PsAudio Copper - Issue 105

Issue 105

FEBRUARY 24TH, 2020

(With a tip of the hat to the Hank Stone Band’s song of the same name.)

The world of audio is diverse – we can choose from analog, digital, tubes, transistors, a vast array ofloudspeakers and many more ways to enjoy music. The people behind the products are just asdiverse, which is a big reason why the choice of audio products is so varied today. One look atFacebook, online audio forums and our own Comments sections makes it apparent that enthusiastshave a variety of opinions too (to say the least).

It’s all a community, as PS Audio founder Paul has noted to me, and Copper was created in part tofoster that sense of community and dialog. It’s the shared passion that makes all of this so much fun.

In this issue:

Copper is honored to welcome Ivan Berger to our pages. He’s contributed to Stereo Review, HighFidelity, The New York Times, Popular Science and more than 100 other publications. He was co-technical editor at Video, (which got him into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame), technicaleditor at Audio and is the author of The New Sound of Stereo.

Wendell Diller, one of the guiding lights behind speaker company Magnepan, gives us a thought-provoking guest piece asking: are audio dealers in trouble?

Anne E. Johnson covers country and bluegrass star Alison Krauss, and jazz drumming legend GeneKrupa. Jay Jay French turns the Tice Clock back to look at the evolution of his audio systems. WLWoodward drops Part Three of his series on Grateful Dead sonic mastermind Owsley “Bear” Stanley.Ivan Berger remembers the groundbreaking AR XA turntable. Professor Larry Schenbeck does the

Happy Dance over Joshua Redman's Sun on Sand.

J.I. Agnew delves further into the Secrets of the Phono Cartridge. Rich Isaacs gives a comprehensivelook into American progressive rock bands. Radioman Bob Wood has WBEN there and ROCK 102’dthat. Roy Hall's Key West vacation doesn’t go as planned. In “Confessions of a Setup Man Part Two”I encounter more audio system mayhem. Dan Schwartz discovers the musical ecstasy of AliceColtrane Turiyasangitananda. Rounding out the issue, James Whitworth sees double, while AudioAnthropology has its moment and our Parting Shot gives us the lowdown.

Bang, Zoom! Confessions of a Setup Man,Part Two

FRANKLY SPEAKING

Written by Frank Doris

The higher the resolution of an audio system, the more that attention to detail matters. Nowhere wasthis more evident than in the main audio system at The Absolute Sound. (I worked there as technicaldirector around 1986 – 1994.)

Part of my job at TAS was The Care and Feeding of The System. Harry Pearson, the editor-in-chief,wanted the system to be in top performing shape at all times. I soon found out that the slightestadjustments or changes to it could affect the sound – sometimes significantly. Things that mightcause subtle to moderate differences in another audio rig, like swapping interconnects or cables,changing tubes or moving speakers a fraction of an inch, would be intensely magnified in HP’ssetup.

Small wonder, considering that it was comprised of ultrahigh-end components like the Infinity IRS Vloudspeakers, Goldmund Reference turntable and a parade of premium gear like the Audio ResearchSP-11 and Convergent Audio Technology SL1 preamplifiers, VTL 500 amplifiers and all manner ofcables, tweaks and accessories.

For example, changes in VTA (vertical tracking angle, the angle of the tonearm/stylus to the recordsurface) could be dramatic on HP’s system. We could readily hear differences in VTA when playingrecords of different thicknesses. Because we would test different cartridges, I had to regularly

change the VTA on whatever tonearm we had in place, which was usually the Goldmund T3Fstraight-line tracking arm.

This was a complex beast which used an electronic servo mechanism to control the motion of thearm across the record. The arm was mounted on a large beam, and in order to adjust VTA, four Allenscrews at each corner of the beam had to be loosened, then the entire beam had to be raised orlowered, the screws tightened, and the adjustment validated by listening and then repeating thecumbersome procedure if the sound/adjustment wasn’t right. The height of each corner of the beamhad to be the same, to within 0.001 (one-thousandth) of an inch.

On a good day this could take a half-hour. But there were bad days. More than once I slipped anddropped the beam, hearing a nerve-wracking clunk – while forgetting to note the startingmeasurement. This meant that I had no idea what the original height was, and had to re-set up thearm height from square one. This could take hours.

In order not to accidentally trash the cartridge I had to hold the bottom of the beam with one handwhile making adjustments with the other hand, an awkward balancing act at best. And the right sideof the very heavy and very immovable turntable was almost against the right listening room wall,leaving little room to access the right side of the arm and work on it. I had to kneel down and twistinto unnatural positions to get to it. After hours of such Houdini-like contortions my neck and backwould be killing me. After a few years at The Absolute Sound I started seeing a chiropractor.

If only getting phono cartridges optimized in HP's system was that simple.

Harry’s setup was so sensitive that changes in temperature and humidity could affect the sound. Infact, Harry noted these things in his listening notes and insisted TAS reviewers do the same.

The first time I worked with the Big System, I noticed that a Tensor lamp was sitting next to theturntable. For those who don't remember, a Tensor lamp was small but had a high-intensity bulb. Iasked Harry about it. He said, “it shines on the cartridge in order to keep the cartridge at a constanttemperature. That way its performance is more consistent.”

“Jeez, this system really is sensitive,” I thought. And didn’t think much else about it.

One fine night some time later, after Harry and I had gone out to dinner, we sat down to listen. Itwas just the two of us, unwinding. We put on a record, then another. Then Harry looked at me withthat “something’s not right” expression, something I had become all-too-familiar with after a fewmonths on the job.

“The lamp isn’t on! Turn on the lamp!”

It had been a long and exhausting day, I had had a couple of drinks and we weren’t doing the usualshow-off-the-system schtick for visitors, so I hadn’t done my usual careful pre-listening system checkand had forgotten to turn on the Tensor lamp.

I got up out of my chair, reached for the switch on the lamp and flicked it on.

BANG!

The sound of a gunshot.

“YAAAHHH!” Both of us recoiled. I instinctively jumped back.

Harry, however, was still sitting in his chair, so he flew back in the chair, which loudly slammed intothe back wall. The chair hit the wall with such force that it put a large hole into the sheetrock. Hewas sitting with the chair leaning at something like a 20 or 30-degree angle, utterly panicked.

Having no idea what had just happened and in a state of sheer terror, I gingerly looked around tosee where the gunman was.

There was no one in the house but us.

I have to admit, after I recovered from the initial shock, I had to force myself not to laugh out loud atthe sight of Harry, ready to fall back and over out of his chair were it not for the fact that it waswedged into the wall and keeping Harry from falling over onto his keister. You should have seen theexpression on his face. It was both scary and hysterical.

I grabbed the back of the chair and shoved him back into a normal seating position.

“WHAT HAPPENED?”

I may not be quoting those words exactly verbatim.

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” There may have been some off-color words in my response as well.

I stood there, completely bewildered. Something must have happened! And if it wasn’t a gunshot, itmust have been something else. I looked around the room, and it gradually dawned on me that thesound must have come from the speakers. But what could have caused such a bang? I looked andlooked and looked at all the equipment in the room...

The lamp.

The bang had occurred when I flicked the switch to the lamp.

I told Harry that must have been it. But why?

We both figured out at the same time. It must have been because the cartridge in the system, aSpectral, was a low-output moving coil. As such, it needed a phono stage with a lot of gain. When Iturned on the Tensor lamp it must have emitted a burst of noise or interference of some kind thatwas picked up by the extremely sensitive cartridge/interconnects/phono preamp. And amplified byan insane amount of gain. Through a mighty Levinson 23 amp if I recall correctly, and a speakersystem that could produce the requisite hellacious volume. Enough to cause a bang loud enough tosound like a gunshot.

I don’t remember if we did any listening the rest of the night or turned the system off and hightailedit out of that room.

For the rest of the time I was at The Absolute Sound and all the times I visited afterwards, the holein the wall was never fixed. Who knows, it may still be there today, the new owners of the housedestined to never know how it got there.

Header photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Joost Dicker Hupkes

WBEN There, ROCKed ThatTRUE-LIFE RADIO TALES

Written by Bob Wood

WBEN-AM and FM (ROCK 102) Buffalo

I had listened to Buffalo radio station ROCK 102 FM while in Hamilton, Ontario, when I was out ofwork for months after my stint at CHAM in Canada. ROCK 102 FM was fully automated and allscrewed up. So was their sister station WBEN-AM, but I didn't know that as I had never listened toit. The job opening was for the AM station, and at my interview I insisted on working at bothstations, and got employed at both of them.

At ROCK 102 I inherited a dumb contest (where listeners would have to visit a list of sponsors to wina prize; clearly too much work for too little), bad new station identification jingles (bastardizedversions of the Doobie Brothers’ “Listen to the Music”), and highly predictable songs. Nobodychanged the pre-recorded tapes, we just wound them back to the beginning and played them overand over.

I like to say I fixed everything in 15 minutes, and I did. Killed the contest, removed the jingles, andassigned the tape rotations to the music director. Fixed. The ratings went up!

My secret was that the essence of ROCK 102 to me was what it wasn’t. It wasn’t a typical radiostation with personalities, banter and so on. It was an automated music source, pure and simple,with as little as possible in the way. And the station had a killer signal, penetrating Rochester, Erie,PA and the “Golden Triangle” of Canada including Toronto.

Canada then passed a law mandating that advertising on "border blasters" like our station would nolonger be a business tax deduction, and we lost millions. Still, the cost of operation was so low itcontinued to make lots of money anyway.

ROCK 102 and WBEN helped kill the legendary WKBW, a station in Buffalo that had been aroundsince 1925. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was competition!

Regarding WBEN-AM: as I'm writing this for general eyes, I won't go into all the programmingthings that were wrong with the station which nevertheless remained popular and legendary, butjust to give you a taste: while I was driving to my interview I heard the station play Lisa Minnelli,Burl Ives and Jefferson Starship...all in a row. Talk about disjointed programming. Well, OK, It tookmuch longer than 15 minutes but eventually I fixed it. This involved putting together an almost newDJ lineup. The result was that after some time, we then had the number one AM and the number oneFM station in the area. And I then had 25 job offers over five years or so, as it turned out thecompetition was trying to remove me.

