WJAAS - A busy day...

A busy day, it was... I planned to leave Tokyo, after some classic sightseeing, and wished to spend my third day in Japan fully devoting it to audio, before going southbound.

I used an old address I read on a turntable mat carton-box, a Shindo-made item, to pay a visit to the great manufacturer.

... as a first time of several to come, the always extremely kind hotel(s) personnell was of great support, to trace Tokyo's area to reach and easiest Metro station and... I finally was on my way to find Shindo Lab's den.

I had no idea of "how" the japanese "chome" system worked, so, just arrived in Hongo-Sanchome stop, as per instructions and I studied the area map, just outside the station.

After some hundreds meters, lots of looking for numbers on blocks corners and a couple of info asking, I found... a closed, abandoned house and a paper warehouse nearby.

Oh, oh... found some people involved in the paper wholesale and, to my surprise, at my request for "Shindo", an extremely kind gentleman accompanied me for some metres, a corner, another corner... and saw a Shindo's Green faceplate with a triode behind a glass...

Thanked and rang the doorbell... a young person, who hinted for some slippers after my shoes, not allowed to enter the workshop.

After some stairs, I met Ken Shindo's wife, the young man was his son, but Shindo-san himself wasn't in the shop.

More stairs and I was in the famous, already seen Shindo's listening "room", a tiny space with an Altec 604-based speakers pair and a Shindo 301, the one-of-a-kind version with super wide platter and "Shindo-ed" Ortofon arm and cartridge.

The "workshop" soldering area was VERY small, in a corner... like some friends use in their basement... BUT, hey, it was Shindo's place!

No sound from amps and speakers and absolutely no chance to buy nothing, nonetheless I enjoyed the half-an-hour I spent there taking some shy pix... I left the grey, small-sized slippers for my shoes and was well ready to head myself to Tateyama-shi, at the very end of Chiba peninsula, to meet Susumu Sakuma-san!

The trip was quite long, with a local train stopping at every small and smaller station along the way... reached Tateyama after a couple hours of relaxing rail noise with hills and seaside views... at the station, the kind young woman at Information Desk, who gave to me a Tateyama's map, kept my luggage while I reached - lighter than before - Concorde Restaurant, a few hundred meters walk from the station itself...

Was impressed by how small it appeared, behind a corner: wooden outside, I entered and the first man I saw was... Sakuma-san, in white shirt and white beard and hairs.

A strong dust and wood smell and... the amps and weird tubes and turntables and records I saw so many times on the web and MJ and Stereo Sound magazines were ALL here...

Sakuma-san was hosting some friends from Kyoto, some ladies who, by chance, spoke some english... pfeew... the communication was quite difficult, BUT an icy beer was served and the surprise to meet someone coming from Italy was solved with some Maria Callas' celestial voice coming from a Garrard 401 with Gray arm and Dl-102 cartridge.

I greeted the Master builder and his wife, behind the counter, with a little (musical) present I brought with me from Italy and some Kyoto nice cookies appeared and were enjoyed by the small cohort.

Audio-wise: the several mostly Tamura equipped amps were dozens and the tubes, 211, 845 and 300B, were spreading a nice, romantic, pleasant mono glorious sound from some Voice of the Theater speakers.

I'll fondly remember this very sound during next days listening experiences, when I'll be exposed to Akihabara's macho sound... two very different worlds - i.e. the difference between sound and music.

Sakuma's was my choice, of course (the music)... well happy and content I had the chance and honour to meet him in person.

A very tasty and humble "sensei", a meeting sure worth the train and time, etc.

... after something less than two hours, I was again at Tokyo station, ready - at last - for my VERY first Shinkansen "Hikari" train to Kyoto, where I arrived in 2 hours and a half, late in the evening... but this is another, different story.

Konnichiwa!

First time posting from abroad, pals... currently in Kyoto, enjoying Japan immensely, indeed...

Tourist-wise.... well, nothing new to say: great shrines and museums and gardens and temples and... how, HOW to forget the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo and - ohhh, so prosaically - the great anal-cocooning (oooops!) experienced in good hotels rest-rooms;-)))!!!

