Our Header image is extracted from the film "Gainsbourg" and that scene is when Serge and Jane are presenting this song to their producer, who initially refuses to publish it on its own, and finally decided to go ahead with the amazing success that we know. Watching the film for the first time yesterday, I also discovered that this song was originally written for Brigitte Bardot, with whom Gainsbourg was having an affair at the time. While Gainsbourg declared it the "ultimate love song", it was considered too "hot"; the song was censored or banned from public broadcast in numerous countries and in France even the toned-down version was suppressed. The Vatican made a public statement citing the song as offensive. Despite (or perhaps because of) the controversy, it sold well and charted within the top ten in many European countries. Since we are talking about Gainsbourg right after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, I thought I would also share Gainsbourg "Spirit of Charlie" adaptation of "La Marseillaise", my little contribution to freedom of speech! For my Australian readers, SBS On-Demand plays "Gainsbourg", so watch it! And for the nerds out there who read my blog, the photo shows a pair of Elipson BS50 (1953) and a REVOX A77 in the background, whose MKII version was released in 1969, like the song!
We have talked about 3A before, but having received a lot of new documents from Jean-Paul GUY - GUY.HF, it seems appropriate to write this complementary article. Read the first one here The photos of the catalogues from 1977 and 1980 respectively show the success and the growth of the 3A range of speakers. Interestingly enough, they both use what was considered like one of the largest anechoic chambers in Europe at the time, although my suspicion is that KEF had a much better one with better test equipment (HP - Siegfried Linkwitz...) then, but I suppose, the British never though of themselves as being part of Europe. For proof, if one was needed, I am keen to tell the story of one of the best hifi dealers in Edinburgh to whom I was trying to sell my wares, who was almost in tears when I visited the second time around. When I asked what was wrong with him, he said " I heard we are becoming European...". That was in 1984/85...It is quite telling that, if the recent Scottish referendum had returned a "yes" Scotland would have immediately applied for EEC membership, thirty years later...Enough politics for the day! Let's go back to the beginning of the 70s when Daniel Dehay an electronic engineer starts 3A with the help of Alain Guillaud who ended up working for Framatech and Max Chalambeau who will eventually start Alpheratz...and has now completely changed his field of activity. Their first model was the 3A ARIOSO, which cabinet was built by GUY.HF. It was equipped with a 38 cm Fostex, a 12 cm midrange from Siare and a compression tweeter from Fostex. about 5000 were built in the first two years. Not bad for a start up... 3A ADAGIO was the second model and was an easy rework of the ARIOSO, with the same midrange, a 30cm woofer from Fostex and an ITT tweeter. There will be several versions of this model over the years with many driver configurations, including the latest version in the 1980 catalogue which uses 3A made drivers, favouring the midrange dome instead of the 12cm Siare paper cone. The 3A tweeter claims to reach 30KHz, but I am not sure it could be measured up to that frequency at the time, using the Bruel & Kjaer equipment shown in the catalogue... 3A claimed to measure each speaker separately and attach the resulting print-out on the speaker itself. This photo seems to prove the point. However, the way the curve is silk screen printed on each front panel makes me believe that this was a marketing ploy and only a generic test...Daniel Dehay was very good at marketing and this was reflected in the catalogues he produced. See some extracts of the 1980 catalogue below. In the late 70s and until the demise of the company in the early 80s, 3A designed and manufactured a series of interesting drivers. 25 and 21cm for the woofers and dome speakers for the midrange and tweeters. Focal bought the moulds for the woofers chassis and it is easy to spot them in the early JM Lab productions as well as many other French speaker designers. The drivers were manufactured in a dedicated factory in Lussac-lès-Chateau The most popular product made by 3A was the 3A APOGEE, with a 25cm woofer from Fostex and the same ITT tweeter as in previous models. This was so popular that 3A had three different cabinet makers and had a production line at GUY HF to assemble them and ship them from a central location. Probably what was the most famous product made by 3A was the ANDANTE, one of the very rare electronic feedback speakers of this era (Philips started the trend...). 