I almost took a job in Portland, Oregon and passed on a good gig in Chicago – the general managerthere said that he had interviewed 35 people, flew me in twice to be interviewed by his co-GM andsales manager – and I turned the job down over not coming to terms over a difference of $5,000. Iwanted more and he wouldn't bend. I thought that if he really did interview all those people and gotdown to one, he ought to bend, and if he wouldn't, I didn't want to work for him, because goingthrough all that trouble and then not hiring me was dumb. An interview with a station in Philly wasalso a close call, especially with it being my home town, but that GM wouldn’t guarantee me acomputer, so, no.

Some snapshots:

WBEN had the first computerized snow-closing announcement system in the country, thanks to ourbrilliant chief engineer, Dave May. He built it and programmed it. He also built what had to beamong the first music programming systems, by which I could assure how the songs were mixed,rotated and played on WBEN.

Dave has a great voice and had been on the air, and did our traffic reports from our helicopter –while he learned to fly it by himself!

We had new studios built by the previous owners, which were way over-equipped. Example: theusual radio microphone costs about $450. We had many $3,500 microphones. We had customquadraphonic equipment installed, just in case quad caught on! We originated broadcasts for thenetwork of stations that broadcast the Buffalo Bills and the Buffalo Sabres. The studio also sported amajor production facility for radio commercials, which I ran from 9 am until 3am or so. By the way, aCBS TV affiliate was located down the hall.

One day I came back from doing some commercials at a local studio (I was pretty popular) and foundtwo Buffalo Bills players – huge men, a linebacker and a nose tackle, waiting for me – and they wereangry. They wanted their pay for their one hour a week show, and they had been stiffed somehow.Everybody told them to see me. I must note that it was surreal. They could literally have swiped me

off the planet. The disparity in our sizes was so silly. We got them their money and all was smoothedover. We even did a radio promo that had them fighting about whose name should be mentioned firstin the spot.

We had Bills’ coach Chuck Knox on the air once a week for an hour. Mister cliché. Here's the take-away: no coach will ever disparage his team or any team to the public. Later, post-Chuck, we hadKay Stephenson, then the youngest coach in the NFL. He was horrible, so I gave him a big speechabout how I could work with him to coach him into better performances. I went on and on, trying toget his buy-in. His reaction: "If you don't like me, I'll quit." But that wasn’t an option. The Sabres’head coach Scotty Bowman was also one of our regulars, for an hour a week during the season.

Jeff Kaye, our morning man, and the team of news, weather and traffic held a 20 share of thelistening audience of everyone over 12 years old. This was one of the last few giant audiences thenclaimed by morning radio at the time. When he left us, he left us to be the main voice for thecompany that produces NFL Films, replacing the late John Facenda, who was a one of a kind, andwho I got to do promos for us sometime before his passing! In speaking to Facenda I found out thathe lived maybe a mile from where I grew up and I had been by his home hundreds of times on myway home from grade school. He was a true gentleman. Also the voice of god.

And let it be noted that Buffalo always had radio better than its market size would lead one tobelieve. It might not have been a major market, but I felt we could compete well in a major.

It was fun being down the hall from the TV station. Hey, look! Dan Rather...Jane Fonda...they’d stopby...

Joshua Redman’s Sun on SandTOO MUCH TCHAIKOVSKY

Written by Lawrence Schenbeck

We’re taking a break from Beethoven Plus One in order to address a more urgent concern:

How’re ya fixed for Happy Dances?

Do you even have one? Of course you do. They come unbidden, when you’ve been sitting in yourlistening chair for five minutes (or twenty) and you realize the music is just right and your system isworking just right, and your heart is ready to move. So you levitate right out of your chair andspontaneously execute just what’s required—your Happy Dance.

John Atkinson has one, if I recall correctly. When I googled “John Atkinson Happy Dance,” all I cameup with was this:

Heads were banged, walls were shook, feet were set a-dancing.

That’s from JA’s review of the Chord DAVE, Stereophile June 2017; it’ll have to do. Hey, all of uswere born to dance. Certain music brings it out.

Context helps too. For the past few years, I’ve felt the urge most often when I’m 30,000 feet off theground, heading away from Atlanta. One of my favorite Happy Dances is still Tightrope, now tenyears old but more helpful to my spiritual health today than ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnefUaKCbc

More recently I’ve feasted upon Van Morrison’s The Prophet Speaks, especially tracks like this one,which reminds us that Joey DeFrancesco is a national treasure. Even more recently, I found myselfdancing to Gimme Shelter, a properly apocalyptic tune that nevertheless compels your feet to MakeLike Mick. (Not really possible when strapped into an airline seat, but wait until you're sitting alonein your audio sanctuary.)

All of which brings us to the new Joshua Redman album Sun on Sand (Nonesuch). It’s basically non-stop Happy Dancing, a high-energy celebration that takes off and almost never lets up. Redman isdefinitely the star, but in this team effort he’s more than ably assisted by bassist Scott Colley,percussionist Satoshi Takeishi, and hip string quartet Brooklyn Rider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU9e7qbW2LI&list=PLWfB7VeEXCukAs7bIz1LRrozSXsU3L9JD

Sun on Sand consists of eight tracks composed and arranged by Patrick Zimmerli, sequenced as inthe YouTube collection above. (Although you might have fun trying out other sequences.) Track 1,Flash, features wild polyphony—Redman and the strings churn out a riot of aggressivelyindependent lines. There are concerto-like breaks for the saxophone, underpinned by Colley,punctuated by Takeishi. Track 2, Between Dog and Wolf, features a ton of ostinato (repeating)figures, including the bass lines. There’s a fiddle break in there too, so the stars of Brooklyn Riderget an early chance to show off. Sun on Sand, a slow cooker, opens with Colley and Takeishi;Redman’s lazy, graceful lines dominate the sustained string accompaniment. Dark White makes thestrongest case for the album’s North African vibe. Served on a bed of Reichian rhythmic figures, itbuilds to a stunning climax.

There’s more, but you need to discover it yourself. I’ll just say this: Starbursts and Haloes providesthe single biggest change of pace, offering Redman some stretch-out time with lyrical, meditativesax lines.

Joshua Redman has made a habit of doing the unexpected throughout his career, and here hesurprises us again. His playing is so fluent—so fluid—that you can’t easily tell when he’s improvisingand when he’s just reading down the charts. It all sounds easy, but that doesn’t make it simple. Morelike natural: Einstein tossing off a few logarithms.

Redman and company premiered this set at London’s Wigmore Hall in 2014. (That’s the sort ofinnovation-with-intelligence thing that Wigmore does.) He and Zimmerli had collaborated before, on2013’s Walking Shadows. Takeishi had also worked with the composer. Here they’re well-matchedwith Brooklyn Rider, a string quartet that far outshines any other such group now working. By “suchgroup” I mean classically trained players who put no boundaries on what they play. Haydn, SteveReich, Charlie Parker, Gilberto Gil are all in safe hands with them. (Check out their Tiny Desk setwith Mexican singer Magos Herrera.)

Patrick Zimmerli was a new name to me, but it shouldn’t have been. This guy—like Bryce Dessner,whom we highlighted in TMT #104—is everywhere, doing everything. He spends a lot of time inParis but popped up in NYC last November to oversee a performance of his oratorio Instrument ofDestiny, based on the World War I poetry of Alan Seeger.

With Sun on Sand, it was Takeishi who first won me over. He is an absolute master at introducing

new colors and infectious rhythmic variations in virtually every track on the album. It doesn’t hurtthat his contributions are engineered to maximum advantage (by Tom Lazarus, at Sear Sound andAvatar, with mastering by Bob Ludwig). But the engineers don’t stint on anyone: Brooklyn Rider’svivid string sound and Colley’s huge, juicy bass tones get their considerable due as well.

And now for our digestif: coming home from Montréal last week, high in the sky with Delta onceagain, I discovered Macha Gharibian, a French jazz pianist and vocalist who handles all sorts ofmusics—bar-band rock, Armenian traditional tunes, Paul Simon covers—with aplomb. Her newalbum Joy Ascension (Meredith/Rue Bleue/PIAS) further confuses and enriches her identity. There’ssomething here for everyone. The thing is, she is the “everyone” who’s making this lovely music; likeWhitman, she contains multitudes. If you’d rather hear another predictable, bland female like somany who swarm the audiophile hills, her versatility may put you off.

The rest of us will happily dig in. Let’s start with a trailer for Joy Ascension that features Sari SarounYar, an Armenian song with doudouk that I can’t get out of my head. (Because a couple of my clientsperform it, I’ve been working with a lot of Armenian traditional music lately; you won’t find anythingmore haunting or soulful.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Mnw9oqJpo

If you click on the lower-right-hand box that appears toward the end of the above video, you’ll get a45-second taste of Georgian Mood, another of my favorites. But maybe you’ll need more than 45seconds to appreciate the way she unfolds this exquisite little groove. So here’s more:

See what I mean? Worlds within worlds. I hereby offer one more taste, namely her take on 50 Waysto Leave Your Lover:

Hope that makes you a fan too.

See you next time! Beethoven, most likely, but with some surprises as well.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Tore Sætre.

The Ecstatic Music Of Alice ColtraneTuriyasangitananda

MUSIC, AUDIO, AND OTHER ILLNESSES

Written by Dan Schwartz

I can’t remember exactly when I first heard of Alice Coltrane, but it’s over 45 years ago. But I doremember the first album I got - her collaboration with Carlos Santana, called Illuminations. This is,possibly, the very best Santana playing put to tape/vinyl/digits. I recently played it for a musicalpartner who is convinced of this – it’s even better than Welcome, sez my friend.

So you should hear it; it’s pretty great. And that’s sort of the topic for the day, but not really.Illuminations features Coltrane on harp, piano and Wurlitzer organ and Santana on electric guitar,backed by Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette and others. But the real topic for the day is an albumcalled The Ecstatic Music Of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda (Luaka Bop LBOP0087). Here’s alink to the album:https://luakabop.com/catalog/world-spirituality-classics-1-the-ecstatic-music-of-alice-coltrane-turiyasangitananda/.(https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/03/the-ecstatic-music-of-alice-coltrane-turiyasangitanada-review-truly-numinous-energy). On Qobuz it’s listed as World Spirituality Classics: The EcstaticMusic of Alice Coltrane.

I’m very hard-pressed to describe this music to you, but fortunately, if you have Qobuz, you can hearit right now – this is one of the great things about the moment we are in (while simultaneously beingdevastating to my bottom line). A cross between sort-of hypnotic rhythms, chanting, singing,droning, and big synthesizer sweeps – all captured on tape and delivered to the faithful on cassettesbefore Luaka Bop saw fit to give it an allegedly wider release. (A perusal of Qobuz will give you anoverview of Coltrane’s oeuvre – titles such as “Journey in Stachidananda” and “Translinear Light.”(Those titles may suggest whether you’ll be interested or not.)