... yet many better than myself did in the past and will do in the future.... BUT, audio & music-wise, well... things change;-)

Went to visit Shindo's workshop and Honda-san's Eltus workshop, both in Tokyo... Imai-san of Audio Tekne fame (mo' later...) and Susumu Sakuma-san in Tateyama-shi, Chiba, without forgetting to pay a visit to Gokudo-san in Yokosuka-shi, south of Tokyo, to enjoy - maybe - the greatest collection of both vintage and high-end audio in the world.

Will have more visits in the next days... hopefully will meet Shiniki Tanaka-san of Goto fame in Hino-shi, Endo-san of ALE in Yokohama-shi and Miyajima-san of Otono-Edison in Fukuoka-shi.

Also hoping to have the time (and the strength... Japan and Shinkansen trains are for strong people, indeed...) to meet the always great, helpful, friendly Koji of EIFL, also visiting GIP Laboratory, both in Fukushima-ken.

... was forgetting: after being in Hiroshima, later this afternoon.... BTW: a great, yet sad way to commemorate today's 9/11 in the place where stopping EVERY current and future war should have been a GREAT lesson for ALL humankind - will reach Matsue village for some relax after this tour-de-force (it is...) and then heading to my friend Seo Hisashi-san in Yonago-shi, where, hopefully, I'll finally meet in person Hasegawa-san, a true, yet young "audio & music monk";-), as Seo described him...

Will report soon with LOTS of pixes and great - I hope - liner notes and impressions to what I experienced in these two one-of-a-kind weeks... without forgetting Tokyo's Hard Rock Cafe's T-shirts for my nephews... they would kill me in the case I'd forget'em;-)

In the meantime... doomo arigato gozaimasu for reading yours humbly me.

Susumu Sakuma-san passed away today, Dec. 14th, 2018

Sad news, folks...

He was a sensei-san, a master in tubes and tube amps art... a true eccentric, not copy-catting, he was among the very first to conceive and build triode amps preamplified by another triode (300B/300B, for example) and a user of large industrial monsters, like WE 212, 100TH, 845 and 211.

His several books published in Japan for Seibundo Shinkosha represent a veritable goldmine.

I was honored to visit his Concord Cafe in Tateyama-shi, back in September 2009, spending a couple of quiet relaxed hours listening to music, chatting, taking pictures and soaking in the humble, serene atmosphere of this place... half a pub, a simple restaurant and half an audio museum and workshop, where the soldering-iron fumes were happily mixed with fried potatoes and eggs aroma.

I express deepest condolences to his lovely wife and family and all Japanese pals who loose a true hero, a good, humble, wise man.

R.I.P. Sakuma-san.

Jean Hiraga meets ALE and Be Yamamura: one of the VERY best systems in the world?

Italian design meets Japan at its VERY best: ALE 6-ways ALL The VERY top Beryllium diaphragms, weighting between 100 and 160 kilos each, a grand-total weight for speakers - horns and drivers of about 1.300 kilos (!!!) and NO paper woofers around, ONLY compression drivers, a system of a VERY seldom heard finesse and capable of 128 db SPL;  all bespoke hand-made by Be Yamamura Class A 45 W amps... all cables hand-made by Be himself, six-ways multiamping with 20th order (120 db/octave) crossover and digital room-correction/crossover via a proprietary software and last generation DAC using Wolfson's newest DAC - always by Be Yamamura, of course - and only liquid music, you'd bet it, via a proprietary top class computer/server by Be Yamamura!

A Statement... the Audio Zenith: highest grade handicrafts and the lightness of best italian design> the horns, for example, aren't wood or leather, but metal with an exotic and elegant oxide and was treatment!

A masterpiece.   

The bespoke discs boxes... superb!

What about the sound?

Imagine Keith Jarrett's seminal "Koln Concert" on ECM (1974).