3A called their system "Acoustic Pressure Feedback" and used a 125W amplifier and associated circuitry to claim a lower limit of 32Hz in a 20 litres cabinet! It made the hifi headlines in no time for sure: "The Andante won our Compact Quality Award on the basis of its superb sound for its size. It also deserved the award for solid construction. It was organ music that demonstrated best the amazing deep bass of this small speaker...we were astonished to find that the pedal notes of organ, the earth shaking were as loud and clear on the Linear as on a speaker about six times its size". Extract from the 1980 catalog, with no source noted...This was the 1979 version. The 3A ANDANTE in its original form used a 25cm SIARE driver and a compression tweeter from Fostex, as per previous models, then it evolved into the 3A ANDANTE LINEAIRE using three 3A proprietary drivers. The cabinets were still made by GUY HF, 3A being their biggest client at the time. It is nor clear who was manufacturing the amplifiers, but they ended up being very unreliable. I guess the combination of low quality, huge investment in manufacturing their own drivers and electronics, as well as the demise of some very large retailers who were the primary output for the sales of 3A speakers had a large influence on the eventual bankruptcy of the company. Interestingly enough, GUY HF was not one of the casualties of this debacle. 3A closing their doors was big news at the time and coincided with the rise of JM LAB/FOCAL who became in time the largest client of GUY HF and eventually buying the business. Another factor in the failing of the business was the plethora of models and the incessant redesign of successful speakers with new drivers and various revisions of the same models. I have no intention to name and review all on them here but will direct you to the excellent overview put together by Jean-Marc Hauchard here: The last product I will feature though is the 3A TR+Atom triphonic systems, where a coffee table houses the active subwoofer in 80, 100 and 120 watts , using a 150w amplifier and the "Acoustic Pressure Feedback" feature, using 2, 3 and 4 drivers respectively. One could choose from two satellites, the Atom 2 equipped with a 20cm woofer and an "Equipase" tweeter and Atom 3 equipped with the same boomer and two dome drivers for the higher frequencies, both using geometries to time align the drivers. Quite a neat system which was quite convincing. To conclude this rather long article, let's say that 3A was one of the most prolific and famous French speaker manufacturers. There were certainly a good deal of great ideas in the designs of Daniel Dehay and his team. After the closure of 3A, he tried to resuscitate a business, moved to Switzerland first and then on to Canada where he still resides and where he helped starting another company called Reference 3A! These speakers are only sold in North America and have a great reputation. I have been in contact with the company recently and I will write a follow-up article on their products soon. So stay tuned for the next episode of the 3A saga!
As far back as 2010, both Ken Kessler and Paul Miller, not renown for being Franco-hifi-philes were raving about this new range of hybrid analog-digital amplifiers from France. I had a chance to listen to them for the first time at the CES in Las Vegas three years ago and again recently in Melbourne, where they were paired with Atom GT-1 speakers to showcase the new SAM technology that basically uses the DSP capabilities of the amp to linearise the speakers As for the title of this article, I hope you will forgive me this very bad joke...Having being living with a Scott for the last 30 years, I thought the reference would be funny. Other might have thought of the Phantom of the Opera - we all have our idiosyncrasies, n'est-ce pas? These new speakers are a mix between the spheres from Elipson and a baby Blade from Kef, both in form and concept at first glance, but obviously there is much more to it than meets the naked eye! First there is like 3KW of Class D amplification in the top model, more akin to the Kronos from Kyron Audio, although in a closed cabinet. The main concentric midrange and tweeter driver is reminiscent of Cabasse, but looks even more polished - a word that would be the best one word description for such a beautiful object. Ken Kessler who is also a famous reviewer for luxury watches, believes high-end HiFi should be marketed as a luxury brand to have a chance of survival and growth. And guess what? Devialet is now part of LVMH, the luxury brand umbrella par excellence! This new concept and marketing will propels this product to the highest possible recognition and suitable market. Smartly, the product is also conjugated down both in specifications, power and price for the mere mortals that most of us are and who would be more interested in the sonic result than the "show off" effect of owning such a luxurious product...And to be consistent with this new image and partnership, Debvialet has open the quintessential "flagship" store in the heart of the trendy fashion district: Place des Victoirs.
