Rullit - an audio experimenter (again) from Germany

Warhol's Lumiere and RS-3 - An Hommage

Have a look here: http://community.webshots.com/user/highfilter
Rullit is an audio brave, fearless experimenter from Germany... his search is a tasty, tireless in respectfully modifying and revamping old classics from Saba, Telefunken, Siemens, Isophon speakers... RE-604 and AD-1 german triodes, EMT and Commonwealth classic broadcast idler-wheel turntables... practically a brother;-)))!

http://www.field-coil.com/#field_coil

Very, VERY interesting approach and stuffs...

Harps and harpists: pure bliss!

Yesterday evening a superb concert at my town Conservatory of Music: Maria Rosa Fogagnolo and Nazarena Recchia in a duo harp, so rare and magical concert... REALLY moving, exotic music from even more exotic instruments, rarely seen solo, imagine duo!?!... sometimes relegated to a sort of a noise, a colour for orchestra and a nuance in composers palette, like celesta or triangle... what a SHAME!!!!;-)
Haendel, Pachebel, Albeniz, Granados... all superbly played music... BUT the highlight has been Giannantonio Mutto's Five Jewish and Yiddish Songs!
Encore and encore and... audience wasn't never tired in listening to this ancient airs from the past coming from a contemporary composer who composed this haunting, beautiful piece for his harp students, as a joke... WOW!

The two so elegant, almost ethereal musicians were caressing strings and air together... when I had the opportunity, after the concert to strum an harp briefly... I understood how difficult is to tame the resonances, stopping the unused strings to freely vibrate... imagine a wild, untamed grand-piano, without pedals. Only hands, palms, fingers... a joy for the ears and for the eyes, as well, but a quite muscular instrument, indeed ... and, as a plus, now I know that the red strings are "C" and the black one are "F"... a well spent day;-)
Sound-wise... well, I've been impressed in hearing the BIG sound, lots of air moved... and again, as usually when I go to a concert, a good lesson to apply when back home in my listening room...

M -U -S - I - C: an amendment and an addendum

In a past post;-) - browse in previous posts, at yr. convenience) - I blissfully quoted my experiences in details retrival from high quality vinyl discs... birds sounds, heating boilers and the like.

Well, I must amend something I guess I heard... to my GREAT surprise in Hopkinson Smith's EMI Reflexe of S.L. Weiss lute music I was sure the low rumble noise I was listening during quiet lute solo pieces was the above mentioned boiler... BUT, after installing in my analog rig (Garrard 301 with Shindo heavy platter, spindle and leaded-mat, w. 25 kilos bronze arm-base) the recently received Thomas Schick's 12 inches arm, with my own heavier brass o-ringed/tamed arm-weight and Lumiere DST cartridge... well... what I now hear is a completely new, huge, improved mess of ambient details... AND the "boiler" isn't a boiler... but ALL these low noises are cars, possibly going in a underground garage or the like.

My madness made me, few days ago, to make a little research... Tonmeister Matthes recorded this very record with Maestro Smith playing a circa 1700 precious, sought after museum-quality lute... and, in fact, the recording happened in a Nurnberg museum...

I did a Google Earth research and found the Museum site;-)

I went to Nurnberg a couple of times and I remember there are no hills for hundreds kilometers around... so, voilà... YEEEESSS!

My guess proved to be correct... an underground garage amplifying the entrying and exiting cars was, IS quite near to the Museum, maybe for personnell and the like!

To my very surprise, at some point on EMI disc, I've NOW been able to identify a roaring car, previously unaudible with other, lesser arms... an Alfa Romeo or an old, clunky Mercedes 200... who knows?!?!;-)))

... I wonder and ask myself: how many hidden informations are in the humble vinyl records grooves?

So, let me please pay a grateful acknowledgement: thanks Thomas for the great arm... thanks Chiaki for the great cartridge!

Their magnifying capabilities are... simply unbelivable!

... and, last but not least... the second time I bother Aldous Huxley... in his "The Doors of Perception" he describe his experiences with lisergic drugs AND an interesting chapter on "how to enjoy paintings"... I always used his method since I had my first exposure to this seminal book, when since in my teens...

Mr. Huxley's advice is simple: always look, when in a Museum looking at masterpieces on the walls, to the clothes, to jewels, don't look at the figure face, look at the hand veins... don't look at the rose first, but look instead to the leaves... look at the background, at the tiny details... you'll better understand the central human figure, the Madonna with Bambino... I always applied this to visual arts... BUT it's in music I obtained the most astounding results... again and again: God is in Details!

The listening/reading experience

It's a varied experience, always different... sometimes I look for intimacy, details, other times for guts, muscular sound, to dance and to sing-a-long... BUT, one of the highest peaks for me is listening to a group or a musician and in the meanwhile read something related... few moments ago David Gans's book "Grateful Dead Interviews" while listening to Deads' "Go To Heaven"... followed my "Dick's Pick # 4" - the very best... great results also with Frank Zappa's "Chunga's Revenge" or "The Grand Wazoo" or "The Yellow Shark" and FZ & Peter Occhiogrosso's Biography or Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica", "Lick my Deacals off, Baby" or "Doc's at The Radar Station" and Don Van Vliet's Biography... can't imagine what these people did in their lifes, pals... I love reading about them and listening to their music... it's like sitting on the couch with the musician and better, MUCH better understanding their musical and life vision. A totalizing experience...

Japan and Japanese

To better understand Japan, here is a truly astounding, complete (!?!), incredible list of Japan related links lovingly edited by Mr. Jim Breen, an Australian professor and lover of Japanese culture.
Any word on my part is unnecessary... but this link will open to anyone interested - as did for me - new worlds.
... BTW, it's also very WJAAS' friendly!

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanese.html

... some words about the "bird-fish" drawing: made by a children... a genius?
Let's find and use again our childish life-enjoyment approach...

Philips 9710 or "The Doors of Perceptions"

Why bothering Aldous Huxley for an apparently humble wideband 22 cm diam. speaker, made by Philips in The Netherlands back in the '60s?
Why these little unassuming speakers are truly a masterpiece!
Their superb paper dual-cone, the copper polepiece, the Alnico magnet and the incredibly linear frequency response... ALL the above give to this speaker its high status.
I've always been a lover and a scholar of old classy widebands: Goodman's Axiom 80, Siemens Klangfilm KL-307 and now Philips 9710 are capable - in carefully built, non-resonant large plain-baffles - to reproduce music in a much larger scale than expected by lesser audio cognoscenti, a different interpretation if compared with other top-class speakers systems.
The detail is ABSOLUTELY astounding and the level of resolution is of stellar quality.
Also bass sounds are nicely reproduced with no sense of frequencies lacking or rounded highs.
These gizmos will be mounted on a quite large baffle, tricky in building... my deepest thanks to M. Salabert of PHY-France http://www.phy-hp.com/English/Communication_E/Com_E_Baffle_Plan.html
and to Rob from The Netherlands http://www.dhtrob.com/installatie/weergevers.htm
and to Troels from Denmark
http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/philips9710.htm
and, last but not least to Nico Wilke http://www.german-vintage-loudspeakers.com for their important suggestions and hints in the making of my new project.
Stay tuned...;-)