Here's a link to some of the music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yh59k4SnHQ&list=PLZN-Qk4Q9ORCMis_jSU11YfGfr1GMyoyW

So why did I choose to write about Coltrane, and this album in particular? Well, I’d love to turn youon. And again, it’s also hard to describe – but I have, for many, many years, been drawn to what wemight call music of ecstasy. I realize that the description should really be suitable for literally allmusic, depending upon what makes one ecstatic. So let’s qualify it a little bit:

By music of ecstasy, I mean, at least for this discussion, music in which the performer is in a state ofecstasy. The very best example I can think of is Mahalia Jackson, with Aretha Franklin drawing aclose second place. When you hear Jackson sing “I’m Gonna Live the Life I Sing About in My Song,”there’s little doubt as to what’s going on inside the singer.

There are all sorts of ecstatic vocal music – Indian is, I suppose, my number one choice of listening,along with gospel music (and I note with absolutely no trace of irony whatsoever that Leon Russelland Delaney Bramlett brought the feel of gospel into rock and roll, and made it way more appealing

to me – although I didn’t know that until I saw Leon live, and luckily I saw him about six monthsafter I took up bass). But it’s to be found literally everywhere, from villages to cathedrals; from“folk” music to Bach and Monteverdi and Beethoven; even them Fabs. And so…

This album is ecstatic music, even the calmer pieces, and it draws me deeply in. I suppose one termfor it might be meditative, although that’s a cliché that, again, can apply to almost any kind of music,even punk. Some of the vocals are semi-mass choir, some are Coltrane, some are a man (presumablyJohn Paduranga Henderson). Are the vocals the point of the music? Sure – as is everything else. AndI have no idea what’s being said. My Sanskrit, if that’s what this is, is virtually nil. Does it matter?Not to me – I think I’ve written before that I have what Brian Eno many years ago told me he had:“meaning myopia.” (I listen to a lot of music sung in Hindi, Urdu and Sanskrit.)

I’ve tried to find out how The Ecstatic Music Of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda was recorded,but no luck. Most of the record sounds like it was recorded on a pair of incidental mics in live in theroom in a service, but I don’t really know. Some of it was also obviously done in a home studio – it’sa mixture, and it doesn’t really matter. You also get quite a bit of Coltrane’s organ pedals.

But what I can tell you is that if this has piqued your interest, hear it.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Meylan France

The Tice Clock and the Endless Search forthe Holy Grail

TWISTED SYSTEMS

Written by Jay Jay French

Back in the good old high-end audio days of around 1968 – 1971, things used to be a lot simpler. Iwould walk into one of my local haunts in Manhattan: Leonard Radio, Liberty Music, Rabson’s andSam Goody’s to name a few, and look in wonderment at the latest Sony, Sherwood and Marantzreceivers (these I could afford), drool over the McIntosh and Marantz separates and dream ofowning them, then wander over to the reel to reel machines and finally the speakers.

The AR XA turntable [see Ivan Berger's article this issue – Ed.] worked with everything and was socheap, so I could afford it as part my first really good audio system. The same could be said for aShure M91 cartridge because I couldn’t afford a V15. The unattainable Empire 598 turntable lookedlike it was removed from King Tut’s tomb, so big, so heavy, so…gold!

The speaker choices, as far as my budget went, were either Acoustic Research AR-3s or KLH Model6s. I couldn’t afford the KLH Model 5s, and the big Klipschorns may as well have been made forpalaces, that’s how unobtainable they were along with the Marantz and Mac separates.

No, this piece isn’t about how one can now spend more money on one power cable today then anentire system…well, on the other hand, maybe it is.

It’s not about the insanity of the prices of some high-end gear either; rather; this article is about theexamination of absolutely everything involved in the high-end experience and the cost of theminutiae (and importance) of all of it in our quest for great sound.

I know that many of you entered into this world when I did. Back in those days, all we really had forknowledge was Stereo Review and if you were like me, we read every article trying to understandwhat Julian Hirsch was writing about.

I am not an engineer but I am an informed consumer and I wanted to understand the differencebetween peak power versus RMS power and total harmonic distortion (THD) vs intermodulationdistortion and everything else.

I would read this stuff over and over, then go shop for gear.

In those days looking for a stereo system was simple. All it was about was the quality level of thegear and how much you could afford for the basics:

Receiver (or an amp and preamp by Dynaco if you could stretch your budget)TurntablePhono cartridgeSpeakersTunerMaybe a reel to reel tape recorder by Sony (I couldn’t afford a Tandberg or Revox)

That was about it.

If you had money or well-heeled friends whose fathers were usually doctors or lawyers, then you orthey could afford Mac or Marantz separates.

Life it seemed was that easy. Get the equipment home, plop it on a table and bookshelf, plugeverything in, connect the cables that came with the stuff or the speaker cable that the salesmanthrew in, and you were set.

And it sounded good!

We didn’t know how much other things affected the sound. We didn’t know about the quality ofinterconnects, speaker cables, power cords, power strips, power outlet metallurgy, isolation pucks,speaker and equipment stands, grounding boxes, record weights, record cleaning machines, recordmats, moving coil, moving magnet or moving iron cartridges, fixed or removable headshells, internaltonearm wire, vacuum record hold-down devices, stray electronic interference absorbers...

Hell, most of us didn’t know that the output caps or different brands of tubes were so variable.

We just didn’t know – and it didn’t matter because the components and speakers themselves were allwe had. It was a simpler time in audio, and the equipment was simpler.

I blame Bob Carver and his Phase Linear amps for the beginning of the high-end audio arms race,and the Tech HIfi chain for giving every college-dorm weed dealer in the early ‘70s the opportunityto have this new big stuff plugged into the then-new Ohm F loudspeakers so you could now bathe inthe sonic landscape of Pink Floyd and Rotary Connection.

Then came the tweaks. And consider where it’s all gone to.

I started to ponder the evolution of the complexity and cost of high-end audio when I had myapartment recently renovated, and the contractor gave me options as to the AC power delivery,number of outlets and the sound absorption materials in my new listening room.

This was the first time I could actually start at the very beginning in building a new audio systemand room. In addition, by coincidence the building had just replaced all the electrical wiring goinginto each apartment, meaning that I could have all the power I ever needed with all new wiring andpower delivery at my disposal.

Wow, I thought. But, like many of you, over the years I have been sucked right along into the ever-evolving morass of the accessory-led refinements and tweaks of high-end audio. I, like so manyothers, have literally bought into it. All the way down to thinking about the quality of the wire in the

wall and the available options in choosing among brands of AC outlets! Even the screw metallurgyused in the various outlets from different manufacturers can be considered…how freakin’ crazy hasall of this gotten?

Who knew back in the day that most, if not all of the above, could have the potential to get in theway of our enjoyment of this hobby.

On the other hand the more transparent and refined the system, the more all this attention to detaildoes matter. However, not every device that has been marketed to us has really worked.

Along the way there have been some real clunkers. Remember the controversy surrounding the TiceClock? The Tice TPT Clock was a RadioShack clock that was claimed to have been subjected to aproprietary treatment. This treatment would supposedly improve the sound of an audio system.

Everyone jumped on board and then, suddenly, jumped off, proving that not every audio accessorywas necessarily the Holy Grail.

[George Tice once invited me to his facility, located on Long Island, where he showed me some ofthe equipment used in treating the clock. He swore me to secrecy about the details but wanted to letthe world know that he was doing something to the clock. I wrote an article about it where Isaid that the clock did make a sonic difference. I was roundly lambasted for this by a number ofpeople. – Ed.]

I blame Harry Pearson (aka HP), The Absolute Sound and Mike Kay at Lyric HiFi for creating thehigh-end neurosis cycle, but we were all complicit in fueling the development of more complex andcostly audio gear and the advent and evolution of ever-more-esoteric audio accessories and systemtweaks.

There are, however, plenty of real advances that have come out of all of this.

These days, for the money I spent in 1968, allowing for inflation, one can buy really good-soundinggear.

And for those of us who have traveled down this road and have put together great-sounding systems,if you’ve found the gear and the devices that have worked their magical spell on your systems,please enjoy listening, as I do.

Take a moment to reflect and remember the long and winding road that got you to where you arenow (and made you happy) and appreciate the tech advances, however big or incremental, that havebrought all of us closer to the music, even if there have been stumbling blocks along the way.

(And by the way, I fell in love with rock and roll played through a $5 transistor radio in 1963.)

But know this: the idea of reproducing “the sound of real instruments in real space,” a mantra thathas become the unofficial description of the goal of high-end audio, is a fraud.

The closest your system will ever get to what it “should” sound like is to reproduce what themastering engineer sitting at a mixing/mastering desk in a recording studio hears, and it’s allsubjective and manipulated with EQ (equalization) and compressor (volume-leveling) devices, withthe audio mostly transmitted through cheap wiring.

Sorry HP.

Most of us have never experienced even that level of accuracy to the audio source – but the goodnews is that today’s best home audio technology can bring us just about there, and that is reason tocelebrate. And something to strive for.

Without the Tice Clock!

Key WestMUSIC'AL NOTES

Written by Roy Hall

“Go immediately to the emergency room. I can’t help you here,” said the doctor in Urgent Care. Itwas my first day of vacation in Key West (about a week before going to Florida Audio Expo) and I feltill.

If you believe in omens (I don’t), then you would have guessed something bad was going to happen.The flight from LaGuardia airport was diverted at the last moment to Miami. A cold front had hit theairport just before wheels down and the pilot had decided to head north for safer air. Sitting next tome was a retired dentist from Long Island. He suffered from lone star tick disease, which developswhen a lone star tick bite transmits a sugar molecule into the body that causes an allergic reactionto meat. My seatmate told of his lower lip turning blue and curling up into the size of a soupspoon.This occurred every time he ate meat. He subsequently discovered that if he loaded himself up withantihistamines before eating, he could eat meat, but this played havoc with his gut and his bellyswelled up. He was stuck with fish and chicken for the rest of his life. The things you learn on aplane.

Finally, two hours later we landed in Key West.

Fran, a friend of ours was participating in the annual polar dip so we visited her on Higgs Beach.Doing a polar dip in tropical Key West doesn’t quite have the icy punch of the one done on NewYear’s Day in Coney Island in Brooklyn, but it was for charity so we cheered her on as she plungedinto the frigid 70-degree water.

