Adventures in Real Sound With Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki - Sneak Peek 2
A couple of posts ago (here) I shared a little of the article Adventures in Real Sound With Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki that I am writing for Positive Feedback. I've been making good progress on the article, and I am hoping to be able to finish it this weekend, so it can get published before next week's... Read More »
Yazaki-san checking in ... DA30 DH-SET monaural amplfiers!
I just heard from Yazaki-san, and he sent me some photographs of the DA30 SET monaural amplifiers he made for his friend Ookubo-san, and they're so beautiful I wanted to share them with you! The DA30 SET monaural amplifiers Yazaki-san made for his Ookubo-san are based on using the vintage Western Electric 310A as the driver, a vintage... Read More »
Chad Kassem checking in ... Westminster Royal SEs and more!
Most of you probably know Chad Kassem as the founder of Acoustic Sounds, Inc., the superb Analogue Productions record label, the Blue Heaven Studios recording studio, and most recently the Quality Record Pressings record pressing facility (there's a nice overview on Wikipedia) Thursday, when I went back to my office after a meeting, the light... Read More »
Saturday Afternoon At Jeff's Place
I always love the weekends, when I get a chance to cook up some fine food, listen to music, play hi-fi games, go for a bicycle ride, and just generally kick back and enjoy life! I invited my Mom & Dad over for dinner and some music listening (Mom's 90, and Dad's 92). I grilled... Read More »
Adventures in Real Sound with Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki - Sneak Peek
I am hard at work on my article for Positive Feedback, Adventures in Real Sound with Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki, and thought I'd share a snippet of it with you. I'll add more as time goes on. Adventures in Real Sound with Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki By Jeff Day In Issue 78 I introduced you to the remarkable... Read More »
Vintage Western Electric WE16GA Wire as Interconnects
After reading Bill Dion's comment about how well he liked the interconnects he made using vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire, I was intrigued and thought I'd give it a try too. Many thanks to Bill for such an awesome comment! So out came my vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire, four Switchcraft SWC-3502AAU RCAs, my Hakko soldering station, and... Read More »
Jeff checking in ... Western Electric, vintage phono cartridges, music, and more!
It's been a hectic time, and I haven't been able to post as much as I'd like over the last few weeks, so I thought I'd tell you about a number of things at once to make up for lost time, like vintage Western Electric WE24GA wire, some delicious vintage phono cartridges, some music 'scores', and... Read More »
Vintage Western Electric WE16GA
"Nobody is going to believe what we're hearing from your Westminsters with this Western Electric internal wiring," said Ron, "it's hard to put into words how good it sounds." Ron and I just spent Sunday morning and a good part of the afternoon rewiring my Westminster Royal SE loudspeakers with vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire from Mr.... Read More »
August 15, 1965
It was on August 15, 1965, that my Mom took me to see Louis Armstrong in a parking lot concert at the Lloyd Center Mall in Portland, Oregon. Exactly 50 years ago today. It made a huge impression on me, and I've loved jazz ever since. So today, 50 years later, we celebrated the good... Read More »
Music on Vinyl - Update
I ordered four albums from Acoustic Sounds to get my vinyl fix for the week: First up was the 45 RPM ORG reissue of Charles Mingus' Mingus Ah Um that my buddy Leo brought over for me to listen to. After hearing it, I knew it was a must have for my jazz collection. The combination of... Read More »
The Vintage Beat: Klipschorns with Western Electric WE16GA
I spent the last week in Chicago for a work review at Fermilab and Argonne, and since man cannot live on neutrinos alone, one of our gracious hosts - William - put on an awesome Chicago pizza extravaganza for us one night that was a blast! Many thanks to William! It also meant that upon... Read More »
Saturday Afternoon Jazz ... and other stuff
I like to bring my Mom & Dad over to visit on the weekend, fix them a nice dinner, and spend some time catching up. They've been through a hard time the last few years, starting with when my Dad took a bad fall at home, ended up in the hospital, then a skilled nursing facility,... Read More »
Personal Thoughts About "Real Sound" from Mr. Yazaki-san of SPEC Corporation
If you've been following the blog posts here at Jeff's Place, you know that I asked Mr. Yazaki-san if he would tell us some of his thoughts about "Real Sound", and I'm very pleased to be able to share with you what he has written. Here's what Mr. Yazaki-san has written for us about "Real Sound": Dedicated to my... Read More »
A Friday Afternoon Listening Session With Ron & Leo
There's nothing quite as satisfying as an impromptu listening session on a Friday afternoon with good friends like Ron and Leo. Ron always brings over a nice French wine, and Leo a very tasty vino from Napa (Ron's French Bordeaux was a 2009, and Leo's Napa Cabernet Sauvignon a 2005!). It's great to have friends with... Read More »
Music on Vinyl: Are Test Pressings the 'Hot Stampers' of Reissues?
