelin, the Who, and Hendrix.  Featuring the title track now hackneyed by radio play, it’s still a grabbing, ripping ride.  But more than that, the songs presented were an astounding mix of rock and folk, each standing on its own, fundamentally thought provoking with a serious kick in the ass at every turn.

 

Religious themes such as on My God were explored in songs and certainly captured this Catholic boy’s 16 year old imagination.

Anderson became increasingly annoyed with the description by critics that Aqualung was a concept album.  Concept albums were growing in popularity and use since Sgt. Pepper and became kind of a refuge for critics who couldn’t figure out what you were doing.  Anderson became tired of fighting that battle, and decided to create the mother of all concept albums.

Anderson used the influence of Monty Python and some complex musical themes about the status of the band and its relationship with fans and critics, to create a 43 minute opus about a fictional schoolboy named Gerald Bostock.  Featuring an album cover designed to look like a newspaper with bits of the story, Thick as a Brick became the first Tull #1 in America.  The next album, also a concept album, also went to #1.  These two works became the only JT albums to do so.

A large number of Brick fans have never given Passion Play a chance or a listen.  Certainly following TAAB was an impossible task.  But I bought Passion when it first came out and even though there are musical themes reminiscent of Thick I love Passion Play on its own.  I saw that tour as well which featured a full presentation of Passion, a half rendition of Brick, and various songs from Aqualung and others.

Can’t talk about that show without mentioning the real draw of Jethro Tull.  They were an amazing, fantastical, epic stage show.  Anderson’s antics are mimicked by the music, or the other way around, I could never tell, and I have stories about things I saw at these shows, that were orchestrated to do these complex works created strictly in the studio by superb stage mechanics and out right visual tricks.  You couldn’t take your eyes off them.

These are the first six albums by Jethro Tull, and I believe their absolute best.  I lost interest immediately with War Child which really smacked of commercialism, and really never went back.   Oh, I’d stick my toe in the water now and then but never got that chill these works had.

If you are enough of a fan that you stuck with us through this article, you know Thick As A Brick by heart and love your fourth copy as much as the first.  So without further ado, a Passion Play.  Enjoy my dear friends.

Way back in Copper #26 I wrote “The IoT is Not For Me”, in which I bemoaned the unnecessary inter-connectedness of every damn thing from cars to refrigerators and dishwashers. As I mentioned then,  I really have no desire to awaken in the middle of the night to the sound of all my appliances running amuck, courtesy of some e-school hacker up all night wired on Red Bull and bravado.

Even though my ancestors built some of the earliest railroads in the US, and the fact that I’ve spent my life studying and working in tech fields, I may be a bit of a Luddite. I just don’t like devices mucking about in my bidness, unless I specifically ask them to do so.

When I was in racing, I was deeply involved with Corvette tuners and racers at the time that the C5 series launched (for non-motorheads: C5 was the fifth generation of Chevrolet Corvettes, starting with the 1997 model year. Previous gens: C1, 1953-62; C2, (Sting Ray) 1963-67; C3 (Mako Shark-inspired) 1968-82; C4, 1984-96—there was no ’83). Aside from dozens of obvious mechanical and structural improvements like the LS-1 engines, hydroformed frame-rails, and carbon fiber springs, the C5 sent shock-waves through the automotive aftermarket because the programming of the onboard computers contained more than a million lines of code.

C5 also marked the onset of OBD-II, the second generation of onboard diagnostics, which could retain data on the car’s running characteristics forever—in theory, proving that you violated speed limits and performed numerous other antisocial acts. For many old-time racers and motorheads, this was all scary stuff, and marked the beginning of cars that could make numerous decisions without the driver’s input. The idea of a third party being able to learn what you’d done in your car, or even shut it down remotely, was completely antithetical to the independent nature of racers and hot-rodders.

And guess what? It still is, and onboard computing, hacking, and GPS have only made things far scarier in the last two decades. If you have a GM car with OnStar—well, the FBI has used OnStar to bug mobster’s Cadillacs, and it has been used numerous times to kill the ignition of stolen vehicles. Useful—but what happens if someone decides to shut down your perfectly innocent car in rush hour traffic? And let’s not even think about that whole autonomous vehicle thing.

The C5 marked the turning point in American performance cars and in the high-performance automotive aftermarket. While new cars had progressively moved from old-school tech like carburetors to integrated fuel and ignition management systems, chip-tuning had mostly been the domain of import car afficianados. The C5 offered far more tuning capability to the experienced coder or chip-burner than anything previously offered in America, and coupled with an initial shortage of aftermarket performance engine parts—very little interchanged from the traditional small-block Chevy to the new LS-1— it became evident that “tuning” now meant “programming”.

As you can imagine, a generation or two of motorheads who grew up adjusting the jets of a Holley or setting the gap and dwell of  ignitions—were lost. For those like me who hated carbs and fiddly ignitions, the new ways were a godsend. But….