This will become a Vintage product! It is a revolutionary product that incorporates the best of DSP technology, Class D amplification, great looks and high-end performance. Can't wait to get my hands on a pair of these beauties for an extensive listening session and to report to you! Behind this simple logo hides more than 70 years of expertise in building modern furniture for famous designers of the time, some of the first TV cabinets and later on specialising in speaker cabinets for the most prestigious names of the French HiFi scene like Elipson, Jean-Marie Raynaud, 3A, A2T, Audax, AudioAnalyse, Audio Reference, Confluence, Elipson, France Acoustique, Mercuriale, Phonophone, Siare and for JM Lab/Focal, a collaboration over 30 years, Focal eventually buying the business in 2007. What an achievement for Emile, the father, and his son Jean-Paul Guy from the tiny city of Bourbon-Lancy, home to just over 5000 people but famous from Antiquity for its spa. GUY.HF is only one of two companies listed on Wikipedia in the town! Jean-Paul Guy who I have known since 1983 has benefited from growing up in a rich cultural environment because of the trendy original clients of his Dad, like the famous interior designers Leleu Marcel Gascoin and Maxime Old. Jean-Paul is a serious melomane and a great collector of modern art with a collection of over 600 pieces which he occasionally lends to museums for specific exhibitions. An hedonist, he loves all the finer things in life... He is also a speaker designer in his own right and was developing some products very similar to my Microphase around the same time, hence probably why he accepted to build our products. As proof, you will find below some extracts of his catalogues, some products being sold under the GUY.HF brand and some more elaborate ones under the "Natural Sound" brand. I find interesting in retrospect that we were all trying to replicate the 4240 from Elipson on a smaller scale and for less money. In many ways, most of these systems actually achieved this objective with very limited means sometimes and as a result, these companies didn't stand the test of time. But most importantly, GUY.HF and Jean-Paul were instrumental in helping these small outfits getting manufactured properly at a price which leaved them with enough margins as well as staying competitive in the retail market. Jean-Paul was also very helpful in streamlining the manufacturing process by advising us on ways to save money without too much compromise on the final auditive and visual results.Un grand merci! All this quality manufacture was achieved without any CNC machines which arrived at GUY.HF only in 1987 when production reaches over 15,000 speakers. A second machine was bought in 1999 to accommodate the big success of the Utopia range from Focal representing half the production and all this achieved with less than 30 people! One skill that GUY.HF had and still has is the quality of their varnishes, perfectly applied and never too glossy in the case of the clear finish. Lacquer was subcontracted to a local company Segaud, which was later bought over and integrated into the larger premises acquired in 2003. If you have ever seen a Focal Grande Utopia in the flesh, then you will have experienced both the cabinet making and the lacquer expertise of Jean-Paul's team! Over the next few weeks, I will go into each of the speaker companies that GUY.HF has manufactured over the years, and you will surprised to find out that even reputable companies outside France were clients, like Luxman, Toshiba, Sanyo, Fisher, Philips and Telefunken!
I will be forever grateful to have been associated with GUY.HF and still counting Jean-Paul as one of my long standing friends. Stay tuned for more French Vintage Speakers! Jean-Paul GUY, with whom I reconnected recently, ébéniste extraordinaire for JM Lab/Focal for decades and for some more esoteric brands like Confluence, 3A, Phonophone and Microphase.