The guys over at Better Records offer records they call Hot Stampers, which are records that they have selected by ear that they say are much better sounding than the average pressing from any given run, or of the many available versions of a given album. The Better Records guys fan the flames of debate by dissing... Read More »
Revisiting an old friend: The 'Vintage' Sony PlayStation 1 SCPH-1001
It seems an eternity ago when I wrote about the Sony PlayStation 1 SCPH-1001 back in 2007 at 6Moons as part of a 'Music Lovers' system. Keith Aschenbrenner of Auditorium 23 fame told me about SCPH-1001, and how it sounded ridiculously good compared to even very expensive DACs and CD players of the time. I said about it... Read More »
'My Gear' Page Added
I added a "My Gear" page so that you could see all of the hi-fi gear that I use as references during the review process. I thought it would be a good idea to put together a master list of reference equipment and accessories that I enjoy and use on an ongoing basis, as the pages that show... Read More »
The Mono Sleuth
One of the resources I've found handy to figure out if a recording is in glorious mono is Discogs, where you can look up every version of an album, and more often than not, figure out if an album is in mono or stereo. Take the Chet is Back! album from ORG Music that I was... Read More »
Having Fun with Real Sound and Mono!
My friend Leo sent me a message yesterday saying, "I found some Johnny Smith albums, I thought I'd drop them by if you're around." What a great guy! My friend Leo knows how much I love those old Johnny Smith albums on the Roost Records label, and when he's out and about he picks them up for me when... Read More »
The British Fineness of Tone: Haltron 5U4G and Mullard ECC83
If you read my Kindred Spirit post, you'll remember that as Mr. Yazaki-san was discussing the 'capacitor adventure' we are doing with my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers, he said: "Well, I think my inspirations also come from confidence in the thought that, Jeff-san’s hearing sense would be very close to mine. I understand Jeff-san... Read More »
The Accidental Mono
You know, I've never paid that much attention to whether the vinyl in my collection was mono or stereo, as it really didn't matter much to me, because in the past I was only listening with a stereo phono cartridge, like my EMT TSD-15 or Denon DL 103. But these days, every time I pull out a... Read More »
Today's Fresh Catch: Music on Vinyl
I've gotten behind on calling out some of the good vinyl I've come across lately, so here's a couple recommendations for your consideration. The first one I'd like to bring to your attention is the mono version of Gil Evans Great Jazz Standards from Pure Pleasure Records. It includes the songs, Davenport Blues, Straight No Chaser, Ballad of the Sad... Read More »
The Vintage Beat: Western Electric WE16GA in the Duelund-WRSE Low-Frequency Crossovers - update with listening impressions.
I have now installed vintage Western Electric WE16GA in the Duelund low-frequency crossovers of my Tannoy Westminster Royal SE loudspeakers to replace the Neotech copper wire I used originally as part of the Duelund-WRSE crossover project. As you know, last week I replaced the Neotech silver wire I was using in the high-frequency section of... Read More »
"You will soon meet a life long kindred spirit."
That's what the message inside of my fortune cookie said, "You will soon meet a life long kindred spirit." It's fun to have a good meal at a Chinese restaurant in America, where there's a tradition of handing out fortune cookies at the end of a meal, so everyone around the dinner table can read the positive... Read More »
The 2015 Annual ANVIL Awards Celebration!