Afterwards, we lunched at a place called Louie’s on the Atlantic side of the island. Sitting at the barand drinking far too many gin and tonics, I got talking to a burly gentleman who was a farmer fromupstate New York, near the Finger Lakes. He grew high-grade barley on his farm and sold it to manyof the micro-breweries in the area. The high elevation of his farm (2,000 feet above sea level) wasideal for growing this strain of barley. He also grew corn for animal feed and used Roundup weedkiller to cultivate it. He had been farming all his days and he described a constant battle with weedsand bugs. Roundup solved all these problems. He swore it was safe to use and apply. He also had ahundred head of beef cattle, 99 heifers and one bull. He said the bull was very happy.

Walking around Duval Street, the main drag in Key West, I felt some tightness in my chest. It wasSuper Bowl Sunday and the bars were jammed with fans; most were drunk. This tightness persistedand because I had already suffered from heart disease, I went to Urgent Care. The minute I told thedoctor my symptoms, he ushered me off to the emergency room in the Lower Keys Medical Center.

A tip: if you need to go to an emergency room, go on Super Bowl Sunday. The place was desertedand I was seen to immediately. I was whisked in, stripped, stuck with stickers and prodded withneedles. Blood was taken and shot off to the lab and then a radiologist arrived and took X-rays. Thisall took moments and then the doctor arrived. He was a tall, lean man with a beard, and startlingly,was using a walker to support himself. After he had taken all my info, I asked him why he was usinga walker. A kindred spirit, he asked if he could sit beside me on my gurney and told me this tale.

“I was hiking in Israel and Jordan,” he said. “One particular day we walked for most of the day andthen had to line up and wait and wait to enter Petra in Jordan. By the end of the day I had been onmy feet for over twelve hours. When I removed my boots, I found I had a scratch on my right heel. Icleaned it and applied antiseptic but upon returning to the US, I saw that it wasn’t healing so I wentto the hospital and spent two weeks receiving intravenous antibiotics. It did not heal and the woundgrew and grew.

Would you like to see photos?” he asked.

“Sure,” I replied.

He opened his phone and after some scrolling, showed me a photo of a scratch about half an inchlong.

“Would you like to see it after two weeks?” he gleefully asked.

Equally delighted, I said “sure.”

He scrolled further and produced a photo of his heel with a wound the size of a baseball. The fleshhad rotted away, the bone was exposed and yellow pus oozed from the center.

“Nasty, isn’t it?” he asked. I nodded in agreement.

“I am diabetic and it wouldn’t heal so there was nothing to do but take the foot off. Would you like tosee my prosthesis?”

As if I had a choice. He pulled up his trouser leg and removed his artificial foot, which had beenattached to his stump with a suction cup.

“I actually can balance without using the walker, but during physical therapy I discovered that myknees were shot so I had them replaced; as it turned out, I had to have my gall bladder removedtoo.”

I was admitted and spent a sleepless night in my room. Every hour someone came in, woke me upand took my blood, blood pressure and other vitals. They were checking for troponin, a proteinwhich is released into the bloodstream when the heart muscle is damaged.

I had to wait until three of the same blood tests came back negative before they would considerletting me go. Even with the interruptions, the care I received there equaled the care given to me inNew York. Fortunately, everything was fine and after arguing with the doctor, who wanted acardiologist to visit me, I returned to my vacation in Key West.

Alison Krauss: Reinventing Bluegrass,Reanimating Country

OFF THE CHARTS

Written by Anne E. Johnson

For many people, the soundtrack for the Coen Brothers movie O Brother, Where Art Thou in 2000

served as an introduction to the multitalented Alison Krauss. Her singing of “Down to the Valley toPray” turned the film’s most visually striking scenes into an utterly breathtaking experience. YetKrauss already had many years of experience under her belt before giving that angelic performance.

Born in 1971, the Illinois native started violin lessons when she was five and quickly fell in love withbluegrass. She won her first fiddling contest at age 13, and in the subsequent decades she’scontinued to build on that promise. As of this writing, Krauss has won 27 Grammy Awards, the thirdhighest total ever (after Georg Solti and Quincy Jones).

Her recording debut came thanks to her brother Viktor Krauss, two years her elder, a bass playerwho cut his first album in 1985, calling it Different Strokes. The siblings are joined by Bruce Weisson guitar and Jim Hoiles, also on fiddle.

The lineup of tracks consists of traditional bluegrass and Irish instrumental tunes. A reel called“Grey Eagle” gets a downright wild treatment from little sister Alison, who uses it as a starting pointfor improvisations from one end of the fingerboard to the other, featuring some perilous high-speedstring-crossings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmLhfw48xm8

Krauss made her own solo debut two years later with Too Late to Cry (1987). Another bass player,John Pennell, is an overriding presence on that album, writing most of the songs. Pennell was soonto become the bassist in Krauss’ band, Union Station.

One of the Pennell songs on Too Late to Cry is an upbeat number called “In Your Eyes” (noconnection to the Peter Gabriel hit). Krauss moves seamlessly from fiddle to voice, singing in a clearand facile tone that doesn’t yet have the breathiness and depth that would come to define it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hEdFNqtNTY

By 1989, the band Union Station was up and running and ready to make its first album, TwoHighways. Besides Krauss and Pennell, the group included Jeff White on guitar and Mike Harman onbanjo (both of whom also sang), with an assist by Jerry Douglas on dobro. Douglas eventually joinedpermanently.

From its inception, the goal of Union Station seems to have been to apply bluegrass techniques andsensibilities to new music. They started out with a strong leap toward that goal. Krauss displays herintention to be an ensemble player rather than the star in this Todd Rakestraw song, “Lord Don’tForsake Me,” with Jeff White on lead vocals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PwAZ8vERxQ

By the time Union Station released its second album, Every Time You Say Goodbye, in 1992, theband was gaining a solid foothold in the country charts, hitting a respectable No. 75. (The albumtitle does not refer to Cole Porter standard “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” but to a new song byPennell.) This success coincided with across-the-board personnel changes, excepting Krauss herself.

The new banjo player, Ron Block, wrote the song “Who Can Blame You.” It doesn’t have the samelevel of originality as Pennell’s work, but it’s a nice retro-style country song that defied the 1990stendency toward tingeing country songs with elements of rock and pop. (Soon those “tinges” wouldgrow to the point where there was little country left in country.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEF76NYll7c

While Union Station has always been interested in stretching the borders of bluegrass, Kraussreturned to a more traditional environment for1994’s I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. This gospel-soaked album is a collaboration with The Cox Family bluegrass band, giving Krauss a chance toremind listeners of her bona fides, both in fiddle and singing style.

She fits seamlessly into the Cox traditional country sound as she sings the gospel number “WillThere Be Any Stars in My Crown?” Keep an ear out for the nice mandolin solo by Adam Steffey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qOkoE-723g

In case Krauss and the members of Union Station had any doubt they were heading in the rightdirection, their 1997 album So Long So Wrong won three Grammys and was credited by critics as noless than a reinvention of bluegrass.

To hear what all the fuss is about, you need listen no further than the title track, which opens thealbum, a song written by Patrick Brayer and Walden Dahl. Despite the song’s contemporarystructure and harmony, the bluegrass-style rhythm acoustic guitars, mandolin, and banjo plusoverlaid fiddle line feel integral to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO2dEPjqxaY

In large part thanks to the success of O Brother, Where Art Thou? the year before, Krauss and UnionStation found themselves with a mega-hit in New Favorite (2001), their ninth record together. It wonthe Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. Its biggest single, which also won a Grammy, was “TheLucky One.”

One of the album’s gems is the jazz-flavored “I’m Gone,” a dark and unusual melody by Eric Kaz andWendy Waldman. The haunting dobro and acoustic guitar solos are the ideal reply to Krauss’sorrowful singing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evblwm7GA04

Another Grammy for Album of the Year was garnered by Raising Sand, Krauss’ 2007 collaborationwith Robert Plant. T-Bone Burnett, who also produced the O Brother CD, helmed the project andhelped choose the songs. The duo found they had a perfect vocal chemistry, and their cover of theEverly Brothers’ “Gone, Gone, Gone” won a Grammy for vocal collaboration.

There are a lot of great tracks, but my favorite is Townes Van Zandt’s “Nothin’,” which opens with

Burnett playing distorted guitar chords, matched by Krauss’ crunching fiddle bow as Plant gives thevocal line a light, contrasting touch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpBK_A-IF_k

Krauss’ most recent recording is Windy City (2017), a collection of covers of classic songs, chosenwith producer Buddy Cannon. They include country standards like “Gentle on My Mind,” madefamous by Glen Campbell, and Roger Miller’s “River in the Rain.”

The list of 40 or so musicians in the credits is a clue for what to expect: big, lush arrangements. Nobare-bones traditional sounds here. But because these songs are country music’s version of theAmerican Songbook, the standards-style orchestration works.

That, and the fact that Krauss keeps a purity in her voice that pushes the velvet orchestral draperyinto the background. Nowhere is this more evident than in her recording of “All Alone Am I,” whichwas a hit for Brenda Lee in 1962. Krauss’ version is a little slower than Lee’s, a few pitches higher,and delivered with a kind of stunned sadness that turns a pop torch song into a Shakespeareantragic soliloquy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuva3I6Wo58

While there’s been no new album since Windy City, that’s hardly out of character for the careful andsteadfast Krauss. Popping out a record every year is not her thing. If you want to hear her live,though, you’re in luck. Catch her April through June on her 2020 tour. Details here:

https://alisonkrauss.com/pages/events

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Secrets of the Phono Cartridge, Part TwoREVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE

Written by J.I. Agnew

At the heart of all phono cartridges we will find a transducer that translates mechanical motion – themovement of the stylus and cantilever as the stylus traces the record groove – into an electricalsignal. The general principle of operation is electromagnetic induction. There is a magnetic circuitconsisting of iron, one or more permanent magnets, and coils of wire. Relative motion between theseelements generates a signal. This implies that any of the elements can become the moving elementwhile the others can be the stationary elements.

As such, moving magnet, moving iron and moving coil cartridges have all been widely available forseveral decades now. They all operate on similar principles but have fundamental differences,especially regarding the possibilities of practical implementation.

