Greetings friends, I hope you are well. 🙂
Our friend Yazaki-san is back, this time with his friend, Alan-san, to share with us about their "Adventures in Real Sound," along with some very personal and heartfelt autobiographical life experiences.
Welcome back, Yazaki-san! Thank you for another wonderful article!
“Adventures in Real Sound” with Yazaki-san: Alan-san’s New GEC PX25A (DA30) Monaural SET’s – Part 7
By Shirokazu Yazaki & Alan Farris
Prologue
I turned 78 this April. I don't think my life has been particularly colorful and rich with many ups and downs that would make a great subject for writing a book. But I am grateful; I've come to think that I've been given a somewhat extraordinary life, having been able to continue only one way of the professional career as an engineer developing audio and video equipment for half a century. What's more, it would be quite unusual that my career and my hobby of audio have been almost on the same line.
In my world of hobbies after retirement, I've been blessed a lot more than before with a small group of Japanese friends who share exactly the same inclinations and tastes as me, and furthermore with the help of the modern convenience of the internet, I've been able to have rich communications with the music lovers, as Jeff-san has called them, “Kindred-Spirits” from all over the world whom I met at Jeff's Place. This is something that can only be described as a great blessing and sure guidance for me.
Well, in this technical essay, I would like to include a tribute to my friend, Mr. Masaru Ookubo, who was eight years older than me and a great hobbyist. And I would like to share with you the later half of my life, including my professional career and my personal hobbies.
1. Reunited with My First WE310A-PX25A(DA30) Mono SET and
Farewell to My “Kindred-Sprit”, Ookubo-san
A very strange event, I had never imagined before, happened to me, which seems like a series of coincidences, even when I think back on it now. That happened more than six months ago, on Sunday around 5 p.m., January 26th, when I just came across a small banner ad on the Yahoo Japan auction website, advertising exactly the same PX25A(DA30) mono SET that I built up at Ookubo-san's request and completed the assembly and delivery to him on August 26th, 13 years ago. Of course, I was very surprised at the turn of events, but I couldn't help but have a premonition or fear that something had happened to Ookubo-san.
If he was still alive, there was no way he would have let go of that extravagant amplifier. I then got Ookubo-san's home phone number from my wife, Yumi, and called him at his house just before 7 p.m. in this evening. My intuition was correct, as I heard from his wife, Setsuko-san, that he had already passed away on January 9th after a two-month battle with illness.
Setsuko-san said that at the end of last year, as his consciousness was fading, she heard my name in his faint voice, "Yazaki-san." I had no choice but to apologize to him for the disloyalty I had shown him over the past five or six years. And the next day, on Monday afternoon, I went to his home to offer my condolences and flowers to his portrait and had the first opportunity to meet his gentle and elegant old lady, who is the complete opposite of the seemingly somewhat scary look of Ookubo-san.
Going back to the event, I couldn't believe my eyes, but the more I looked at the photos of the tube mono SET that was up on Yahoo Japan auction site, the more I realized it was Ookubo-san's WE310A drive PX25A (DA30) mono SET, exactly my work. And the photos were unclear, but I confirmed that the tubes inserted in the SET were for the driver tube, WE310B engraved, and the rectifier tube, WE274B engraved, and the power tube, DA30 old balloon type.
I clearly remember that these rare and truly valued tubes were actually purchased by him after I gave him directions to the vintage tube shops. In any case, I thought that only the current price for a pair of these tubes alone would far exceed the buy-it-now price of the mono SET at this auction. But thankfully, the shop that took this amplifier from the Ookubo family and put it up for auction seemed unaware of the recent rise in the price of such rarest vintage tubes.
For me, I never thought I would ever come across this Ookubo-san’s mono SET again, but when I faced this reality, I was seized by this thought. If I was lucky enough to win the auction, I thought I'd get to keep it and maybe even upgrade to the latest version for better sound quality. To tell the truth, the output transformer installed in this SET was made in the USA with a remarkably large EI core, and I felt that it had a different sound character from the Japanese-made TANGO and HASHIMOTO transformers that I was used to using.
Therefore, this highly artisanal desire welled up within me to check out that transformer’s sound once again and explore its possibilities to the fullest. Either way, I decided in only an hour to get it for myself and keep it on hand to see how it looked and performed. But of course, considering my age, I wasn't planning on having it for long, so that within this Sunday midnight I shared a fairly detailed description of that mono SET with about 10 friends from around the world whom I had met at Jeff's Place, encouraging them to buy it.
Then, late at night the next day, the clock had already struck the morning of the 28th, and when I was in a deep sleep, but at that exact moment, the following email arrived in my Gmail inbox from my dear and understanding friend, Alan-san.
“Hello Yazaki-san,
I hope this finds you all well! We are good here and enjoying the New Year. We even had snow last week! I am sorry to read about your friend’s passing. A quick question for you, if you think it is possible, I would like to purchase these amplifiers as a gift for Paula-san’s sister Cynthia-san. If it will be possible and okay with you, I am okay with the buy-it-now price for her family. She is enjoying the original Douk Audio U4!
Warmest Regards, Alan”
I opened the email containing Alan-san's offer early on the early morning of the 28th, and immediately responded as follows:
“Hello Alan-san,
Thank you very much for your generosity. I am very happy that I’m able to accept your offer to purchase. I would be very happy if my first mono SET is used by someone who can experience the true value of the DA30 mono SET on a daily basis. I am sure that my old friend, Ookubo-san and his wife, Setsuko-san will also be very happy. I will be bidding on it today at the buy it now price. Well, I believe this will be my last chance to experience the best sound quality, true Real-Sound, I’ve never experienced before.
Warmest regards, Shirokazu Yazaki”
I successfully won the bid that night and made the payment via bank transfer on Thursday, the 30th. And to my surprise, the item was delivered very quickly and safely in three boxes, a pair of mono SETs and the attached valuable tubes, at the following afternoon on Friday, the 31st. But, furthermore, an even more surprising development was just before me.
On the evening of next Sunday, February 2nd, I received a phone call from Setsuko-san informing me that she had just found his belongings, a lot of tubes.
This could be truly called “Ookubo Collection”, and it reminded me of something Ookubo-san once said that he had spent the equivalent of one car on his collection of his beloved UK-made rectifier tubes. Sorry, his face and eyes looked somewhat scary, but Ookubo-san was eloquent and loved to joke, so at the time I thought this was just one of his typical jokes.
However, when I visited Ookubo-san's home on the next day and was shown two large cartons full of tubes, I realized this was no joking. I then proposed to Setsuko-san that she should be in charge of the future sale of the precious “Ookubo Collection”. Because I’m very familiar with the market value of rare vintage tubes, and of course, she readily agreed. The items are like antiques, so if she left them to a dealer who didn't know their value, it was obvious that they would be bought for next to nothing, so the truth at the time was probably that she wanted to ask me to do it.
It was hard to believe all this unfolded in just a week. In front of me was a pair of heavy, sturdy mono SETs with a slightly old look and a mountain of rare vintage tubes. For a tube amplifier enthusiast, this may have been just like finding treasure in a cave, but when I thought about the enormous amount of work I had taken on, I was simply perplexed and disheartened.
However, now that three months have passed since everything was accomplished, I think that this was my “Tube Adventure” in search of the true “Real-Sound”, which would be trying to maximize the potential of the WE310A drive DA30 single-ended tube amplifier. And it felt just like my final chapter in something I have been deeply involved in for over half a century.
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