I have an exciting DIY audio & music adventure to share with you that was developed by Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki and Mr. Jun Honda: The iPhone Adventure.
However, before I share Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki's latest audio adventure article with you, I thought it would be a good time to reintroduce him, as many of you reading this article may be new to the audio adventures of Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki that have been published here at Jeff's Place and Positive Feedback over the last 9 years.
In those 9 years there have been 57 articles published in the Adventures In 'Real Sound' with Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki series of articles. You can find the links for all of those articles in the Jeff's Place archives HERE.
There is a wealth of audio adventures to be explored in those articles.
Without further ado let me reintroduce you to the remarkable Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki!
Yazaki-san (center) with friends in Tokyo.
Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki - whom I fondly refer to as Yazaki-san here at Jeff's Place & Positive Feedback - was a successful professional audio design engineer in Japan for over 40 years, and was involved in the design of many fine audio components from some of the foremost Japanese electronics companies during that time.
Those of you who possess historical knowledge about audio will remember the highly regarded TEAC A-7300 reel-to-reel; the Pioneer CT-95 / T-1100S cassette recorder (considered superior to even the legendary Nakamichi Dragon), and the Pioneer DV-AX10 that was the world’s first true universal disc player capable of playing CD, SACD, DVD and DVD-A with both high audio & video fidelity.
Those were all projects Yazaki-san was involved in. He was involved in the development of the TEAC A-7300 semi-professional open-reel tape recorder while at TEAC, the Pioneer CT-95 / T-1100S cassette recorder as a design team leader & manager in the cassette recorder engineering department at Pioneer, and the Pioneer DV-AX10 universal disc player while he was the general manager for the Pioneer DVD engineering department.
Towards the end of his career at Pioneer, Yazaki-san was put in charge of the Pioneer research & development center, where he first came into contact with a prototype Class-D switching amplifier in 2006 during a demonstration.
That Class-D amplifier was designed and developed by Mr. Nishimura and Mr. Jun Honda at International Rectifier, and Yazaki-san was impressed by the promising possibilities that it represented due to having a sound quality that was similar to that of a single-ended-triode (SET) amplifier.
As a result, Honda-san, Nishimura-san, and Yazaki-san began developing a Class-D amplifier based on Honda-san’s new generation of Class-D power modules.
Yazaki-san was so pleased with the way the Class-D amplifier turned out that he wanted to build one for his good friend, Nakamura-san, to enjoy.
The resulting amplifier so impressed Nakamura-san that he went on to found the Spec Corporation to make this Class-D amplifier technology available to audio enthusiasts in Japan and around the world.
The first amplifier that was produced using this technology was the SPEC RSA-M3 EX 'Real Sound Amplifier'.
The SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier.
I was sent a SPEC RSA-M3 EX to write about for all of you here at Jeff's Place and Positive Feedback. You can read that article HERE.
That was when I began to correspond with Yazaki-san, and who I would finally meet in person at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest that was the debut show for the Spec Corporation products here in the USA.
Meeting Ishimi-san (left) and Yazaki-san (right) at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest way back when. That's yours truly in the middle.
I didn't realize it at the time, but the serendipitous meeting of Yazaki-san, and being exposed to his ideas about the live-like reproduction of music in audio - which he referred to as "Real Sound" - would turn out to be one of the most influential moments of my personal audio adventures.
For those of us who are enamored by the otherworldly music playing ability of single-ended-triode (SET) amplifiers combined with high-sensitivity horn loudspeakers, the back story of our audio hero Yazaki-san will be of particular interest.
While Yazaki-san was a professional audio designer by day for TEAC, Pioneer, and the Spec Corporation, in his personal time he was also a DIY audio enthusiast who was deeply involved in the born-again SET and high-sensitivity loudspeaker movement during its resurrection in Japan over 50 years ago now.
One of Yazaki-san's DA30 SET monaural amplifiers.
For over 50 years Yazaki-san has been on a journey of building & refining his personal high-fidelity music system, first by constructing his own DA30 DH-SET amplifiers (above) ...
Yazaki-san's vintage Marantz 7k preamplifier.
... then by building and customizing a Marantz 7 kit preamplifier (above) ...
... and then over time developing his personal Altec & Onken-based horn loudspeaker system (below).
Yazaki-san's Altec-Onken loudspeakers.
It was the otherworldly music playing ability of those single-ended-triode (SET) amplifiers from Yazaki-san's DIY adventures that informed how he would voice the Class D SPEC RSA-M3 EX that I received for review.
Yazaki-san's fusion of the best of vintage designs into the latest contemporary designs is also at the heart of his latest audio adventure - the iPhone Adventure - with his friends Alan-san and Honda-san.
A big thank you to Yazaki-san for sharing this audio adventure with us!
Pleas go to the next page.
