Hi James,
»Hi sead, it would have been nice to talk to you at Frankfurt High End 2001, but I could not find you.«
I was there 90% of the time, the remaining 10% of the time I was out for business talks. The fact that my wife wasn’t there either at the time of your visit indicates the probability of your visit either on Friday morning/early afternoon (oh, well, she was spending money in shops downtown Frankfurt) or on Sunday when she went out to take a look on what is going on at the show, outside of our room.
»You have your headquarters in Sarajevo (correct?)_«
This would be very much of an overstatement to say headquarters but, yes, we have our office and a demo facility in Sarajevo.
»_.and there can be no doubt that to meet you among your equipment there, in the very place where your 47 Labs set-up was conceived and usually operates, would be an unforgettable experience.«
There is only one way to find it out..You are welcome anytime. :-)
»Probably not like meeting you at the Frankfurt trade fair--namely, to encounter an original, undeviating (despite the soldered speakers) audiophile amid this swirl of different sounds, "omnia sua secum portans," on the alert in the dull grey light of his room in the Kempinski. To be sure, the big audio show exhibit is not a format in which I might initially expect an understated, minimalist system--and one of the subtlest ones at the show--to reveal itself.«
You are right. It was hectic, many people coming and going, I even can imagine insulting some people by not providing as much attention to them as either their name/background/whatever suggests would be required, or simply some nice people I wish I had more time to spend with.
Soldered speakers_ Uh, huh, maybe someone can help here for me it is impossible to apply sufficient amount of pressure over relatively large surface of speaker connector pin for a good crimp connection. Better not to crimp than to do it badly. Besides, if I had more time, as usually do, my Jordan drives would end up (as they already have, just after Frankfurt_) without these pins completely_
»But to my ears the situation appeared differently. Your efforts brought the ideas behind the 47 Labs equipment into sharp focus for me. »
Thank you. These are really very kind words and they are a bold confirmation of what we try to do to have a sense.
»2. The use of the STRATOS wire as a power cable. I am glad I was correct here: chalk it up to my sharp eyes, and curiosity. The Frankfurt area has notoriously bad AC and I was curious how all of the exhibitors would handle that problem.«
Half of the outets in our room were out of function_ Fortunately the power cord we had was long enough, otherwise we would be in trouble of spending quite some time making new powercords. Good thing is that I never go without an extra reel of Storatos. Even better thing was that Teramura san's geniality anticipated the problem well in advance :)
» Please, do not take my words "casual attitude towards resonance" as a critique, but a hidden gloss. In the 47 Labs interview for "enjoythemusic.com" Junji Kumura offers an "alternative medicine" perspective on resonance: "We are not trying to control resonances... Instead of trying to kill off resonances by damping, we are trying to find a way to live with them." Koji Teramura added: "We can't stop the vibrations no matter what" I simply thought that the exhibit was an embodiment of these ideas. It seems once 47 Labs takes a particular direction, they follow it through as far as it goes with a certain resoluteness. This commitment to extremes (what else is it but dialectic and life's breath and passion?) can be seen in your cabling very clearly. Was it also in the shelving of your components, I wondered?
No, I don’t take your words as criticism at all. It is very important to stress out our position regarding vibrations and it’s a great thing that you are making reference to this Enjoy The Music interview as I see it as a document of particular importance, regardless of somewhat nonchalant atmosphere that this interview is wrapped in. It is a VERY important document for understanding of philosophy behind 47Labs and their products.
We don’t kill vibrations for a very simple reason as they can’t be killed throughout the spectrum equally thus every try results in some sort of imballance. Besides, killing resonances results in_. a silence. We want music. We will probably have a chance to meet and we can talk about only this aspect for hours.
It is very important, in our opinion, not to alter the resonance spectrum and to drain it as much integral as possible.
Shelving is always a compromise. There are two basic approaches and we agree with one school of thoughts and dissagree very much with the other. The one we agree with tries not to isolate units from vibrations but to try to enable fast energy transfer from the units through shelves to the ground (as the practically infinite energy storage, at least in respect to amount of energy we talk about here). We think that it is not possible to kill vibration in it’s entirety so, the cure is worse than illness and we certainly can’t agree with this type of thinking.
Ken Lyon is my very dear friend and we’ve spent hours and hours of talks on this subject and I am very glad that his philosophy is almost identical to mine. His immense empirical experience on the subject of audio applied mechanics has resulted in me pushing him back into production of almost forgotten (due to the wrong marketing) and now very much improved Neuance shelf. I only hope he won’t hate me for that but Neuance is an excellent shelf nevertheless and I am very glad that more people will have the chance to have it as a result of the new production.
» Restricted Low Frequency speakers and music. I simply was not in the room when any demanding bass recordings were played.«
Yups. Although, we’re not chasing after admiration over low registers of our setup, it happens that some music has bass as well. :))
»Big bass is not a big sonic priority for me anyhow. Nevertheless, I would have loved to have heard the Rickie Lee Jones "speaker crusher" you mentioned.«
Neither is for me. I don’t really appreciate these common but brutal surgical measures of majority of audiophiles resulting in cutting of the music into freq. range pieces. I prefer to look at things in their totality, when it comes to the music.
Rickie’s recording is a vinyl EP, I understand it is a rarity these days. I play it because I like it, not because it’s lethal.
»Scarcely any of the recordings I heard were ones that normally turn up in my listening room or ones that I am familiar with. But as I sat there listening to them in my armchair, hands busy scribbling in my notebook or clasped behind my neck (more often the latter), I was overtaken with admiration, It was fascinating to follow that vocal recording of "American Pie" in its undeviating clarity and closeness.«
Now I should be smart enough to say something_.
»Since the breaking-in of cables is lengthy, the involvement of many of the above posters with the 47 Labs OTA Kit seems to move in phases. (In and out of phase, as it were, ;-))«
That is a perfectly normal thing. We learn through all our lives, why audio would be an exception?
A friend of mine, also a 47Labs afficionado, when asked about the break in time for Gaincard uses to say: »To my knowledge, it takes two years, I will let you know how it goes further on_«
Okie, to make things easier for this »out of phase« fella, I must say that I was very much confused and stressed over the fact that there are Power Humpties and Power Dumpties and I was obsessed not to mix them up, to the point that I was marking what’s what. It took me more than two months to realise that they have entirely different connectors and that it was impossible to mix them, even by accident_
»I ventured to provide some poetry above for the close emotional involvement I felt for the music through the 47 Labs system as I think that everyone who becomes closely involved with 47 Labs equipment does not really go through phases, but a fundamental transformation of sonic and electronic priorities.«
I used to have a warning on my web site (oh, when will I find a time to redo this pathetic web page of mine?) about serious effects that listening to 47Labs may have on how one looks on music, audio, even life. I was not kidding at all!
Now, I would say that, with those who are of the sensibility that may percieve what we do, first contact with 47 is somewhat shocking but the profound feelings and sensation grow over time, together with the understanding of the concept and the rediscovery of one’s music collection. It would be reasonable to assume that I, being inside of this, already take it as is, without this new sensation but the real fun lies over the fact that this path we’re on brings new surprises, new excitements continuously and it’s the fun and a great privillege for me to be a part of it. Spending time with Kimura san and Teramura san in Frankfurt were THE most exciting moments of my audio carrier.
»They also get much closer to the pure affective experience of music, as I think Hazim indicates in his post. If any of my words are authentic, they owe this to the poetic and deliberate dialectical construction of the 47 Labs system you built for us in Frankfurt. Thanks.«
It is my privillege. I am delighted that there were so many people who’ve managed to understand the message we’ve tried to send out.
Best,
Sead