We’ve now had, let’s say, two generations of folks who can look under the hood of a car and can maybe identify the air filter. Maybe. Everything else is a mystery, hidden under plastic covers and shrouds. While extended maintenance intervals are a blessing for most motorists, the lack of frequent involvement with the car has resulted in drivers and owners who are incapable of diagnosing a problem, much less fix it. Starters and alternators are buried beneath the engine, plug wires no longer exist, and it’s often not clear exactly how the air even gets into the engine. What all that stuff is, is just a mystery. It’s a good thing that stuff mostly adjusts itself.

Does any of this sound familiar, audiophiles?

You’ll notice that the vinyl revival didn’t really catch on until streaming and downloading had largely replaced the CD; I’m convinced that aside from its arguable audible advantages, LPs came back because they offer tangible physical interaction and require the user to take an active role. Computer audio—aside from the often-baffling set-up procedures—asks the user to pick a track on an iPad and adjust volume. While many users find the simplicity of operation just what the doctor ordered, others like to do a little more in the way of heavy lifting—and have you had to move boxes of albums lately?

Similarly: with tube electronics one can point at various elements of the devices and identify them: power transformer, smoothing choke, regulator tube, input stage tube, power output tubes, output transformer. Just like you used to be able to do with a car. Aside from the sonic characteristics, might this be a reason for the popularity of tube amps among hipsters and newbies?

Beyond that: devices with actual, physical on-off switches will operate in only two states: on, or off. They will indicate which state they are in, if only by position of the switch. They will not run through endless boot-cycles or self-diagnostics. They will give the user at least the illusion of being in control, and with some sense of understanding what the device is, and how it works. They will not decide that one’s software has expired or that one’s credentials need to be updated.

And how about the latest dystopian decision which prompted this rant in the first place?  Contrary to industry practices and quite possibly against most consumer-protection laws, Sonos has announced that users must agree to their new privacy policy, or their Sonos devices may “cease to function”. Like that euphemism? It’s like the pharmaceutical ad disclaimer, “fatal events have occurred”. So—you bought the thing a couple years ago, and they can now impose new rules upon you, and make that thing you bought NOT WORK?

So much for the benevolent little device that brings music to your whole house. Sorry, Sonos: ex post facto rules are always wrong, and are monumentally stupid for any company that actually hopes to stay in business. Way to prove that whole truism of Silicon Valley = Arrogant + Uncaring,  Sonos.

High Five!

[In case you wondered: the guy pictured at the top of the page is Ray Kurzweil. In addition to being a leader in the theory and design of cybernetic systems for decades, he’s also been one of the leading voices warning of the potential dangers of nanotechnology and biotechnology, two areas that scare the crap out of me. In other words, Ray might be a bit of a Luddite, just as I am. My kinda guy, that Ray—Ed.]

We’ve all seen and heard the discussions concerning the so-called death of high-end audio.  There are many reasons why that topic keeps resurfacing, but here is the one that I think may be most responsible and it is rarely mentioned as a suspect.  If addressed, it could significantly contribute to the betterment of the audio industry as a whole.  A big IMO, goes here, of course…

Will it get done?  Based on my experience, I’m not too encouraged.  Still, it’s something that could be addressed and end up being a win/win situation for the industry (manufacturers, distributors, sales reps, and retailers) and perhaps most importantly – the retail clients.

Why are the retail clients most important?  If they are not supporting the industry, who will do it?

Prices not justified?

These days, there is little doubt that the majority of high-end audio dealers in retail shops, sometimes referred to as BM – Brick & Mortar – don’t do nearly enough to support the prices they ask. Why would a potential client pay the retailers’ prices if he or she gets only marginally better service than if the item was purchased online?

The first area where I take issue with many dealers is that they do not have a sufficiently effective, professional demo.  By effective, I mean that the demo is so good, that you become involved in the music.  By professional, the salesperson is capable of setting up and providing the demo, and offering info, even education, when it is appropriate.

If possible, the demo room should be cleared of extra speakers. The speakers to be played are always in the predetermined best spot for that model.  The listening seat is always placed in the location in the room where the dynamics will be best presented – and the smoothest bass can be heard.  In my stores, everyone knew where the best position was for the listening seat, and certainly for each loudspeaker (the floor was marked), and that was where it would be demo’d. The next time you came in, the performance was the same as before, because demos were not allowed to be casually conducted with the speaker somewhere other than in its optimum set-up.

When prospects would hear an effective demo, one far beyond what they had encountered elsewhere, it was reasonably simple to build a win/win relationship.   For the most part, they had never had a similar experience before. Not only did we show them what should be expected, we taught them about what the important aspects were.

These days, I rarely encounter store demos that make the effort to provide effective, professional demos and even more, to educate the client where appropriate.  But why not?

‘Tudes instead of tunes?

And while I’m on this particular soapbox, what is it with the attitudes that so many audio salespeople exhibit?  Do they really have so little time or respect for prospective clients?  Where does this come from?

Not sure whether it’s originating from management or what – but the ‘tudes have to go.  They shouldn’t have been allowed anyway, but now we are talking about creating an improved business model that can insure not only survival, but growth in a competitive arena.  Anyway, what’s wrong with a little bit of respect?

