The Stefan’s Prairie State and John’s Guild D55 are their best!
Live to disc, made in Japan 🇯🇵
I have been to hundreds of dedicated audio rooms, and this is, by far, the most elaborate listening room ever constructed on earth. John has a long-running thread on the WBF forum, and unlike most people in this hobby, he has amassed a genuinely significant body of technical knowledge. He actually knows what he is talking about. More importantly, there is always a technical rationale behind why he believes something should sound a certain way, and that target is ultimately accuracy, namely how the recording was originally intended to be presented. His level of dedication is extraordinary.
To make a very long story short, the room itself is isolated and mechanically decoupled from the surrounding structure. The walls incorporate suspended solid steel plates, roughly one inch thick, hung using layers of rubber, foam, and additional acoustic materials. The floor is anchored directly to the foundation, except for the seating area, which is itself isolated and suspended independently from the rest of the structure.
The diffusers you see, nearly one to one-and-a-half feet thick, were custom made by YONO from this group according to John’s specifications. The ceiling diffusers are solid mahogany, built in a repetitive but deliberately non-random pattern.
Power delivery is equally obsessive. Electricity enters through a direct uninterrupted run of custom-made 3.5 AWG copper wiring. The phase panel itself looks like jewelry. The incoming supply is 400V three-phase, stepped down to 230V according to code. Absolutely nothing is left to chance. Everything is calculated, custom fabricated, and backed by an absurd amount of theory, research, and experimentation.
Now, I come from a very different philosophy.
I am a visceral, almost pagan, carnal kind of audiophile. I place enormous emphasis on subjectivity. I want to feel the music. Texture, immersion, spatiality, emotional impact, that is what matters to me. Unlike most people, I know exactly what I like, and over time I have developed an internal measuring stick that subconsciously evaluates tonal balance, spatial accuracy, frequency extension, texture, and visceral physicality.
That is also why I am generally not a fan of “most” treated rooms.
After visiting hundreds of systems around the world, I have found shockingly little correlation between money spent, elaborate absorption panels, diffusion schemes, and actual sonic results. Most people frankly have no idea what the hell they are talking about, and very few possess genuinely good ears. “David Chans” are exceedingly rare.
David, needless to say, has played a major role in my sonic journey, and I also follow many of Ivan Li’s principles, which I wrote about here: https://pt.audio/2025/01/05/modified-room-coupling-method-for-speaker-positioning/
For me, speaker positioning is ultimately done by ear. John approaches it from a far more calculated, theory-driven perspective.
But the proof is in the pudding.
And yes, he absolutely has the goods to back it up.
When you first walk into the room, it almost feels like an anechoic chamber. You can practically hear your own heartbeat. The moment I experienced that sensation, my immediate reaction was, “Good grief. Another dead-sounding recording studio.” Experience has taught me that people who over-treat rooms usually end up with rolled-off highs, muffled presentation, and muddy bass.
That was exactly what I expected.
But that was not what John had built.
For the first time in my life, I encountered a room that was extraordinarily damped, yet somehow not muffled. The highs were not rolled off. Instead, there was ambiance, extension, clarity, and openness. It completely contradicted every previous experience I have had with heavily treated spaces.
The tonal balance was exceptional. There was no obvious recession or exaggeration anywhere across the frequency spectrum. The spatial precision and soundstage expansiveness were simply the best I have ever heard.
On familiar reference tracks, the usual suspects such as Rosa Fra Bethelem, Kalimando, Tannhäuser, and others, I heard layers of information I had never previously detected on any system.
Tonality was superb. Balanced, natural, and convincingly accurate.
The presentation was smooth and utterly grain-free, without edge or sibilance, yet still possessed clarity, extension, and realism.
Complaints?
Yes, of course.
The bass is not what I am personally accustomed to. On something like Carmina Burana, if David’s system delivers bass impact at a 10/10 level, this would sit closer to a 7/10. Instead of that gigantic, larger-than-life “OH MY GOD” slam, the bass here is tighter and more restrained, more of a controlled thud than an overwhelming physical assault. I suspect the diffusers and steel plate construction contribute significantly to bass dissipation. This is a tuneful bass, more accurate, with clarity, but less viceral.
But honestly, in the grand spectrum of what this room accomplishes, that is just nitpicking a relatively minor issue. You are hearing so much new information, so much spatial and tonal truth, that you almost forget to care about the missing excess.
Also, I feel more honest when I can point to at least one thing to nitpick. Otherwise, you would think I’m just shamelessly ass-kissing.
This is just the beginning of the journey, he has KICK ASS equipment coming in so I will go back to hear a lot more good shit !! His own equipment has not even arrived; most of the stuff is borrowed, so this will only get better!
Thanks to Richard H. Mak for the above: your level of introspection and proper lingo is awesome, Richard.
I guess this very review could represent a benchmark in audio and music accuracy agenda.
Kudos.
Stradivari violins sound better than any modern violin. And it's not today's luthiers' fault: it's the climate's fault.