Moving Magnet Cartridges

In the moving magnet system, the moving element is a permanent magnet, attached to thecantilever. The magnetic circuit and coils remain stationary and convert the fluctuations in magneticflux density caused by the moving magnet into an electrical signal. The signal level at the outputdepends primarily on the strength of the magnet and the number of turns in the coils. Magnetstrength is generally proportional to magnet size and magnets in general tend to be heavy. Tomaintain a low moving mass, the magnet must therefore be kept small. This limits the magnet’sstrength, and if it would be made too small and weak, it would become very difficult to obtain adecent output.

So, moving magnet cartridges have to have a certain minimum of moving mass, which tends to limittheir performance at high frequencies. Given that the magnets are not very strong, the number ofturns in the coil tends to be high to provide a healthy output, typically 5 mVrms per channel for anrms lateral velocity of 5cm/s at 1 kHz. A large number of turns results in high inductance, which isnecessary to provide the required output level. This results in a high impedance, requiring a highinput impedance in the phono preamplifier, typically terminating the cartridge with a load resistor of47 kOhm. A large number of turns will also result in distributed capacitance between layers andturns of wire.

The tonearm wiring and interconnects to the phono preamp add to the total value of capacitance,and the preamp itself usually provides certain values of load capacitance in order to fine tune thehigh frequency response of the setup, which tends to exhibit a high frequency resonance due to thepresence of the LCR resonant circuit (inductance, capacitance and resistance; “L” is the electricalsymbol for inductance) created by the cartridge, interconnects and preamp.

In the better designs, the high frequency resonance can be adequately damped so as not to cause apeak in the output, but then the high frequency response above the resonant frequency sharplydrops. This resonant frequency is usually just above 20 kHz in good moving magnet cartridges, oreven below that in the less-exciting specimens. In addition, as the number of turns in the cartridgecoil increases, the length of wire increases, in turn increasing the resistance along with theinductance, which both have an adverse effect on the self-noise of the cartridge. Along with thetotal capacitance, the 47 kOhm termination resistance and the other parameters of a practicalpreamplifier implementation set the lower limit of noise that can be achieved.

Lower inductance and resistance would result in lower output, which would make it difficult torealize improvements to the noise of the system, which, for a practical high-quality, low-noisemoving magnet setup, would be almost equal to the noise contributed by a silent groove on a record.This would be acceptable for most domestic uses, but perhaps worth improving upon for professionalor highest-fidelity audiophile applications to be truly medium-limited, (in other words, where thenoise level of the disk medium itself is to be much higher than the noise of the entire reproducingchain) with a bit of a safety margin on top.

Moving Iron Cartridges

In moving iron (aka variable reluctance) cartridges, the magnet is stationary along with the coils andthe biggest part of the magnetic circuit. A small part of the magnetic circuit, usually in the form ofan iron ring, is attached to the cantilever and moves with it.

At the rest position, the net magnetic moment of the iron ring is zero. As it moves and approaches amagnetic pole piece, the ring becomes progressively more magnetized, upsetting the systemequilibrium (causing changes in reluctance) and generating a signal voltage in the coils. If the ringthen moves in the opposite direction, it first becomes demagnetized as it passes the rest position andmagnetized again in the opposite direction (reversal of the magnetic poles), reversing the polarity ofthe induced electromotive force (EMF).

With the magnet and coils being stationary, it would be tempting to assume that they could bedimensioned (sized) as needed with no need to consider their effect on the moving mass. However,increasing the size of these components would result in an increase in the magnetic flux density ofthe magnetic circuit, which would require an increase in the size of the moving iron ring as well, to

prevent it from becoming magnetically saturated, which would result in gross distortion. Looking atit another way: although the magnet itself is stationary, its strength still affects the moving mass ofthe system via the iron ring. To keep the moving mass of the iron ring-cantilever-stylus assemblyreasonably low, the moving iron volume must be kept low, imposing strict limits on the magnetic fluxdensity permissible prior to the onset of saturation.

We are therefore back to a similar situation as in the moving magnet system. We need a largernumber of turns in the coils to provide a reasonable output level, which is again typically 5 mVrmsper channel for a 5 cm/s lateral velocity at 1 kHz. The same LCR resonant system considerationsapply here as well.

Due to the magnetic hysteresis curve of the soft magnetic material that the moving iron piece ismade of, the magnetization and demagnetization that occurs in a moving iron design is not a linearprocess. This tends to produce higher distortion.

Some manufacturers of moving iron cartridges have introduced high performance low outputmodels. The output level is intentionally reduced, to improve linearity (at the expense of noise), toreduce the moving mass, or to make the LCR resonant circuit parameters more favorable, extendingthe high frequency response to some extent.

Moving Coil Cartridges

The moving coil configuration, as the name would imply, consists of a stationary magnet andmagnetic circuit. The coil assembly is attached to the cantilever and moves with it. There are norestrictions placed on magnet size, weight and strength, as long as it can still fit in a package thatcan pass for a cartridge. Indeed, moving coil cartridges often use much more powerful magnets,making them incompatible with turntable platters made of ferromagnetic materials such as castiron. The cartridge would be attracted towards the platter and it would be impossible to set thevertical tracking force (VTF). Moreover, any surface variations in the platter would likely betranslated into sound!

The powerful magnetic circuit permits coils of fewer turns to be used. Copper (the material the wiresare frequently made of, not the magazine! OK, perhaps also the magazine…) is rather heavy, so inthe interest of keeping the moving mass low, it is common to use very few turns in the coils,resulting in very low output, typically 0.5 Vrms per channel (for 5 cm/s rms lateral velocity at 1 kHz).This is a full 20 dB lower than a typical moving magnet cartridge! Additional amplification isrequired and it is not a trivial matter to achieve it, together with exemplary low noise. However, thesignificantly lower inductance and wire resistance does a lot to help in the practical implementationof a low noise system and moving coil cartridges have much lower self-noise than the other types.The impedances involved are much lower and we also no longer need the 47 kOhm termination.

The lower number of turns means that the capacitance between turns is negligible. There is still thewiring capacitance on the way to the preamp, but the inductance is so low that the LCR effect is alsoinsignificant within any conceivable notion of audio frequency range. As a result, I have personallymeasured moving coil cartridges demonstrating a frequency response that was reasonably flat to atleast 50 kHz, this being the limit of the sweep on the test record used.

There are also higher-output moving coil cartridges available, going as far as 2.5 mVrms per channel(5 cm/s lateral velocity/ 1 kHz ref). This is either achieved by using a stronger magnet, or moreturns, or both. The higher output is easier to deal with from a circuit design standpoint, but maycome at a penalty of higher inductance, self-capacitance, or moving mass. Having said that, one of

the moving coil cartridges that could go up to 50 kHz was a high output model, so the good ones areworth looking into!

A moving coil transducer is incredibly linear and detailed, but much trickier to make.

Since the coils move, there are tiny wires going from the moving system to the output pins, whichmust not impede motion and must remain intact. Considering the importance of low mass, it can beunderstood that the wire used is extremely thin, so these cartridges tend to be fragile!

My personal preference for phono cartridges is moving coil, but I do also use a couple of old faithfulmoving magnet cartridges to double check my test cuts and the resulting pressings. I rememberwhen a vintage General Electric VR-II cartridge reached my lab some years ago. It called for avertical tracking force of 4 grams (!) and with its rotating stylus selection system (to choose betweenstandard groove and microgroove styli, did not exactly look convincing. I tried it on a modern full-range recording, expecting a laugh, but was instead blown away by the punch it packed and howgracefully the cartridge handled it!

There are multiple paths to good sound and all three transducer types discussed have foundapplication in professional audio facilities through the years, and used as references. Keep in mind,though, that it is not just the cartridge alone, it is the entire phono playback system that producesthe end result.

Bear: The Owsley Stanley Story, Part ThreeMUSIC TO MY EARS

Written by WL Woodward

By accounts, in early 1967 Owsley “Bear” Stanley (click on the links for Part One and Part Two ofthis series) had stashed away $225,000 in a safe deposit box at Manufacturers Hanover Trust,$320,000 in various accounts around San Francisco, and an unspecified amount at a bank in London.Since 1965 he and Melissa Cargill had distributed an estimated 800,000 doses of high quality acidaround Berkeley. Stanley claimed he had given away half of the doses in order to keep the pricedown and be able to sell easily. Still, even 400,000 doses at an average of $3 a dose would be asubstantial amount of cash.

Also, in early 1967 Stanley was approached by his friend “Mama Cass” Elliot of the Mamas and thePapas to make a special batch of acid for the now famous Monterey Pop Festival. He produced anestimated 100,000 tabs of Monterey Purple, then brought them to the festival and began handingthem out. Pete Townsend of the Who recalls taking a 250 mg tab. He had previously experiencedEuropean acid, which came out of pharmaceutical company Sandoz and was pretty well regulated.“With Owsley, you had no clue at all. I took some of his at Monterey and I never touched a drugagain for 18 years. It was extraordinarily powerful.”

John Lennon wanted some for his own creative use. He decided to go directly to Stanley and get alifetime supply. One wonders how you calculate that. Lennon hired a cameraman to film the festivalbut his main task was to smuggle Monterey Purple back to the Walrus. Stanley sent the cameramanhome with a telephoto lens packed with tabs of acid. The Beatles spent three weeks tripping on thestuff before they filmed Magical Mystery Tour. Uh-huh.

I have soared through a few acid trips and thoroughly enjoyed the experiences. But I’m talking twoor three times. I cannot imagine tripping every day for three weeks. Interesting that it’s called“tripping.” Bob Weir spoke of taking acid every day for long periods and members of the GratefulDead’s road crew, like Big Steve Parish, have talked of being high while loading in and out.Impossible. I remember figuring out God then being unable to tie my shoes.

With the kind of notoriety Stanley was garnering he knew he was on a list somewhere. His methodsof being careful went to another level. He set up a distributor network where he worked with oneparticular person for each area. As soon as one guy would feel some heat, he would start workingwith someone else. Meanwhile Stanley kept his product in a small footlocker which went byGreyhound bus alternately around San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco. He could keep it at a busstation for 30 days and so be able to take what he needed and then ship it to himself in another city.And no one but him knew of this.

Alas, all good things find a way to blow up in your face. I think Mahatma Gandhi said that. PossiblySpiro Agnew. By December 1967, Stanley had set up a lab in a house in Orinda, CA, to avoid theauthorities. Unfortunately, too many freaks were around (imagine dat) and one of them copped someof the acid and ended up selling to a narc who followed the bonehead back to Stanley’s house. OnDecember 21 six narcotics agents busted down the door and arrested a group of people thatincluded Stanley and Cargill.

