Tokyo's Jazz bars are disappearing!!!

Tokyo Jazz Joints is a visual chronicle of an insular world, where time ceases to exist; spaces removed from the speed and chaos of the modern urban landscape. Sanctuaries for jazz enthusiasts where the music is played on vinyl through aging sound systems, these bars or kissaten are slowly disappearing.

Changing times…

Volume setting

I noticed that the more performing your system and, namely, the preamp you use, the more you have to regularly check the volume setting during your listening session.

I noticed every time I changed the preamp in my system... I have a sort of personal hit parade of which's which the most responding to different music solicitudes among my preamps: the Marantz 7C was better than CAT SL 1, Mayer's was better than 7C, Le Solstice IS better than Mayer's, Silver Rock is better than Le Solstice... unfortunately Serge's masterpiece is only good for line-level, so I've to constantly swap to Le Solstice for phono and Garradzilla's glorious sounding joys.

On every of the above gears, I've to more and more times have to go to the preamp pot and set a different volume setting... every disc or disk, almost every track needs its very own setting... the overall trueness greatly improves, size and harmonic blossoming changes are more right when right;-)

Cannot explain in all my ignorance why this happens...

Maybe the improved resolutions makes the volume setting more sensitive and as sure every disc is recorded at a different level, this difference is more or less apparent.

So things go... sure it's a quite intriguing evenience... something which makes, YES, indeed.... the volume pot audiophile's best friend;-)

Sublime

Speechless... amazed... and angry (with myself) for my being sooo slow... slow and lazy.

After the recent arrival of Silver Rock AVC, I admit I only used it connected to the smaller combo, with 300B monos and Cabasse or Carl Zeiss' speakers...

This afternoon, despite the 30+ degrees... I strongly felt the need to try it with Gotorama and so I did...

Connected to Mayer's 4 ways crossover and to Studer A 730 and...

Immediately I felt the sense of clarity and transparency I already appreciated yesterday with smaller system... only more pronounced as every note was felt like an entity of its own, an ever changing aural kaleidoscope able to thrill and surprise, sounding always brand new to the ear, untiring and reaching the inner soul of music.

I should blame on me and my laziness... but, who cares: I always loved this fractal, chaos-ruled and always surprising way of going trial and error.

Sublime.

Only this noble, seldom used word describes the sense of beauty I experienced.

The Goto, Hiraga Class A amps, Mayer crossover and Schmidlin's Silver Rock represent my new reference combo.

Sublime... and still baffled: what was I waiting for the "swap"?!?!

Site of the Month - Robert Fripp's Diary

WOW!

Such a goldmine of info and trivia... everything KC, Frippertronics and more...

As a plus... just press the DGM's logo for priceless, always changing, inspiring quotes and i-Ching-like sentences, like this "An artist acts with the assumption of innocence within a field of experience".

...

Summertime Audio on the fly - Carl Zeiss speakers

Yes, indeed... sure I cannot stand in 35 degrees Celsius four Class A amps heating like the hell... too bad I cannot enjoy my Gotorama's.

... but... the old, trusty Carl Zeiss luggage-like speakers, with their leather handles, hinting traveling and the like, well...

They do, folks... I randomly enjoy these speakers a lot, also if they usually rest on a shelf, unused... they are very dynamic and the VEB 12" wideband speakers with their 100 db/W sensitivity works like heaven with the Partridge/300B mono blocks and the Silver Rock passive AVC preamp...

When I turn ON the small system, I smile and enjoy its no frill, naked beauty... also very intriguing thinking that you may obtain literally tons of music with a quite limited budget.

.... mmmmhhhh...

His Bobness Chronichles - motorbike wreck anniversary

It was July 29th, 1966, near Woodstock... many versions of the mishappen circulated in the meantime... he fell, he slipped on oil... who knows?

Whatever... Bob Dylan's music changed after his 9 months long recovery.


Intriguing topic... almost a mistery;-)

Disk of the Month - Trost im Leid - C.P.E. Bach - Ensemble Precipitation (Psalmus)

A masterpiece... a must-have... an humble one, yet... such a beauty!

Love this disk... music-wise and, YES! the recording is ***** (DSD, ecc.)

Archiv's heritage 50 disks box-set

For new generation-sake... to do not forget such a musical treasure.