A CNR study, published in 2026 in Dendrochronologia, analyzed 284 authentic Stradivari violins—the largest corpus ever examined with this method. Researchers measured every single ring of the wood used by Antonio Stradivari in nearly seventy years of work.
What they found explains everything.
The spruce trees used by Stradivari came from the Fiemme Valley and the Paneveggio forest in Trentino. This is no coincidence: after 1706, almost all of his violins used exclusively wood from that area. Stradivari systematically chose from that source. He knew something.
What he couldn't have known was why that wood was so different.
Between 1645 and 1715, Europe experienced the Maunder Minimum—the coldest peak of the Little Ice Age. Shorter summers. Longer winters. High-altitude fir trees grew so slowly that each year they formed a ring of just 0.6–0.95 mm. Today's fir trees, in today's climate, form a ring of 1.5–2 mm: almost double.
Thinner rings mean denser, stiffer, more homogeneous wood. A wood that propagates sound in a completely different way.
Wait. Because there's a detail that changes the perspective.
The CNR study discovered that Stradivari often carved the soundboards of different violins from the same trunk—even years apart. It wasn't a coincidence or a logistical issue: it was a deliberate strategy. He selected the material, preserved it, and reused it when he found the same characteristics. Mauro Bernabei, the research coordinator, describes it as "a very careful selection of wood, aimed at exploiting materials deemed particularly suitable."
The Cremona violin maker didn't know about the Ice Age. But he recognized that wood.
The problem is that that wood no longer exists. The Maunder Minimum ended in 1715. The trees that grew in those conditions were cut down centuries ago. The climate that formed them is not repeated—and in the context of current warming, it is receding every year.
Contemporary violin makers know this. They study, experiment, and treat modern wood with every available technique. Some results are extraordinary. But no one has yet replicated a Stradivarius.
Not because there's a lack of genius. Because there's a lack of trees.
This ironic, funny, intelligent, incredibly talented, unique genius is 80 years old? Young! today…
🥂🥂🥂
I wish him the very best!
🍀🥂🍀
The Japanese owner/builder’s son of this unique system gladly shared on YouTube some very interesting pictures documenting the building of this awesome system, which Jean Hiraga covered on “La Revue du Son” French magazine, years ago.
I always admired how brave was conceiving a coaxial full-Goto’s system!
The large, gigantic bass horn was built out of Japanese Cedar-wood and reinforced with concrete throughout, as the longest part of the huge horn is outside the house.
💫
Perhaps not everyone (jazz musicians or not) knows that…
When you think of modal, you immediately think of iconic pieces like "So What" from Kind of Blue or "Impression" by John Coltrane.
Yet, twenty years later, Mick Goodrick recorded a piece that demonstrates a perhaps even more interesting use of modality. The piece is "In Passing," from the album of the same name, beloved and respected by musicians but perhaps ignored by experts in the field.
Here, the reference mode is the Ionian, the one corresponding to the major scale. Eddie Gomez immediately takes up the Tonic and won't budge from it even with a bulldozer. Jack DeJohnette goes… well, Jack DeJohnette’s Jack DeJohnette, and we know and love him.
John Surman and Mick Goodrick play with the mode, creating tensions between the Tonic, the Sensitive, and the Countersensitive, ethereal plagal cadences, dominants that don't dominate, resolutions that will resolve sooner or later… but not today.
It's the most beautiful modal possible, where the ears decide whether to tread water, dive in, resolve, or postpone.
Furthermore, the Ionian inevitably creates a certain "folk" atmosphere that makes the song airy and playful, as often happens in Irish folk and many other Anglo-Saxon forms around the world.
The rest of the album is a series of very "ECM" masterpieces, including "Summer Band Camp," a true compositional gem.
Note for guitarists and others: Mick Goodrick wrote a beautiful book on harmonies and various conceptual principles: The Advancing Guitarist. You can find it online.
Studying harmony helps you understand the difference between jewels and jewels, each precious in its own right. This one, however, was quite large.
🖖
In 1974, avant-garde jazz musician Don Cherry and his partner, artist Moki Cherry, toured Japan with their children, including Neneh and Eagle-Eye Cherry, documenting their journey, which included time in Kyoto.
The family visited Kyoto’s Arashiyama Monkey Park Iwatayama, a famous site where tourists can feed wild Japanese macaques and see panoramic views of the city.
Don Cherry, Moki Cherry, Neneh Cherry, Eagle-Eye Cherry in Kyoto, 1974.
💫
And another lovely comment from Lee Underwood when I posted these three albums together saying the Berio with Cathy Berberian a big influence on these two Tim Buckley albums.
Thank you so much for this comment Lee Underwood you have made my day!
"Wow. You are the only one I know who is aware of Luciano Berio and his singer/wife Cathy Berberian. When Tim heard them, especially Berberian, he said "I've found a friend." After this, he recorded Lorca, a first step. Then Starsailor, the recording he later called his masterpiece. . . . I think it's terrific you show these three albums together. Great singers and musicians. Great albums, including Tim's Starsailor which, I suspect, will last forever."
Thanks to Cindy Stern and Lee Underwood… and to Tim Buckley, forever 💫
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