67.5 grams of the purest LSD on the planet, enough to make about 700,000 doses, was confiscated.At $3 a tab that’s a lotta dough Joe. The national papers got involved and quiet-like-a-mouse OwsleyStanley became big news, complete with photographs. Everyone was released on $5,000 bonds butOwsley had to can his LSD operation.

In comes the Grateful Dead. A month after the bust, the Dead’s regular sound man, Dan Healy, quitand went to work for the Quicksilver Messenger Service. Stanley and the Dead had some roughhistory, but he was still a part of the family and still hanging around the Dead. The band offeredStanley the sound man job and he quickly accepted.

There are several stories that revolve around how the name “Bear” became attached to Stanley,including tales about the noises he would make during sex. I never want to know a friend that well.A likely reason is that, as the sound man, whenever a problem occurred the affected band memberwould shout out his name. Because he had to keep a low profile while on bail, Stanley insisted theband begin exclusively calling him Bear.

The drugs were catching up to Stanley. There are stories of him being late for sound checks or not

showing at all. At times the band would find him backstage kneeling and talking to the amplifiers.

During this period Melissa Cargill deposited $100,000 in a safety deposit box at Manhattan Hanoverand forgot the password she’d used. Bear had to hire a hypnotist to get it out of her.

In December 1969, Bear was tapped to coordinate and set up the sound systems at AltamontSpeedway for a massive free concert. Yeah, that one. Because the crew only had enough scaffoldingto build a three-foot high stage, 300,000 kids kept pushing those in front into close proximity to theacts. The Dead had suggested the Hell’s Angels for security, and interestingly, backed out ofperforming. As history has shown, the security decision was weird and turned out to fuel acatastrophe. A Hell’s Angel was caught on film punching Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane in thehead. A man named Meredith Hunter was near the front and started waving a pistol in the air. Infront of a cameraman filming the documentary Gimme Shelter, an Angel stabbed Hunter to death.

The party had gotten started.

Bill Graham would call the event “the Pearl Harbor of Rock.” It’s hard to believe now but Altamonttook place only four months after Woodstock. Everything we thought was good about our generation,and believed had started with Woodstock, was already frickin’ over.

One Hell’s Angel named Terry the Tramp was a key figure of the LA counterculture. When the bandCream first came to California in 1966 Terry was one person Eric Clapton had to meet. There’s agreat story related by Robert Greenfield in his wonderful Bear: The Life and Times of AugustusOwsley Stanley III of Ken Kesey seeing a Doors concert at the Fillmore. He discovered Terry loadedon acid in the lobby. “When Kesey asked him what he thought of the Doors, Terry the Tramp replied,‘Gettin’ smaller all the time. Getting’ smaller all the time.’ And so they were, but in ways that no oneback then could even begin to understand.”

The Angels blamed Terry for getting them involved at Altamont and the media frenzy that followedthem afterwards. On February 13, 1970, Terry the Tramp committed suicide at Bear’s house inOakland Hills by taking an overdose of Seconal.

Things were definitely getting weird.

In October 1969, after the dreadful performance of the Dead at Woodstock, Bear and four othersstood trial in San Francisco US District Court. All were sentenced to three years in jail and a $3,000fine. They posted bail with travel restrictions.

In January 1970 the Grateful Dead were playing at the Warehouse in New Orleans. After a show theywere congregated at their hotel at 300 Bourbon Street. Despite warnings from the house dick tokeep it clean or they would get busted, our boys were in a room at 2 am cleaning a pound of weed.These were the days when you got jail time for being caught with a joint. The New Orleans PoliceDepartment came through the door and arrested the Dead, some roadies and the tour manager, andunfortunately Owsley Stanley.

The Grateful Dead got in touch with the district attorney, Jim Garrison of JFK assassinationinvestigation fame, and in return for a $50,000 contribution to Garrison’s campaign fund and apromise to not return to New Orleans anytime soon, all charges were dropped. But Stanley’s bailwas revoked and he was sent to jail.

After somehow miraculously getting out again, Bear was busted once more in the house in OaklandHills on July 15, 1970. This time the bail on the Orinda bust was completely revoked and Stanley wassent to jail in Oakland. After spending months there, during which both Melissa Cargill and Rhoney

Gissen gave birth to Stanley’s kids, Bear was transferred to Terminal Island penitentiary to serve histhree year sentence. He would eventually be transferred to a low-security correctional institute inLompoc, CA.

Owsley Stanley was released after serving two years of his three year sentence. He re-joined theDead but was described by band members as a changed man. Mountain Girl related, “Prison washard on him.”

And then he built the Wall of Sound. The End.

Ha ha, gotcha. I’ll tell that story in a Part Four or Epilogue or whatever in which we go into thedetails. Thanks for hanging.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/William Rafti.

Gene Krupa: Drummin’ ManTRADING EIGHTS

Written by Anne E. Johnson

Not every great musician gets to reinvent his instrument the way Gene Krupa did. Under his sticks,a drum set became both more powerful and more integral to the music than ever before.

Krupa, born in 1909 to Polish immigrants in Chicago, was already gigging in his hometown andMilwaukee by the time he was in his teens. He was 18 when he got a steady job with an establishedbig band, Thelma Terry and Her Playboys, which got him valuable experience with regular nightclubshows and tours. He also made half a dozen recordings with Terry in the late 1920s.

But it was his next move that made him a star: Krupa joined Benny Goodman’s big band in 1934. Ifyou only know one Krupa track, it’s almost certainly Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing,” one of theearliest recordings to feature an extended drum solo.

The waning of the 1940s also brought about an end to the big band era. Small groups became therage, resulting in arguably the best jazz ever recorded. Krupa was no exception to this trend, makingfantastic albums with trios and quartets throughout the ’50s and ’60s. He died in 1973.

Enjoy these eight great tracks by Gene Krupa.

Track: “The Drum Battle”1.Album: The Drum Battle (with Buddy Rich)Label: VerveYear: 1952

One of the marketing oddities in Krupa’s career was an ongoing series of appearances pitting hisskills against those of fellow drummer Buddy Rich. This started at a Jazz at the Philharmonic show atCarnegie Hall, featured on this Verve album, and the battle was reconstructed a number of times inthe following years.

The very idea that two drummers without a band could have enough star status to merit not justaudience but industry enthusiasm would have been unthinkable without the technical developmentsby drumming masters like Krupa and Rich. (It’s worth noting that, by the time these two played theirbattle on the Sammy Davis, Jr. Show in 1966, it was thought necessary to back them up with a band.In the jazz glory days of 1952, those JATP audiences were made of sterner stuff!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYqShn5BiI

Track: “Coronation Hop”2.Album: The Exciting Gene KrupaLabel: VerveYear: 1953

There are nine great musicians on this album, although only six play on this track. Besides Krupa,there’s Steve Jordan (guitar), Teddy Wilson (piano), Willie Smith (alto sax), Charlie Shavers(trumpet), and Israel Crosby (bass).

“Coronation Hop,” the first song on the album, has Krupa drumming constantly, both backing up hiscolleagues and answering them with solos as short as four beats and as long as 16 bars. You canlisten to whole album here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbZ39Ws2yLE

Track: “Meddle My Minor”3.Album: The Driving Gene KrupaLabel: VerveYear: 1954

In one way, “Meddle My Minor” is a reminiscence on “Sing, Sing, Sing,” which Krupa had firstrecorded with Benny Goodman in 1937. On the other hand, this newer tune quickly spins off into abebop exploration, quite different from anything the Swing King Goodman ever did.

It’s Charlie Shavers again on trumpet, pairing up with the tenor sax of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis for

some thrilling licks. All the while, Krupa does his famous snare sound, basically inventing the rimshot. Jazz critic John McDonough has described it as striking the rim (of the snare drum) and headwith the stick so the sound travels to the head, amplifying it. “Then – and this is the key – he wouldget the stick away from the head immediately so that it didn’t kill the vibration.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA6hL2_wh3A

Track: “Drummin’ Man”4.Album: Gene Krupa – Drummer ManLabel: VerveYear: 1956

Just because he played bop doesn’t mean Krupa had turned his back on swing. Drummer Man isproof of that. This spectacular album boasts lively arrangements by a 23-year-old Quincy Jones. It’salso a fairly rare example of Krupa playing for vocal music. Anita O’Day is the singer, and RoyEldridge plays trumpet.

Although some sources list the ensemble as “Gene Krupa Big Band,” that moniker does not appearon the jacket or label. It’s a collection of over a dozen musicians, featuring “Gene Krupa – In HighestFi.” The song “Drummin’ Man” was composed by Krupa and the pianist and bandleader TinyParham.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKGRyT8LzQs

Track: “Gone With the Wind”5.Album: Gene Krupa RocksLabel: VerveYear: 1957

The title of this album is telling: By 1957, rock and roll was becoming a viable commodity andstarting to obliterate the jazz market. This is a jazz record, of course, and the title seems a bitpleading in retrospect. “See? We can rock too!” In any case, this is Krupa’s quartet of the day,including Gail Curtis (sometimes billed as Gale Curtis) on sax, Teddy Napoleon on piano, and MortHerbert on bass.

“Gone With the Wind” is a 1937 tune by Hollywood songwriter Allie Wrubel. It originally had wordsby Herb Magidson, but this is an instrumental version. Krupa focuses his brushes on the cymbals foran unusually atmospheric touch. The song starts at 4:14.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmGwOyNXs3I

Track: “Disc Jockey Jump”6.Album: Gene Krupa Plays Gerry Mulligan ArrangementsLabel: VerveYear: 1959

Although the track list on this album is mainly pre-existing tunes in new arrangements, “Disc Jockey

Jump” is an exception: Krupa and Mulligan wrote it together. “Disc Jockey Jump” starts outswinging, but with each set of 16 bars it gets more and more bop. That’s the beauty of the “jump” injazz (see the work of Count Basie for some classic examples): These are tunes with a kind of angularenergy that is easily opened out beyond swing.

Mulligan plays here, of course, along with Phil Woods and Hank Jones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ie9HlEB57M

Track: “Sabre Dance”7.Album: Percussion KingLabel: VerveYear: 1961

There is simply no arrangement of “Sabre Dance” that isn’t fun, and this is a particularly clever one.The music was originally written by Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian as part of a ballet in1942, but since then it has captured the imagination of musicians and audiences as its own separatepiece. Percussion King is a collection of 20th century classical pieces remolded for the Krupa sound.