God is in the Irons - Audio Consulting's Silver Rock AVC - handmade in Switzerland

I got my 2004 pre-owned Audio Consulting's Silver Rock AVC passive line-preamp... connected to my Partridge/Allen Bradley/300B mono blocks feeding the Cabasses' and Meridian's digital...

... and listened...

At the very beginning,  still remembering when Luxman AT 3000 was in place, the sensation was of a fuller-body, thicker overall sound.

I immediately felt the difference, yet fearful the sound was a bit slower than with AT 3000's... ahem, no!
Thickness or... less bass-shy...

These were just the first minutes listening... a sensation which lasted an eye-blink.

I began to swap discs... David Tibet's Current 93's Honeysuckle Aeons (unbelivable quality), female vocals and lute, electric guitars duo with cello by Sousedi (unbelivable quality!!!), double bass and acoustic 12 strings and classical guitars (Gary Peacock/Ralph Towner's Oracle on ECM... a must-have!).

The more I listened the more I enjoyed the result: the apparent thickness suddenly disappeared and the resolution improved... more and more...

What thrilled me was that, when going louder and louder, the volume wasn't absolutely affecting the size of instruments... an acoustic guitar was just louder, not larger.
A truly important feature!

When I got conscious of the above, I better dig and paid attention to the phenomenon on more disks; furthermore, studio noises were very present and naturally blended with music.

The loudness improved: loud was really loud and clean, effortlessly sounding, free of glare and smooth... loud, but not annoying or hurting... never, also when reaching a truly high climax!

The sense of clarity and naturalness become almost painful... I had some business, and simply had to force me hard to stop listening to more and more and more disks and go... quite embarrassing;-)

Summing up: clarity, resolution, inner- and inter-notes silence, natural imaging and depth and an additive, strong overall beauty feeling... in my opinion, all these aspects are top class...

The Luxman AT 3000 and Fidelity Research AS 1 sure are top contenders... but with the Silver Rock the extremely low noise-floor makes you so easily aware of instruments decay, mixer on and off, guitar amps hums, artists breathing...  everything is so lively.

Audio Consulting's previous moniker was Silver Rock... a slightly opinable brand-name...

... but a younger Serge Schmidlin wasn't that wrong!

Silver is silver wire used in coils... Rock... well: it's the rock-solid sensation of rightness... making me pretty sure I nicely spent my money for such a result.

I really love this box: only two hand-wound irons and two gold contacts Elna's 24 positions rotary switches!

Someone will think - plainly said - why paying considerable amount of money for a passive AVC gizmo...  hey, it's only a couple of irons... but... BUT!


As Serge once told me during a conversation, Switzerland doesn't own oil, carbon, gold, diamonds or other precious materials... mountains, lakes and... people learned to work wood and watches and clocks and improved their skills in micro-mechanic... Vacheron-Constantin, Rolex, Nagra, Stellavox, Da Vinci, Audio Consulting... all them and more represents the peak in human-sized  manufacturing, the old style, by hand, one at a time, painstackingly.



The winding care and skill involved in the making and materials used in coils (super thin magnetic layers) and wire are everything's needed to make the difference between a transformer and a great iron, music-wise.

Such a musical device, a good iron, is worth its weight in gold: as God is in details, so audio/music-wise, it's in the Irons:-)))!

Thanking Pierre and Serge... and Dick Olsher for his SR's review: I agree on every word he spent on the matter.

Silver Rock AVC Passive preamp

A little, humble masterpiece, from Serge Schmidlin.... a 2004 vintage AVC.

... a truly nice add to my little passive preamps collection... next add?

A Meteor AVC, of course;-)))

Yes! Thanking Serge Schmidlin.

Stay tuned...

A miniature

A micro B/W still-life, on the beach-towel...

Cute, lazy self-indulging silliness... my fault.

John Cage - Lettera a uno sconosciuto (1996)

I'm reading the 575 pages book about (and by) John Cage and his endless interviews, collected by Richard Kostelanetz (Edizioni Socrates, 1996 1st italian edition - original title - "Conversing with Cage" 1987).

It's an extremely interesting and enlightening essay, full of stories and quotes and ideas.

A goldmine.

On page 58 I read the following (about Cage and chess-playing with Marcel Duchamp in Paris):

"Mettiamo, ad esempio, di andare a Parigi e di passare tutto il nostro tempo a fare i turisti, andando nei luoghi famosi, ecc. Ecco, ho sempre avuto la sensazione che in questo modo non si possa imparare nulla su Parigi. Il modo migliore per conoscere Parigi è proprio quello di non avere alcuna intenzione di imparare alcunché, limitandosi semplicemente a viverci come se fossimo francesi. Nessun francese si sognerebbe di andare, diciamo, a Notre Dame.