Not the vintage vinyl, but a 44.1 khz liquid/lossless computer-stored version... the sound and recording, NOT the music (...) aren't this good, IMHO... in Marco's BY/ALE system the piano was so real and full of nuances, it was like I listened to this music for the VERY first time.

The bass was light, yet deep, but that deepness you only experience in a live concert; unboomy, not violently hitting stomach or tinnitus;-)

A very, VERY enlightening performance, indeed.

Another highlight was again when listening to Keith Jarrett's Bach's "Goldberg Variations" on ECM, played on harpsichord with a sense of trueness, both musical and sonic really unbelievable: airy, beautiful sound and musical bliss.

Something REALLY strange happened, while sipping Keith "Gne-Gne" Jarrett's Bach rendition: while slowly walking behind the sofa, at the very sweet spot, about 6 meters from ALE's mouths, it was like walking in front of a real 1:1 sized harpsichord.

The instrument was standing still in its virtual position, yet the sense of looking at the wooden old instrument if only looking at the sound source was AWESOME.

The granite-like scene was carved in the room... an hard to believe sensation.

The DAC, music storage and room-correction and crossovering was all in the digital domain
of a newly conceived Be Yamamura's software and hardware: a 52" wall mounted monitor was showing everything, from music played (a lengthy process of downloading the several, precious vinyls in the superb "boxes", so cleverly wall-mounted is a work-in-progress...) to time-delays, cut-off frequencies and every parameter, incl. impulsive and medium real-time SPL and more.

The different LPs curves will be a specialty... every disc playing will be read, equalization used recognized and extracted and then stored... every vintage eq. curves by Decca, EMI, RCA, Mercury, etc. etc. will be then available in digital domain and automatically re-applied, always using Yamamura's software and powerful server.

A truly super feature!

As the new, recently established commercial partnership called "Yamamura Crawley Limited"'s statement says, the company will deal in:

"Apparatus for recording, transmission or reproduction of sound; loudspeakers; loudspeaker systems; radios; DVD players; CD players; digital music players; amplifiers; remote control devices; batteries; headphones; headsets;
microphones; converter; digital to digital converter, Digital-to-Digital converter which may consist of a sample rate or bit depth converter, it may also convert one form of digital data to another; analogue to digital converter, analogue-to-digital converter which converts a continuous physical quantity in voltage or current to a digital
number that represents the quantity's amplitude; computer software, computer software for controlling and correcting response from speaker/speaker systems as well as an acoustic characteristics of the listening environment in connection with the speaker system; reforming converted digital data from analogical signal from
such as LP record with more appropriate equalizing curve."

A site and links will be available, soon.

Teflon washer between ALE's drivers and horns.

Both Marco and Yamamura-san were (almost) apologizing the new DACs (Wolfson's newest chip based) were new and in the system since a few days, now.

An unused/unconnected "normal" sized ALE's tweeter with Imai-san's (Audio Tekne) carbon-block driver holder and horn.



Everything was finely tuned on "old" DAC's sound and the voicing of the ALE's six ways is so potentially able to further improve, when everything will be adapted to new level of resolution and finesse.

In my opinion, ALL other guests of the panel agreeing, the old DAC was smoother sounding, BUT the new was already INCREDIBLY natural and much more analytic and detailing.

More audio-hinting paintings... ALE's town;-)

Design, peel-off-the wall lamps... italian design and Marco's good taste...

Be Yamamura-san framed in one of his own cables...

Be Yamamura's hand-woven resistors...

Mo' boxed ALE's...

Jean and Be, chatting in Japanese, of course... chotto!

Cool oil on canvas...

... vinyls a go-go!

Dragan, Jean Hiraga and Be Yamamura, while listening...

An old Yamamura's turntable

Sakuma-san's weirdo, cool amp  "creation", from one of his '90s Italian tournee/audio concerts.

... humbly dedicated to J.S. Bach...

Thanks, the VERY deepest thanks for hosting and commuting and EXTREME kindness to Marco, the Landlord, and  Dragan, Be Yamamura and Jean Hiraga for the invitation to join him at SUCH an incredible listening...