Besides the usual array of horns, piano, and bass, Krupa is joined by several other percussionists:Doug Allen, Joe Venuto, and Mousey Alexander. The arrangement is by George Williams, best knownfor his work on the Jackie Gleason Show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rV2HbV4xfo

Track: “Accent on Flamboyance”8.Album: The Mighty Two (with Louis Bellson)Label: RouletteYear: 1963

The Mighty Two is a good name for this collaboration by Krupa and drummer Louis Bellson. One ofthe fun things here is the separate audio channels used for each drummer. It makes it easier to tellthem apart (Krupa is in your left ear). They’re joined by a band that includes Joe Wilder on trumpet,Phil Woods on alto sax, and Milt Hinton on bass, among others.

Although much of this album has a bossa nova feel, “Accent on Flamboyance” is more of a low-keybop. Both drummers maintain a light touch – this one isn’t a battle – using a distinctive three-against-two rhythm throughout the short tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3osfML-7k4U

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/William P. Gottlieb (public domain)

We’re an American (Prog) BandFEATURED

Written by Rich Isaacs

There are many more American progressive rock bands than you might think – and a surprisingnumber are from the Midwest. The biggest, in terms of commercial success and recognition, isKansas. If you only know their hits, “Dust in the Wind,” or “Carry On Wayward Son,” you reallyhaven’t heard their progressive side. Of course, the name Kansas isn’t exactly your typical progband appellation.

KANSAS: I was working in a record store in San Francisco when their self-titled first album wasreleased. A co-worker put it on the store system, and by the end of the first side, I was a fan. Twolead guitarists (Kerry Livgren and Rich Williams), a keyboard player/vocalist (Steve Walsh), aviolinist (Robbie Steinhart), and a great rhythm section (Dave Hope on bass and Phil Ehart ondrums) – what’s not to like? The two opening tracks were up-tempo rockers followed by a ballad,“Lonely Wind,” that didn’t really hint at what was to come. Neither did “Belexes,” but when theyclosed out the side with “Journey From Mariabronn,” a nearly eight-minute epic, they were clearlyon their way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLECH2T2b5k

The title track from their second album, Song for America, was further evidence of the progressivedirection the band would take. “Lamplight Symphony” and “Incomudro – Hymn to the Atman” arethe other prog epics on that album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q-9P0Y0e2s

Masque was their third LP, and it contains one of their best compositions, “Icarus – (Born on Wingsof Steel),” along with “The Pinnacle.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kesio4k-dMU

Speaking of pinnacles, the fourth Kansas album, Leftoverture, was a high point, chock-full ofprogressive epics. It is ranked #32 on Rolling Stone’s list of “50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of AllTime” (not that I put much stock in their opinion when it comes to progressive rock). Listen to thepassage in “Miracles Out of Nowhere” from 2:22-2:50 and that same point (!) in “Opus Insert” – theymust have been listening to Gentle Giant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D13zs5z3wnQ&list=PL6ogdCG3tAWgm_E93hTUSS3cUOsBBCd4K&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfos2mrBJj8&list=PL6ogdCG3tAWgm_E93hTUSS3cUOsBBCd4K&index=5

The success of “Carry On…” set them on a more commercial path. Point of Know Return, theirfollow-up album, yielded another huge hit in “Dust in the Wind.” A number of personnel changesfollowed, including the addition of Dixie Dregs guitarist Steve Morse (who later became a memberof Deep Purple).

BABYLON: This band came from St. Petersburg, Florida, and released their only studio album in1978. A couple of lo-fi live albums were released a decade later. They were clearly influenced by thelikes of Genesis, Gentle Giant, and Happy the Man (see below), and had the classic five-pieceprog lineup of keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIS8wYJz1Bc

DIXIE DREGS (later shortened to The Dregs): What an unlikely name for a band with progtendencies! Guitar, keyboards, strings, bass, and drums come together in a fusion of rock, bluegrass,and jazz that is quite unique. Check out “Odyssey” from their second LP, What If:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EHgZUSCLDk

After The Dregs had disbanded, I saw former members Steve Morse and Rod Morgenstein (with abass player) as the Steve Morse Band and was blown away. The guitar and drums were in sync ona level I hadn’t seen before or since.

DJAM KARET: As much an instrumental jam band with wildly diverse influences as they areprogressive, California’s Djam Karet began in 1984 as a more guitar-oriented quartet. They becamea quintet in the early 2000s, incorporating more keyboards. They are still working, and have

produced 19 albums. Here’s a track from their 2005 release, Recollection Harvest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjP3UkFSBms

ENCHANT: Re-discovering this band made me glad I decided to write this piece. I knew some of theband members when I was working at a record store in the East Bay, but hadn’t listened to them inmany years. They were originally called Mae Dae, with a different vocalist. Strong vocals from TedLeonard (who later joined Spock’s Beard), searing guitar work from Doug Ott, and killer drummingby Paul Craddick make 1995’s debut, A Blueprint of the World, a first-class prog album. The leadofftrack, “The Thirst,” has it all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFGaCVKOJ4k

ETHOS: Another Midwestern band, one of my favorites, this time from Indiana. Their first album,Ethos (ardour), showed a strong King Crimson influence at times. With two keyboard players,there’s lots of mellotron (and chamberlin – a mellotron sound-alike). “Atlanteans” shows their range,including a jazzy guitar-and-scat-singing passage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QIBWcpXq8w

Main composer and vocalist Wil Sharpe played a double-neck guitar. Listen to his beautiful solo atthe end of “Longdancer.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMOUx8VjBMY

On their second LP, Open Up, they were down to a four-piece (the aptly named keyboardist L.Duncan Hammond left), and the resulting music wasn’t as strong. Even the cover art seemed toindicate a move away from prog. Relics is a compilation of previously unreleased material. Itfeatures a different vocalist, and is quite rare.

FIREBALLET: With a lineup similar to Ethos, Jersey boys Jim Como (vocals, drums, percussion),Bryan Howe (keyboards), Ryche Chlanda (guitars), Frank Petto (keyboards), and Martyn Biglin(bass, bass pedals) released their first album, Night on Bald Mountain, in 1975. Ian McDonald (KingCrimson, Foreigner) produced the album and contributed some flute and saxophone as well. The19-minute title track draws on Debussy as well as Moussorgsky and includes original passages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgnCrdTbsIg

“Atmospheres” evokes the sound and feel of very early Genesis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTLYMglk6gc&list=OLAK5uy_loAlomNE1V3AKLrOYvDqAazx0WqEieYzw

Their King Crimson connection includes this rare live performance from 1974 of two earlyCrimson tracks. The recording quality is sub-par, but the playing is impressive. I have to assumethat’s McDonald on woodwinds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e7pgbdB7kE&list=TLPQMzAwMTIwMjAAws7HcUCPUQ&index=11

Also like Ethos, their second album was a disappointing attempt at more commercial songs. Thecover art for Two, Too…was especially embarrassing, featuring the band members in tutus cavortinglike ballerinas.

HAPPY THE MAN: Named for an obscure early Genesis song, with roots in Virginia and Indiana,they were primarily an instrumental band. They were signed to Arista Records in the mid-seventiesand put out two albums produced by Ken Scott (who had worked with Supertramp and DavidBowie). The second LP, Crafty Hands, is an especially well-engineered blend of prog and jazz-fusion.Take a listen to “Ibby It Is.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBBeFZboWvA

The moody “Wind Up Doll Day” features the album’s lone vocal, sung by guitarist Stanley Whitaker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IigVcy9DeN4

Main keyboard player Kit Watkins would go on to join Camel after the breakup of Happy The Man.He also released several solo albums. A compilation of previously unreleased tracks was issued asHappy The Man 3rd – “Better late…”. A reformation occurred (without Watkins) in the early 2000s,resulting in a new album, The Muse Awakens. Whitaker and founding keyboard/woodwind playerFrank Wyatt formed Oblivion Sun in the last decade.

THE LOAD: Ohio’s answer to Emerson, Lake & Palmer released their first album, Praise TheLoad, on their Owl Records label in 1976. Brothers Sterling and Tom Smith (keyboards and drums,respectively) are joined by bassist/guitarist Dave Hessler in a fiery display of instrumental virtuosityand classical influence. A second album, Load Have Mercy, was not released for twenty years.Starting with “Fandango,” you can check out both albums with this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCBVjjMYSkU

NETHERWORLD: In the mid-seventies, San Jose-area band Atlantis found out there was already agroup in Europe using that name, so they became Netherworld. Strongly influenced by the classicBritish prog artists, they recorded just one album, In the Following Half-Light. Guitarist Scott Stacyprovides some excellent solos, and they even incorporated cello into their sound, as evidenced on thestandout track, “Isle of Man.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UPTf1ogEew

SPOCK'S BEARD: One of the best-known and most prolific of the American prog bands, Spock’sBeard has released 13 studio albums since 1995. Brothers Neal and Alan Morse formed the band in1992, with Neal doing the lion’s share of the writing as well as playing keyboards and singing lead.Nick D’Virgilio and Dave Meros joined on drums and bass, respectively. Keyboardist Ryo Okumotowas originally a live performance fill-in who became a full-fledged member shortly after the releaseof their first album, The Light. Neal Morse left the band after the release of their sixth album, Snow,setting the stage for D’Virgilio to take over as front man (shades of Genesis…). Their compositionsbecame more of a group effort, with the additional input of non-band members John Boegehold andStan Ausmus.

Neal Morse has since been involved in a number of collaborative efforts involving major players onthe prog scene (Transatlantic, Flying Colors) as well as releasing albums on his own.

Nick D’Virgilio ultimately left the band and went on to work with many other prog artists, includingGenesis (on their album Calling All Stations). Ted Leonard (Enchant) became the lead vocalist afterhaving subbed for D’Virgilio at some live gigs in 2011. D’Virgilio rejoined in a limited capacity a fewyears ago.

Unlike many prog bands, their sound is not obviously reminiscent of, though influenced by, any ofthe pioneering outfits such as Genesis, Yes, or Gentle Giant. “At the End of the Day,” from theirfifth studio album, V, will give you a good idea of their range.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pidj1rhZdXg

STARCASTLE: Can you say Yes? – yes, you can. This Illinois band came along at a time in themid-1970s when the group Yes seemed to be taking a break. Starcastle would be considered atribute band if they were playing complete Yes songs instead of crafting their own compositions outof snippets, riffs, and passages already found on Yes albums. Former REO Speedwagon lead singerTerry Luttrell is clearly emulating Jon Anderson. If you can forgive the blatant plagiarism (includinga little from ELP, as well), their first album is quite good. Here’s the leadoff track from theireponymous debut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OgrMMQZf1c

Roy Thomas Baker (of Queen fame) produced their second and third albums, Fountains of Light andCitadel. Both continued their Yes-like sound and fantasy-art album covers. Starcastle’s last albumfor Epic records was Real to Reel, marking a radical change in both cover art and musical style thatwas not well received.