E lei ha cercato di fare questo con Duchamp, cioè di vivere a Parigi evitando i giri turistici?

La mia intenzione è stata proprio quella: stare insieme a lui il più possibile, lasciando che le cose accadessero piuttosto che provocando il loro accadere*. Questo è un altro concetto orientale. Meister Eckart disse che possiamo raggiungere la perfezione non attraverso ciò che facciamo, ma attraverso ciò che ci accade*. Così sono riuscito a conoscere Duchamp non facendogli domande, ma stando semplicemente con lui."


The lacking of intention makes things and life purer...  or * (... letting things happening instead of provoking their happening... and ... we may be able to reach perfection not through what we do, but through what happens to us.): it's not Zen or whatever.

 Thanking Roberto Masotti for his superb JC's 1979 NYC 6th Street loft pix.

John Cage and Revox A77.

It's simply how I also humbly feel and so heartfelty agree with Cage... and Meister Eckart: applying wishes or desire or feverish seeking to our choices someway make them dirty, second-hand-ish, pre-owned and definitely, not our very own, becoming a part of us...

Things and meetings simply happening are like gold nuggets we step while walking in the countryside, by chance...  making us supremely un-Caged;-)

A priceless humble summer satori.

Will go ahead in reading this superb book, loosing myself among Cage & mushrooms, Merce Cunningham, Peggy Guggenheim, plants and... (silence).

Computer/Web Detoxing 2016

Star Wars' - The Force Awakens OST - the holographic 2LPs box set - limited edition

From Back to Black... cool!

Nice package... for the die hard collector, only?

Site of the Day - Wiki Woodstock - everything Woodstock!

Amazing site... everything (I mean much more than I previously knew) is covered on this site.


I was amazed, almost baffled - for example - to learn that my beloved Paul Motian, drummer extraordinaire.... was on stage with Arlo Guthrie!!!


... and Glen Moore on double bass and Ralph Towner on guitar were also on-stage, accompanying a stoned Tim Hardin!!!


... and...

... and more, much more trivia.


Dig it and enjoy... as I do!

.... more R. Crumb's...

Ouch!

Robert Crumb's priorities...

... which I totally agree.

Jean Hiraga's new reviewing effort...

I recently got this email from M. Jean Hiraga:


Hello Stefano,

How are you ?

You know probably french audio magazine Vumetre in which editing staff come partly from NRDS and Stereo Prestige.

On last issue N°5, may june 2016,  there is an article titled " "Secrets of Musicality in Audio".  In the past, we had only few days for writing a paper in L'Audiophile or in NRDS magazine. For this one, I had to spend more than six months to write it, to find in my precious archives collected from the 70's related details.

Vumetre editor staff informed me today that this issue has a great success and that only few copies are available now, just few days after his launching few days ago. I have just one copy for me. You can buy one copy at :  http://www.vumetre.com/ 

Best regards,

Jean  Hiraga

I suggest everyone in the mood or having the right amount of curiosity for the always enriching Hiraga's essays to take the chance and order nr. 5 issue of Vumetre magazine, while supplies last.

You won't regret.

Thanking Jean Hiraga for consideration and for his wisdom and absolute passion about everything music and audio.

When insults had class

 These glorious insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.

A Member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill

 "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner ( about Ernest Hemingway ).

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde

 "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend ... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second.... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it ?" - Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts ... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang ( 1844 - 1912 )

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

"Let us not accept mediocrity in the guise of building self esteem."

June 27th

... yesterday -  June 27th - was just a nice evenience for yours truly - i.e. my birthday... but... what happens if while I browsed in my discotheque for some music, to have a relaxed listen before dinner... I randomly picked up my mono copy of Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention's "Freak Out!" on Verve?


Nothing... it's only a seminal, cool, great double discs-set by one of the most beloved musicians and composers, ever...

... but... ho, hooo... hey!


It was originally issued... right-on June 27th, 1966.


Only a chance?


So... happy birthday, Freak Out!... and happy birthday to me...


... just a little mind-boggled, I continued my FZ's-moment-listening with "Lumpy Gravy" first side.




Strange world it is!