We didn’t carry a line just because it got a great review either.  We carried it because it performed at a high enough level that we believed it offered great value for our clients.  I remember meeting a prospective client on more than one occasion who would say, “Oh I see you have the XYZ speaker.  It just got a rave review by (pick the audio reviewer that comes to your mind).”

My response was (hopefully) delivered with a genuine smile – “Even though it got a rave review, we do take XYZ seriously.  We carried it before the review came out, and we’ll still carry it when the next ‘best thing’ is reviewed in an upcoming issue.  If you have time, please have a seat over here and let me show you why we are so excited about them.”

I first wrote about this topic back in 2009 – in Quarter Notes newsletter #2 (newsletters that Get Better Sound owners receive – 21 issues to date). Unfortunately, it’s even more applicable today.  What I said then:

Are there any standards of quality for high-end audio retail specialists?

What follows is an arbitrary classification of audio retailers that are within reasonable travel distance from you. This is not intended to be a comment on any particular retail audio dealers out there. However, it is a guideline that you can use to determine if your dealer is supplying the level of service that you deserve. If you should find any dealer that meets most of the listed attributes – or even better – all of the standards listed, hang on to him or her. Support them and don’t let go!

Before viewing/applying the numbered list, the above mentioned dealer standards should be met – at a minimum:

• Effective, professional demos.
• No attitudes, period.

(1) A standard retail shop will probably help you load your purchase in your vehicle.

(2) Of those dealers, an even better one will offer to deliver it.

(3) Of those dealers, an even better one would offer to hook it up.

(4) Of those dealers, he or she would take into account what you already own, discuss, your needs & expectations, etc.  If possible, an even better one would have come to your home and listened with you to your current system first, before recommending any costly new component.

(5) Of those dealers, an even better one – upon listening to your system – can easily hear where your systems’ issues are.

(6) Of those dealers, an even better one will actually know what to do to correct your system’s shortcomings.

(7) Of those dealers, an even better one will suggest a “game plan” or road map to successfully overcome any issues your system may have.  The game plan may include your purchase and his/her installation of a new component, and simultaneous voicing of your system; or it may simply be a room/system voicing of your existing system, in order to upgrade it ‘as is’, and to prepare it – and you – to be able to identify better components when evaluated in your system.

(8) Of those dealers, an even better one will make every effort to offer/provide an in-home evaluation, when necessary.

(9) Of those dealers, an even better one would ask you to be present to observe and to listen to any differences as your system is being voiced to the room.

(10) Of those dealers, an even better one will stay there to get your system right, no matter how long it takes. Getting your system right is defined as when the audio shop’s representative is satisfied that the goal has been accomplished – and when you are delighted with the improvements. If set-up person is good and thorough, you’ll be happy long before he/she is.

Throughout the latter part of the ‘70s, all of the ‘80s, and into the ‘90s, that was what we (our retail shop – details at the end) did for our clients. For us, it was simply a logical business decision that any specialist retailer should pursue. Naturally our clients stayed with us (some still contact me, to this day, over three decades later).

Self-evident?

Examined purely from a business standpoint, it should be self-evident that if I arrange for you to try out a new component in your home, and your system has been properly voiced to the room, that you will immediately hear the advantages that the new component will provide. From a retail audio standpoint, why not make sure the client has a set-up that will reveal differences easily?

Furthermore, the client’s system is akin to a billboard for the dealer’s services – all the more if it is performing at a much higher level than similar systems, casually set-up.  Such dealers get more referrals – after all, now the billboard (client’s system) is lit up. 

I should express the obvious here – that is to say that a dealer providing this level of service won’t be around if he has to price-match non-service oriented outlets. Pay him a fair price for his product and service, assuming that he successfully works hard to make your system come alive.

Honestly speaking, my personal clients almost never asked for discounts. In fact, they knew that they were getting the best deal possible – actually having their purchase deliver all of its potential. They knew that settling for anything less than maximum performance would be wasting their money.  No so-called ‘deal’ could offset a lack of performance.

Sadly, even back then, as a percentage of total audio retailers, there weren’t that many of us. Today, there are even fewer. There must be more, but I haven’t run across them yet.  If you find one, please support him or her every way that you possibly can.

Applicable today?

Even though the above was written a few years ago, in my opinion, as I said above, it’s even more applicable today.  Yes, I know clients are always looking for a deal these days.  It’s just that in my opinion, they have been left little choice.

The audio industry has created this particular situation, and it needs to fix it. It’s not so much that the customers that have lost interest in high-end audio.  IMO – it’s the dealers who’ve lost interest in helping the customers.  Therefore the customers – almost by default – have lost interest in supporting the high-end audio business model as it has become today.

Unfortunately, I constantly encounter a similar phenomenon on RoomPlay voicing trips.  The actual fact is, almost no one should need me to do these, IF the dealers were doing what they should.  Many times my RoomPlay clients start becoming angry as the voicing process is performed.  By the time that we are done, sometimes they are very angry.  Angry at me?  No, they get angry at their dealers for not making their system come alive the way it sounds when I am done.

