... as I really don't know where the man and his company blends to a single unit.
Beside the empathy and friendship with Serge Schmidlin, as a simple matter of intellectual and soul clicking between two human beings, there is something more which makes me every year like a swallow in fall, to fly or jump - as the Alps' passing through - i.e. via Mont Blanc's tunnel - to Commugny, near Geneve, Vaud, Switzerland.
Also if our meetings last only some hours, the long wave of inspiration and reciprocal teaching/learning is something which goes and goes... an imprinting which usually changes something in me as an individual and a music and audio scholar...
Not bad for a short journey - i.e. less than 5 hours drive from home, don't you?
People sometimes spend enormous amounts of money only to get a fraction of what I usually bring home from Serge's in terms of sheer enjoyment and knowledge and experience!
Zen?
Magic?
Voodoo?
No, folks... it's only care for details and sincere interest and untamed passion for searching and trial & error and curiosity, which, YES!, doesn't kill the cat;-)
Every time I visited Serge's place and listened to his system, with Meteor's Phono and Line stages and crazy, superb direct driven turntable and MIPA power amp and Rubanoid's speakers, I always, SAY, always felt the improvements going on in music rendition: from multiamping to mono amping, bass Rubanoids' so resonance-free sounding, and seldom heard depth of image and detailing...
The turntable and its seismic base, laboratory-grade standard... using a Miyajima bamboo cantilever MC cartridge!
Meteor Line Passive AVC in black... coming soon, just stay tuned;-)
Few hours ago I experienced THE sound everyone should be able to listen to in his music room... lively, effortlessly, untiring, quick and smooth...
The overtones and harmonics in acoustic instruments are so, sooo.. natural!
Then, like usually, as also choosing the discs as a listening program to a session is an art in itself, things go and go and go...
Music and chatting, sharing and enjoying music and sound and everything in between.
... and some trivia: like the Laurindo Almeida/Ray Brown direct-to-disc on Jeton, where I immediately heard an incredible wow&flutter sound which made my head to turn to Serge in search of a reason for the guitar sounding drunken-like and the double-bass as played by a newbie, not the veteran Ray Brown... he smiled, and explained to me the reprint of this disc was made from an original pressing... played on a Clearaudio gigantic belt driven turntable...
The awesomely flawed re-pressing...
The original direct-to-disc, flawlessly and nicely sounding...
The wow & flutter champion... a legend!
Embarassing performance, we ended laughing about the choice of using a belt driven design instead of an idler-wheel or a direct drive turntable!
At Serge's place, also little mistakes turn into knowledge and experience: during a listening of the 2 records set of Kavi Alexander's Water Lily "Confluence of the Rivers" by Ry Cooder and V.M. Bhatt, on superb 45 rpm vinyl, after re-setting his battery-fed power amp protection, he forgot to also re-set the battery PSU, so we listened for some minutes on heavy cap filtering option, usually disconnected during critical listenings...
Sound was OK, yet... when Mr. Schmidlin corrected the above and repeated from the first groove the listening, everything was so different and better...
Sound and music were breathing, again and the sense of trueness was back, with no doubts, at all.
Peter, Paul & Mary, Dean Martin, some XIIIth Century music, an obscure Swiss music disc sung in Bernese dialect, both audiophile and simply good records were shining and just reaching our souls through the ears, as it should be.
Too bad if this quality costs... but... BUT... who well spends, less spends... let's consider how much money we spent on audio since everyone's beginning...
That's why everyone should only trust his own ears: listening only to the best and then choosing, on own budget and tastes...
The lesson, the real one is: don't trust in me or in other WEB gurus or magazines... play an instrument , go to concerts and improve your hearing skills... then buy depending on your wallet depth and don't regret if you could end enjoying more a cheaper audio system than a million worth one.
Just play the actor role, not the catering best-boy... don't think too much, just use your ears, first... there is no better suggestion.
Thanking Serge for hosting and making my (too short) Swiss' journey a bliss... and the return trip already looking forward to the next visit.
May he never loose his attitude and good will in tweaking and experimenting and sharing his findings .
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