It's always a great evening of fun & games when Stephaen Harrell (6Moons) and Pete Riggle (Pete Riggle Audio Engineering) host the Annual ANVIL Awards celebration, and the fun continued in 2015! In case you’ve never heard of the the ANVIL Award, it’s the ultimate annual audio award for the Audiophile Not Very Intelligent Lately, and... Read More »
An Experiment: Western Electric WE16GA in the Duelund CAST WRSE HF Crossovers - Updated
I got up this morning and fixed a nice double espresso to get the day started, fired up the stereo, and started listening to Gil Evan's New Bottle Old Wine. In a sudden inspiration, I decided I wanted to try a short length of Western Electric WE16GA in the high-frequency section of the Duelund CAST crossovers... Read More »
Jeff checking in ... Western Electric, Belden 8402, McIntosh, Westminsters and a Woody!
It's been a fun & interesting time here at Jeff's Place, with an overwhelmingly positive response from all of you to the posts about the DIY projects of Western Electric WE16GA wire for use as speaker cables, and the Belden 8402 microphone cable for use as interconnects, that Mr. Yazaki-san of SPEC told us about. Thank you... Read More »
Today's Fresh Catch: The Woody SPU Tonearm Prototype from Pete Riggle Audio Engineering
As I wrote a little while back in a blog post: "Masterpieces is a mono recording from 1950, so I used the Ortofon SPU mono CG 25 Di MkII cartridge (check out Art Dudley’s just published review of it here), which produced a fantastic musical experience together. As a point of reference, Pete stopped by and listened... Read More »
Happy 92nd Birthday, Dad!
June 4, 1923, was when my Dad, Jack, entered into the world, and now 92 years later we're celebrating the day, or should I say, the Day, Jack Day. Happy 92nd Birthday, Dad! We love you! 🙂 We had a nice evening of socializing, having dinner, and drinking a bit of Champagne. After dinner, a slice of... Read More »
The McIntosh MC30 'Capacitor Adventure' just became ...
For those of you who have been following along, Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki (below, second from left) of SPEC Corporation fame (The Real Sound Amplifier, et al) encouraged me to try a 'Capacitor Adventure' with one of my vintage McIntosh amplifiers (MC30 monaural amplifiers, MC225 stereo amplifier, and MC240 stereo amplifier). My MC30 monaural amplifiers and... Read More »
Intact Audio Custom SUTs - HiFi Heroin That'll Get You Hooked!
Ok, the title of the post is a bit of play on words: HiFi Heroin is a website of fine audio constructeurs, one of which is Dave Slagle of Intact Audio. Dave offers bespoke step-up transformers (SUTs) out of copper or silver with delicious nickel cores that are tailored specifically to bring out the best... Read More »
The Great Capacitor Adventure! Part Two.
The first step in our capacitor adventure was to dismantle my McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers and take a look inside at the very nice handiwork of Mr. Yves Beauvais. I purchased my MC30 monaural amplifiers at Yves' retail asking price through his Vintage Vacuum Audio business. Be sure to check out the accompanying links about Yves, you should know that... Read More »
Today's Fresh Catch: The SPEC AP-UD1 Analog Disc Sheet
I received the SPEC AP-UD1 Analog Disc Sheet (turntable mat) from Mr. Yazaki-san of SPEC while I was finishing up the Garrard Project 2015 article for Positive Feedback Online (and mentioned it in the article). I've been too busy to write the AP-UD1 up until now, so this is a bit of a belated 'Today's Fresh Catch'... Read More »
The Great Capacitor Adventure! The aroma of solder is in the air!
If you've read my review of the SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier in Positive Feedback Online in Issue 78, you know how interesting I found the high-fidelity adventures of Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki to be: "I learned the audio lesson that while parts choice does make an important difference in performance, it is the 'enlightened ear' of the talented... Read More »
The Vintage Beat: Western Electric WE16GA Speaker Cable
Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki of SPEC Corporation (photo below, second from left) has told me how highly he regards the performance of vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire used as speaker cable. Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki uses the Western Electric WE16GA wire as speaker cables as his personal reference both for the research & development work he does for... Read More »
The Garrard Project 2015: From Simple to Spectacular!
The Garrard Project 2015 article is now live at Positive Feedback Online here. This has been a terrific project to do, and Ray Clark at Classic Turntable Company, Christopher Thornton at Artisan Fidelity, and Thomas Schick have all been an absolute delight to work with, and the quality of their work speaks for itself -... Read More »