These days, I rarely ever hear of a dealer delivering and setting up speakers beyond simply being sure they work.  A quick drop-by visit simply won’t get the job done – ever.

Special magic required?

Does this level of service involve some special magic?  Nope.  The phrase may be trite, but it’s true in this case – “it’s not rocket science.”  It does require some knowledge and a lot of work.  And it is the stuff that a larger number of dealers used to do.

In my retail experience, we always performed this service.  It wasn’t about us being good guys (even if we thought we were).  It was a simple business decision. 

It’s a decision the high-end audio industry needs to make if its customers are to be served properly, ESPECIALLY with the pricing of components these days. A win/win client/store relationship is good for all parties.  From my viewpoint, it’s a vital building block to insure the rebirth (or at least the survival) of the high-end.

(Although Jim Smith is known for his Get Better Sound series, his set-ups at audio shows, and for his RoomPlay clients, he was so successful at selling Audio Research at the retail level from a small shop in Norfolk, VA, that in 1976, Bill Johnson of ARC hired him to work for ARC in Minneapolis. 

A while later, Jim Winey convinced Jim to work for Magnepan as its National Sales Manager.  While there, Jim wrote the Magnepan & Tympani loudspeaker set-up manuals and developed a dealer-training program.  In the two years he was there – applying the principles listed above – sales rose dramatically while the dealer network was nearly halved (in order to find more customer-service oriented dealers).

In 1979, after subsequently opening Audition – Jim’s shop in Birmingham, AL, – in spite of being in a relatively small market – the shop went on to become a Top Ten Dealer for various leading high-end audio companies of the time, such as Quad, Linn, Goldmund, Apogee Acoustics, MLAS (before Harman acquired the company), and more.  All of this was due to the practice of effective/professional demos, as well as delivering and setting-up the products and systems that Audition sold.)

This article was first published in the Dubai-based English daily Gulf News. I’ve written a personal essay for their op-ed page twice a month since 2005. I often write about music and audio, and this article was written when I was still quite new at my job at a high-end audio dealership. Though written for a non-audiophile audience, I’d like to share this piece with Copper readers and would love to hear your reactions. –GR

A couple of weeks ago, a representative from an upscale audio company walked into a California high-end dealership to perform some updates on the floor units. He hefted amplifiers onto a table, lifting off the thick aluminum covers, and connecting a laptop to the circuit board to flash the amplifier’s memory, giving it new abilities.

“The amps were given an amazing new feature,” someone from the shop later joked (fondly, it must be said) to some other reps. “When you press a button on the remote, the volume changes!”

The reps smiled and shook their heads. Up to then, to change the volume via remote control, you had to type in the level you wanted. Is ‘34’ too soft? Type in 38 or 40.

“That’s pretty cool actually,’ said one of the reps as he thought about it. “I don’t think I’d want that update.”

Contained in that story is both the magic and the obduracy of high-end audio, a niche market that’s essentially an expensive cottage industry. Call it a manor industry if you will. These are products with years of R&D, extreme engineering and finishes, and no economy of scale. Many of these top brands depend on one person for their existence, and often feature all this person’s brilliance, and many of his quirks. These products aren’t smoothed and democratized as they pass from hand to hand, committee to committee, test group to test group.

Remote controls seem to be the neglected poster children of high-end audio. When so few people are designing and manufacturing a highly engineered product for such demanding customers, niceties are overlooked. Remotes from most audiophile companies are heavy bars or blocks or even discs, sprinkled seemingly randomly with unvarying buttons. They don’t fall to hand easily, and the layout is utterly unintuitive.

These are products that make me appreciate the ones we take for granted. The remote control on your modern television is an ergonomic miracle. See how the shape of it makes that circular button in the centre fall naturally under your thumb. The volume is always where you think it’ll be, and the only time you have to actually look at it is when you’re accessing those deeper, darker features you almost never use. In contrast, after years of use, I still need to peer at my audio system’s remote for the simplest of functions, even changing volume.

This is a world that is used to elaborate set-up and start-up procedures before playing music. I have a vinyl-only friend who goes through three cleaning steps each time he lowers stylus to groove. So asking users to get up to change the volume isn’t such a terrible thing. And audiophiles like to know that the busy designers of these fantastically priced products use all their time getting the sound perfect. If a volume control on a remote is a long belated afterthought, so be it. Spending months choosing the capacitors on the output stage of an amplifier is so much more rewarding for everybody concerned.

It’s fitting then, that the amplifier that needed the update is a work of art. Its chassis is carved from a single block of metal, and finished to perfection. There are burnished copper heatsinks along the sides. Should you change the volume on it directly, you will be rewarded with a tactile experience so beguiling, you’ll find yourself spinning the notched, weighted, polished volume ring just to hear and feel the oily clicks as it rotates.

It makes you wonder if the update should have removed the ability to use a remote control altogether.