Styx: Hailing from Chicago, Styx was a fairly mainstream rock band until the arrival of secondguitarist Tommy Shaw. Sure, they had lots of hits, but The Grand Illusion, with its faux-Magrittecover art, was a prog album squarely in the Kansas mold. One of the album’s best tracks, “Man inthe Wilderness,” would be right at home on the second or third Kansas album – in fact, the openingriff and vocals are practically pure rip-offs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBRoQ91W1rk

Subsequent albums marked a gradual return to more commercial rock and even greater sales.

This is by no means a comprehensive look at American prog. I tried to pick a cross-section of artists,both well-known and obscure. I would appreciate feedback in the comments section about bandsthat you feel should (or could) have been included.

Header photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Danielle Cannova

A Classic Turntable’s Forgotten Roots: theAR XA

FEATURED

Written by Ivan Berger

When the AR XA turntable came out in 1961, it was an instant classic – almost immune to externalshocks and vibrations, low in rumble, and priced at a shockingly affordable $58.00 ($489 today), lesscartridge but complete with arm, dustcover, and even a stylus force gauge. (The price was soonraised to a more sustainable $78, or $658 today.)

It was a runaway success. AR sold hundreds of thousands of them. The Museum of Modern Artacquired one for its industrial design collection. And fifty years after its arrival, The Absolute Soundlisted it first in its article, “The Ten Most Significant Turntables of All Time.” Its key technologieswere widely adopted by other companies, and are still in use.

One of those key technologies was the AR’s mounting system. Instead of attaching the platter,motor, and tonearm to the turntable’s top plate, AR mounted its arm and platter to a subplatform,suspended below the top plate at three points by damped springs with a very low resonantfrequency. This isolated the arm and record from footfall vibrations or acoustic feedback. Indemonstrations, AR representatives would hit the top plate with a hammer (reportedly a paddedone) without making the arm skip in the groove. To keep motor vibrations from reaching the recordand stylus, the turntable used a belt drive, with the motor mounted to the top plate rather than thesubplatform.

The other key technology was the use of a low-speed, low-power synchronous motor and a lightplatter instead of a heavy platter and large motor, (Early versions of the AR XA had a second motor,to ensure the main motor started in the right direction.) The lightweight motor generated lessrumble than more massive ones, and its low speed lowered the rumble frequency to a subsonic 5 Hz.The lighter platter had less speed-stabilizing flywheel effect than the heavy platters then (and now)in common use, but the speed of synchronous motors is extremely accurate and stable to begin with.Reviewers at the time remarked on the AR XA’s low rumble and smooth, accurate speed, and other

belt-drive turntables with subplatform suspensions, such as the Thorens TD-150 and Linn SondekLP12 (No. 2 on the TAS “Significant Turntable” list), arrived soon after.

But neither the subplatform nor the light, slow motor originated with AR. The company – by its ownadmission – got these ideas from Stromberg-Carlson, an old-line supplier of telephone equipmentthat also sold audio equipment. Stromberg-Carlson was one of the few companies to make bothphonograph consoles and audio components. They even had a product that bridged their console andcomponent product lines, a wood console cabinet with slots to hold whatever mix of Stromberg-Carlson components you desired: a tuner, your choice of two amplifiers, and either a record changeror a single-play turntable. That table, the cheery red, variable-speed, “Perfectempo” PR-499,introduced both subplatform suspension and lightweight motors to a general audiophile audience.The PR-499 sold for $99.95 in 1958 ($884 today); its companion arm, with a unipivot suspension,was $24.95 ($221).

But subplatform suspension didn’t originate with Stromberg-Carlson, either. The first subplatformturntable was probably the H.H. Scott 710A of 1955. It used a more conventional motor, though, andshaft drive.

The small-motor, lightweight-drive system didn’t originate with Stromberg-Carlson. It came, circa1959 or 1960, from the fertile mind of Paul Weathers, better known for his FM phono cartridge. Herejected the heavy platters whose flywheel effect helped most turntables of the day maintain steadyspeed and smooth out the small speed variations audible as wow and flutter: heavy platters, andmotors strong enough to turn them, had more rumble, and heavy-duty construction added cost. SoWeathers’ turntable used an electric-clock motor for its extreme speed accuracy, low cost, and thefact that “eliminating the need for a large, inherently noisy motor gets rid of rumble at itssource.” But that motor's low power could only handle a light load, so he used a platter stamped outof thin, non-resonant aluminum, riding on a single-needle bearing.

That led to the ultimate in drive-system simplicity. Many turntables, back then, used stiff rubberidler wheels to transmit power from the motor shaft to the rim of the platter. To drive a heavyplatter, the idler had to be pressed hard against the motor and platter during play. But when the

turntable was at rest, the idler had to be moved away from the motor and platter so the rubberwouldn't develop flat spots that would create periodic thumps and slight speed changes duringrecord play. Weathers’ ultra-light platter could be driven by a soft rubber wheel that would notdevelop flat spots, so it didn’t require a mechanism to move it out of position when the platter wasstopped.

That simplicity made the Weathers turntable ideal for kit construction. The kit version could beassembled with only pliers and a screwdriver, with no soldering required, and sold for only $49.95.That’s $427 in today’s money, but somehow $50 was easier to get back then than $400 is today –even as a college student on a scholarship, I managed to buy and build one. It was my first single-play turntable, and my first true high-fidelity component.

Header image courtesy The Vinyl Engine.

Industry Viewpoint: Are Audio Dealers inTrouble?

FEATURED

Written by Frank Doris

Introduction by Paul McGowan, PS Audio:Magnepan and its loudspeakers are legends in our industry. It was a pair of Maggies that StanWarren and I used as a reference when, in the early 1970s, both of us started PS Audio. Over theyears, Magneplanar loudspeakers have consistently been among my personal reference standards.They hold a spot near and dear to my heart and, I suspect, the hearts and souls of hundreds ofthousands of music-loving audiophiles around the planet.

Wendell Diller, Marketing Manager, Magnepan:I called Paul McGowan to ask a favor – "Would you let me write an article for Copper magazine?" (Ipromised to say nice things about PS Audio and Copper.)

Ideally, I would like Magnepan to have a magazine like Copper. If I could produce a magazine likethat, I would. (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.) But, I don't have the talent or the time.Since we don't have a magazine like Copper, the next best thing is to be a guest writer. And there’sa subject I’ve been wanting to talk about for some time.

You, Dear Reader, share a problem that PS Audio, Magnepan and everyone else in high-end audio isfacing: where can a consumer go to listen to high-end audio products when US audio dealers areshrinking in number? How can listeners experience these products?

It is coming up on 47 years that I have been marketing Magneplanar loudspeakers. In the 1970s and1980s, it seemed like high-end audio would keep going on pretty much as it always had. We still eatand sleep as we ever did, and like eating and sleeping, music has always been another fundamentalhuman experience. So, it seemed reasonable that there would always be a stereo store in town and acertain percentage of consumers would always want something better to make their music listeningmore enjoyable. I could not see the changes that were coming.

In the 1970s and 1980s there were relatively few high-end brands, and an abundance of stereostores. Now, we have the reverse – and the situation is getting worse. I am really bummed out thatone of our best dealers, Audio Consultants in Chicago, closed their doors on December 31st of lastyear. The trend seems to be going the wrong way.

Although there are some notable exceptions: I was a young man when Listen Up in Denver,Definitive Audio in Seattle and Audio Advice in Raleigh were very small stereo stores. Now, they,and some others like them, are very successful. But, on balance, many markets do not have a goodhigh-end audio store that is focused on 2-channel music listening. And, in the markets where there isa good specialty audio dealer, the dealer cannot begin to represent all the excellent high-end audioproducts on the market today because there are so many of them.

So, Magnepan and many others must adapt to the changing market in order for you, the consumer,to experience our products. However, I don't see any single solution that will work, whether factory-direct sales, internet sales, going to audio shows to see and hear products, or some other strategy.We are still searching for what will work for Magnepan and I am not confident that we haveanswers.

PS Audio has a vision of how they want to proceed and Copper is an excellent part of their strategy. Ilike the wide variety of topics in Copper. [Thanks – we take that very seriously and strive to build acommunity of shared interests. – Ed.] As a consumer, I am turned off by hard-sell marketing tactics.PS Audio realizes they must use a variety of marketing tools to win over consumers. (It helps to havea charismatic spokesperson like Paul.)

Here again, Magnepan comes up short. I am not a salesman. Nor am I charismatic. Just compare thevideos I’ve done with this one from Cynthia, aka The AudioBelle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yApFSbHc8Qk

Some of my, ahem, "fans" in the audio chat rooms have suggested that I retire. Well, sorry, I am notgoing anywhere. My financial adviser says I can retire, but this is what I want to do in myretirement. So, Magnepan will have to find our own solutions to the plight of 2-channel audiodistribution.

Ok, Paul, I said some nice things about PS Audio. Now, can I come back again if I need to vent somemore?

Editor’s Note: We encourage manufacturers, dealers and consumers to weigh in on this issue. Whatare your concerns, questions and proposed solutions? We welcome you to share your thoughts in theComments section below (you need to register for the site at www.psaudio.com) or contact theeditor at [email protected].

Wendell Diller’s Bio:Marketing high-end audio causes accelerated aging!

Magnepan, located in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, is the manufacturer of Magneplanarloudspeakers. Planar speakers use ribbon and quasi-ribbon drivers rather than conventional dynamic(cone and dome) drivers. Ribbon and quasi-ribbon drivers have ultra-low mass, for sonic attributessuch as fast transient response, a 360-degree dipole radiation pattern and high resolution.

It Came from LA…AUDIO ANTHROPOLOGY

Written by Frank Doris

Moderate size and cost" must have meant something different at the end of the 1950s. From Audio,December 1958.

Anyone remember these? Guess their moment has come and gone. From Audio, January 1969.

Looks like a good Fukuin tweeter. From Audio, January 1960.

DiplopiaTHE RUN-OUT GROOVE

Written by James Whitworth

The LowdownPARTING SHOT

Taken by James Schrimpf

Chris Crepps backing up country singer Dale Watson.