 A couple of weeks ago, a representative from an upscale audio company walked into a California high-end dealership to perform some updates on the floor units. He hefted amplifiers onto a table, lifting off the thick aluminum covers, and connecting a laptop to the circuit board to flash the amplifier’s memory, giving it new abilities. “The amps were given an amazing new feature,” someone from the shop later joked (fondly, it must be said) to some other reps. “When you press a button on the remote, the volume changes!” The reps smiled and shook their heads. Up to then, to change the volume via remote control, you had to type in the level you wanted. Is ‘34’ too soft? Type in 38 or 40. “That’s pretty cool actually,’ said one of the reps as he thought about it. “I don’t think I’d want that update.” Contained in that story is both the magic and the obduracy of high-end audio, a niche market that’s essentially an expensive cottage industry. Call it a manor industry if you will. These are products with years of R&D, extreme engineering and finishes, and no economy of scale. Many of these top brands depend on one person for their existence, and often feature all this person’s brilliance, and many of his quirks. These products aren’t smoothed and democratized as they pass from hand to hand, committee to committee, test group to test group. Remote controls seem to be the neglected poster children of high-end audio. When so few people are designing and manufacturing a highly engineered product for such demanding customers, niceties are overlooked. Remotes from most audiophile companies are heavy bars or blocks or even discs, sprinkled seemingly randomly with unvarying buttons. They don’t fall to hand easily, and the layout is utterly unintuitive. These are products that make me appreciate the ones we take for granted. The remote control on your modern television is an ergonomic miracle. See how the shape of it makes that circular button in the centre fall naturally under your thumb. The volume is always where you think it’ll be, and the only time you have to actually look at it is when you’re accessing those deeper, darker features you almost never use. In contrast, after years of use, I still need to peer at my audio system’s remote for the simplest of functions, even changing volume. This is a world that is used to elaborate set-up and start-up procedures before playing music. I have a vinyl-only friend who goes through three cleaning steps each time he lowers stylus to groove. So asking users to get up to change the volume isn’t such a terrible thing. And audiophiles like to know that the busy designers of these fantastically priced products use all their time getting the sound perfect. If a volume control on a remote is a long belated afterthought, so be it. Spending months choosing the capacitors on the output stage of an amplifier is so much more rewarding for everybody concerned. It’s fitting then, that the amplifier that needed the update is a work of art. Its chassis is carved from a single block of metal, and finished to perfection. There are burnished copper heatsinks along the sides. Should you change the volume on it directly, you will be rewarded with a tactile experience so beguiling, you’ll find yourself spinning the notched, weighted, polished volume ring just to hear and feel the oily clicks as it rotates. It makes you wonder if the update should have removed the ability to use a remote control altogether.

“Hello Sadie, when are you leaving?” said my father, the most mild mannered of men. Aunt Sadie had arrived at our doorstep on her annual visit. She was my mother’s oldest sister and was, what we called in Scotland, “a poor soul”. As a teenager she was shadowed by a strange man who tried to grab her as she entered her building. This so traumatized her that she developed all manner of phobias. This happened in the mid twenties in Scotland and mental health care was primitive.

She was admitted to Gartnavel, the local mental institution. In my young, feverish mind I imagined it to be a monstrous place; whenever I misbehaved my mother would threaten to send me there.  While in Gartnavel Sadie was treated with whatever drugs were available at the time. At one point she was lobotomized and somehow came out the other side quite functional. I remember her as odd, but as a child, I was accepting of my family member’s peculiarities. She suffered from some form of OCD and had this strange habit of pausing and spinning round before opening the door.

She eventually left Glasgow for London, and being extremely intelligent, managed to land a job with Scotland Yard (police headquarters) where she worked successfully for many years. She lived with a man she loved for about fifteen to twenty years but admitted to me later on that she never had sex with him or anyone else. When I was about fourteen, on one of her visits, she asked me, an amateur photographer, to take some photos of her. We went outside to the woods where she stripped down to her underwear and posed. I could barely keep the camera still.

Many years later she entered an assisted living facility in West London near the Portobello Rd. By this time she had gone blind, the result of taking massive doses of prescribed psychotropic drugs throughout most of her life. At that time I was importing a good quantity of British equipment from Creek and Epos so I frequently traveled to London on business and of course visited Sadie. Typically, I would take her shopping; we would have lunch together and chat about her youth, her siblings and parents. These sessions were intense as she often criticized her brother who had refused to take her in. She was a bitter pill to swallow so I completely understood his reluctance.

On one visit she asked me to take her clothes shopping. She wanted to buy a new outfit. We went to one of the many department stores in the area and I found a sales woman to assist us. Sadie told us both what she wanted and I described the cut and color of what the saleswoman selected as best I could. She finally settled on a blue jacket with a matching skirt. I said to her, “Auntie, I think you will look very smart in this outfit.” She replied, “It’s not for me, it’s for my neighbor who is housebound”. I said, but Auntie, how can you choose clothes for another person, you’re blind.” She said, “Yes, but I have excellent taste!”

It involves an Eberhard Faber Design Art Marker No. 255, in green if you insist, but you can also use a pencil.

While listening to music (it works with analog or digital, by the way), read a book about the music you’re listening to. Find an obscure website reference. Ask a friend for her take.

I know, it would be better if this tweak was more arcane, more difficult and more expensive.

Bear with me, please, because while it’s none of those, it is time consuming. But worth it.

When we were youngsters, we read album liner notes. This, it turns out, is not that different from reading the cereal box while eating your Cheerios in the morning before school. You’re not reading the box because it’s new or interesting. You’re reading it because it’s there.

And so it was with album covers. Despite a very dubious award category in the Grammys (shouldn’t it be called the Grammies?), most liner notes aren’t particularly entertaining or memorable.

On the other hand, just ten or fifteen minutes of listening to or reading Phil Schaap on the history of a particular Charlie Parker recording session will almost certainly change the music. (Phil’s Grammy awards for liner notes completely justify the category, by the way).

Part of the audiophile experience is the knowing. Knowing where the instruments were in space at the session. Knowing what the trombone really sounded like. Knowing what it was like to be there…

But the knowing needs context.

Ornette Coleman is unapproachable if you start at the end of his discography. He’s playing for us, sure, but also for himself, extending himself from what he did in the previous album, or in the previous set. If you start early and work your way up, you begin to know.

Look, here’s a book about the songs Bob Dylan didn’t write. Five hundred pages of truly obsessive reporting on how Dylan discovered Robert Johnson and what listening to what one of his songs did to his writing. And listen… here, here’s Bob singing that song the author just told us about. Yes, it sounds different. Better. More plaintive. How could it not?

Oh, here’s a website (genius.com) that dissects lyrics. It’s strong on rap, but is expanding into just about everything.

And, wait, here’s a recent article about Gershwin’s An American in Paris. It turns out that the taxi horns have been played in the wrong key for the last fifty years. You can bet that those taxi horns will sound less veiled the next time you play them on your fancy rig.

There are two theories of art: One theory is that you must come to it cold. You see what you see. You hear what you hear. Your interpretation is all that matters.

The other is that you learn first. You understand what the artist intended (if she chooses to reveal that). You understand the context. You figure out what was going on when it was created, what the swirl was all about.

Both theories are valid, but it seems to me that only one aligns with the audiophile mindset.

The obvious question to ask: Which books, Seth? Tell me what to read, where to look.

That’s actually not the next question, because it turns out that one man’s obsessive yearning for the details of a Binghamton show by the Dead is another person’s waste of time. No, the next question is: do you care enough about the experience of listening to sign up for this journey?

At some point, you’re going to have trouble finding yet another electronic tweak for your system. It’s likely, though, that you’ll never run out of Post-Its, Blackwing pencils or good conversation.

(Originally published in Copper #4)

There are as many influences on Petite Noir’s music as the singer/songwriter/producer has claims to nationality. The 27-year-old started life in Belgium as Yanick Ilunga, son to Congolese parents. He currently resides in Capetown, South Africa.

His first musical endeavor was as the lead singer for the duo Popskarr, with Terrence Pearce, from 2009-12. As you can hear in this single, “Tonight,” Popskarr was unabashed, old-school synthpop, with trippy, poetical lyrics that were more interesting than the music.

 

That equation changed once Petite Noir broke off as a solo act in 2012. He has brought an African sensibility to his own work – in texture, rhythmic ideas, instrumentation, and singing style – yet retained his synthpop roots. His music has been referred to as “alternative R&B,” and while it does sometimes use R&B tropes, that classification is not nearly wide enough.

“Disappear,” a single from 2012, is an example of this melding of sounds. There’s a slathering of late-ʼ80s electronica (think Erasure), including the mid-range head-voice that helps identify that era and style–as much like a cry as a musical tone; his voice is occasionally compared to mid-career Bowie. But the singing is nestled into complicated percussion tracks you’d never hear in synthpop. The lyrics are philosophical (“All we have in life will disappear”) if repetitive.

 

Petite Noir’s first solo EP was King of Anxiety, also from 2012. The song “Chess” uses a chugging, train-like perpetual rhythm and a melodic, mournful guitar counterpoint reminiscent of The Edge’s work in U2.

 

The slow beat of “Shadows” is the closest to R&B, but the groove is satisfyingly off-kilter. And the song’s budget-saving video is a brilliant way to really make you listen: It’s just footage of the singer leaning against his car, apparently for hours.

 

But, wait! There are even more influences in this musical cornucopia. African-American spirituals, anyone? Listen to “Till We Ghosts,” also from King of Anxiety. The lyrics are disappointingly cliché, but the overall sound is such an original blend that you can forgive the weak text.

Besides tinges of hymns and blues, we get polymeters and a timbre similar to the rattan ankle rattles used in many traditional dances of Africa. Add to that the multiple layers of guitar, backup vocals, and percussion, not quite in sync with each other; that purposeful imperfection is one of Petite Noir’s signature characteristics.

 

Not surprisingly, considering he’s based in Capetown these days, Petite Noir shows influence from music of that region. There’s a popular style of hip hop electronica in South Africa called kwaita that’s been around for a few decades. As with all hip hop, it layers pre-existing material, often a mix of the African and American. And like in Petite Noir’s tracks (which are original, not pre-existing), the rhythms are often layered in complex ways and don’t fit together perfectly. The rough edges add to the excitement:

 

In 2015 Petite Noir recorded his first (and so far, his only) full album, La vie è belle. His label, Double Six, also seems to have given him a better budget. Both the sound and the look are slicker. Frankly, some of the videos for this album are stunning.

The title track features Baloji – another Belgian of Congolese extraction — rapping in French along with Petite Noir sounding for all the world like Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode in the low-pitched melody.

 

The sounds and images of Africa are on spectacular display in “Best” and its accompanying video. But mix that with snare drum cadences and a horn section, plus the restricted melodic arc of a Smiths song, for a signature Petite Noir musical cocktail.

 

“Noirse” sets a melody (almost atonal at times, but I don’t think that’s on purpose, only his voice losing its way and sliding sharp) over a marimba or xylophone base, eventually adding in more conventional guitar and drums. Again, the lyrics have little to offer (“Tell me your secret. Why you so pretty?” – seriously?). But the underlying idea is so interesting that there is plenty to focus on and appreciate.

 

I look forward to a day when this songwriter joins forces with a lyricist whose gift for writing original words match Petite Noir’s as a musician and producer. The results will be probably something to take our collective breath away.

There are major changes afoot in the audio industry, and few are being formally announced by press-releases. I’ll present info that is verified as reliable, and link to sources when such sources are available.

B&W/Classe: As reported in Copper #38, there’s been a great deal of upheaval at industry leader B&W. Informal reports indicate that possibly as many as 10 upper-level employees have left since the firing of longtime company President Doug Henderson. Two B&W regional sales managers went to Dana Innovations, parent company of Sonance; four were said to have gone to speaker manufacturer Paradigm; and Stacey Kerek, VP of Operations at B&W, joined Como Audio as President. (Como Audio is a fairly new company founded by Tom DeVesto,  co-founder of Cambridge SoundWorks and Tivoli Audio with Henry Kloss.)

In the midst of all this, B&W has only issued a remarkably uninformative letter to its dealers from Richard Campbell, identified as Chief Revenue Officer at B&W, but unknown to those with a history with or knowledge of the company.

Amongst reports that B&W-owned Classe’ may be shutting down, B&W has responded to inquiries by saying only, “Thank you for your inquiry. It is Bowers & Wilkins policy not to comment on rumors or speculation.”

I have been unable to learn if B&W’s distribution arrangement with Rotel will remain the same as it has been, or if there will be changes there, as well.

Gibson Brands: The company that most think of as Gibson Guitar is far more than a guitar-maker, and is deeply involved—-some would say bewilderingly so—in the audio industry. Gibson has grown to be a conglomerate that owns a number of musical instrument companies and in the audio world  owns Stanton, the accessories division of Philips, and Cerwin Vega, holds a majority share in TEAC/Esoteric, and has a minority share in  Onkyo. (And if that’s not confusing enough, Pioneer’s A/V division is a subsidiary of Onkyo, but acts independently of Onkyo. Sort of.)

How do all these companies fit together? Aside from Gibson’s CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, no one seems quite sure. The company has hit some hard times in recent years, including raids by federal agents related to wood that was allegedly imported illegally, along with a decline in the market for guitars, closely tied to woes at major retailer Guitar Center. The latest bad news is a down-rating of the company’s credit rating, tied to massive debt and the prospect of defaulting on its obligations.

It will be interesting to see how—or if—Gibson is able to ride out these latest challenges.

Thiel Audio: For many observers of the audio industry, few things have been as painful to watch as the de-evolution of Thiel Audio following the death of founder and designer Jim Thiel and the sale of the company by Jim’s partner, Kathy Gornik. The company was built upon Jim’s unique drivers and alignments and his brother Tom’s exquisite cabinet-work; in recent years the company divested itself of all machinery and facilities in Lexington, Kentucky, meaning that the company could no longer repair or refurbish legacy models. As incredible customer support had always been an earmark of the brand, that did not bode well.

It recent years the company has offered fairly conventional speaker designs, apparently made in China. A number of sales managers have come and gone, and the company just announced its fifth CEO in four years. The new CEO is Elyse McKenna, a Twitter-savvy veteran of artist agencies and web-marketing companies. We wish her and the company well, but the name Thiel has little meaning for audiophiles these days.

Lenbrook:  The name Lenbrook may not be familiar to many in the audio world, but it’s the parent company of the brands NAD, PSB, and Bluesound. Lenbrook began as a distribution company, then bought NAD and PSB, and recently founded Bluesound. In some markets they continue as distributor for brands such as B&O Play and Tivoli Audio.

The longtime President and CEO of Lenbrook Americas, Dean Miller, is retiring, and so is the Chief Brand Officer, John Banks. They moves have been in the works for some time, and Miller and Banks will be replaced by three employees promoted from within.

Artison: Artison is a manufacturer of  in-wall and custom-installation speakers, founded by Cary Christie; Christie also co-founded Infinity Systems with Arnie Nudell, back at the dawn of time. Artison was just purchased by smart-home giant Savant—and there is a great deal of speculation as to why Savant would buy a speaker brand, and how the companies will fit together.

Time will tell, no?

[The article deals with two’s complement, but the title was spelled as it is as a bit of a joke by Richard. So—no emails to  Ye Olde Editor complaining of a typo are needed, thanks. —Ed.]

Most of us understand that PCM audio data “samples” (measures) the music signal many times a second (44,100 times a second for a CD) and stores the result in a number.  For CD audio this is a 16-bit number.  A 16-bit number can take on integer values anywhere between 0 and 65,535.  Integer values simply means whole-number values such as 19, 47,995 and 13,244.  But it cannot take on values such as 1.316 or 377½.  However, even if you’re fine with that, recall that the music waveforms we are trying to measure swing from positive to negative, rather from zero to a positive number.  So we need to be able to record -13,244 as well as +13,244.  Fear not, though – it turns out we can work around that.  An interesting property of binary numbers can be brought to bear.

A 16-bit number is just a string of 16 digits which can be either one or zero.  Here is an example, the number 13,244 expressed in ordinary 16-bit binary form: 0011001110111100.  [If I need to explain binary numbers to you, you’re reading the wrong article.]  If this were all zeros it would represent 0, and if it were all ones, it would represent 65,535.  But there are actually different ways in which to interpret a sequence of 16 binary digits, and one of these is called “Two’s Complement” (spelled with an “e”, not an “i”).

Let’s first talk about 15-bit numbers.  A 15-bit number can take on values between 0 and 32,767.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could encode our music as one 15-bit number representing 0 to +32,767 for all those times when the musical waveform swings positive, and another 15-bit number representing 0 to -32,767 for all those times when the musical waveform swings negative?  In fact, we can do that very easily.  We would take a 16-bit number, and reserve one of the bits (say, the most significant bit) to read 0 to represent a positive number and 1 to represent a negative number, and use the remaining 15 bits to say how positive (or negative) it is.  Are you with me so far?

We need to make one small modification.  As described, both the positive and the negative swings encode the value zero.  We can’t allow two different numbers to represent the same value – it would make doing any math impossible – so we need to fix that.  We allow the negative waveform swings to encode the numbers -1 to -32,768, and the positive waveform swings to encode the numbers 0 to +32,767.  So now the value zero is unambiguously encoded as part of the positive waveform swing.  This gives us a system that can encode all of the integer values from -32,768 to +32,767 which makes us very happy.

What I have described, in a roundabout way, is conceptually similar to what we actually end up doing.  The actual solution is referred to mathematically as the “Two’s Complement” of our 16-bit number, and shares a lot with my simplified description.  Two’s complement lets us express 16-bit data in a form that covers both positive and negative values, which makes us very happy.  It differs from my more simple description by taking all the negative numbers and turning their zeros into ones, and their ones into zeros.  This is done for mathematical reasons that I won’t go into here.

It turns out that two’s complement also makes computers very happy, because numbers represented as two’s complement respond identically and correctly to the integer arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, and multiplication.  So we can manipulate them in exactly the same way as we do regular integers.  In fact, two’s complement representation is so inherently useful to computers that software engineers have devised a much more user-friendly term for them – Signed Integers.

Two’s Complement (or Signed Integer) representation is such a huge convenience that virtually all audio processing uses this representation.  For example, simple signal processing functions like Digital Volume Control are more efficient to code with Signed Integers.

There is one thing to bear in mind, though, and it catches some people out.  Recall that the negative swing encodes a higher maximum number than the positive swing.  Here I am going to shift the discussion from the illustrative example of 16-bit numbers to the more general case of N-bit numbers.  The largest negative swing that can be encoded is 2^(N-1) whereas the largest positive swing that can be encoded is 2^(N-1) – 1.  Where this becomes important is to note that the ratio between the two is not constant, and varies with N, the bit depth.  This comes into play if you are designing a D-to-A Converter with separate DACs for the negative and positive voltage swings.  You need to design it such that the negative and positive sides both reach the same peak output with an input value of 2^(N-1), while recognizing that the positive side can never see it in practice, since it can only ever receive a maximum input value of 2^(N-1) – 1.  There is at least one high-end DAC that I know of which does this intentionally wrongly, and makes a wrong-headed claim that they are uniquely solving a known problem.

Similar considerations exist when normalizing the output of a DSP stage (which should properly be in floating point format) for rendering to integer format.  The processed floating point data is typically normalized to ±1.0000 and it would be an error to map this to ±2^(N-1) in Two’s Complement integer space, because this would result in clipping (or worse) of the positive voltage swing at its peak.  Instead it must be mapped to ±2^(N-1) – 1.

Such things make a difference when you operate at the cutting edge of sound quality.