We will distill this information for you over the coming weeks and we hope you will enjoy reading about this history of French Hifi as much as we will have pleasure in telling these stories! Stay tuned! In the meantime, a little gem: the very first and quite basic Micrphase data sheet... In this second and last episode, we will review our Australian exhibitors, a lot of what is now called Head-Fi and finally cover the British brands and some very big systems. Let's get the Show on the road! The AussiesI have first heard of Legend Acoustics a couple of years back, when I approached their cabinet maker for a custom project of mine. I was quite impressed by the level of complexity and astuteness of the cabinet design as well as the quality of the finish product. I was not allowed to investigate too closely for obvious commercial confidence reasons. But having been in the trade for about four decades, I knew I was onto something quite unique. Then I learned that Rod Crawford, the owner and designer, worked for my dear old Scottish friend Ivor Tiefenbrun of Linn fame, and that triggered an even bigger interest, as working for Ivor is not for the faint hearted! So, for this Show, Legend was very high on my list of people to visit and I even had a chance of a great conversation with the man himself! What I was not aware of either is that Rod has followed the same path as my friends at Kyron Audio by using equalisation and electronic crossover from DEXQ, but in a conventional cabinet, and even better a separate medium-treble unit sitting on top of a substantial subwoofer acting as a stand for the satellite, my favourite combination! A total of five drivers, a tweeter, a midrange, a mid-bass and two 12" woofers. The cabinets have no parallel faces, requiring an expert joiner and accurate CNC machinery to achieve this level of craftsmanship. We are in Jean-Paul Guy territory here of Focal Grande Utopia Be fame - funny the resemblance of names on opposite ends of the Planet. What I heard confirmed my theoretical assessment of these speakers: extremely speedy sand accurate, delivering extremely tight bass in a visually attractive and not too intrusive cabinet. I think they are to box speakers what Kyron Audio Kronos are to open baffle. I am planning to have an extended listening session later and will certainly write a complete review then. Although I didn't ask for the exact price of the system, I believe it to be under 50K$. The Head-Fi departmentIt was an amazing display at Addicted to Audio, where you could try almost any headphone with any amp. Due to time constraints, I only listened to the AUDEZE, GRADO RS1 and OPPO on the Decibel Audio stand nearby. All three setups returned extraordinary results and surprisingly I think the most beautiful sound came out of the ICON AUDIO + ORIGIN LIVE + LONDON DECCA analog chain into the OPPO headphones. It was almost liquid sound, definitely silky, accurate and comfortable to wear, and even in such a noisy environment, quite easy to concentrate on the music. I found the AUDEZE slightly more digital, but it might be just because of the source. The Grado was a close second in my opinion. The SONY would be good to travel with at 500$. The BritsThe Aussies have not completely become a republic of sound and are still the subjects of Her Gracious Majesty of British Hifi! And even as a Frenchman, I have always been interested, maybe fascinated even..., by the so-called British sound, polite, politically correct, Victorian even maybe as it does not try to be orgasmic, just staying on the edge of it, but still trying to steer all these emotions out of a well-educated, music savvy listener. After all, I am listening to many more British bands (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Dire Straits, just to name the top three...) than any ridiculous French bands (name one if you can...) And yes I like Barbara, and Brassens and Yves Montant and my dear friend Joel Favreau, but French rock? No way!. So how can you enjoy Private Investigations on a pair of LS3/5? I guess you will need to upgrade to a pair of KEF Blades to get that visceral response that this kind of music is suppose generate in your body! And some of the best recording studios are in the UK (Abbey Road and Decca come to mind...) So, yes I do have a lot of respect for British Hifi with a sweet tooth for the Scottish category! The VikingsScandinavia was poorly represented this year with the notable absence of Dynaudio (and matching Bryston amplification) as well as Electrokompaniet. Pen Audio has never made it to these shores, so no surprise there. There were plenty Scandinavian drivers around in other speaker brands, as Scan-Speak and SEAS still command a lion share of the high end audio. But Jamo, Audiovector and Raidho did make a serious appearance and it was sonically welcome. A bit of valve porn - Nostalgia or Revival?Well, it seems like every other day there is a new turntable and a new valve amp for headphones or speakers. Bigger and more powerful tubes are being invented in the Czech Republic or elsewhere, and even I was taken by an Icon Audio Headphone amp driving the OPPO headphones. And yes my very first amp was valve-based and rated at 10W per channel! I had built my own transistor preamp though and my very own first full range speakers equipped with a 17cm Siare driver in a smallish closed cabinet filled up with redundant wool covers my Mum gave me. Add a Dual 1219 turntable and Shure V15 cartridge and I was in hifi heaven, or was it "all about the music" as Harry Connick Jr says? And that's the nostalgic part: at the time, it was the only kind of system a young electronic (or else..) student could afford. No longer, as valve electronics are now in the realm of High-Enf Hifi and out of reach of most music lovers. So, is this revival triggered by the return of the vinyl, also out of nostalgia from baby boomers now able to spend a fortune on their hifi gear, or is there a genuine better quality of the sound? The jury is out there, and I am the first to be confused at time. I have even considered building one small amp for fun and maybe give it to my daughter who seems to be the one having inherited the audiophile bug. Time will tell. In the meantime I will stick to my Bryston amplifier! The Big Boys - Systems priced over 100K$German and Austrian High End gear primarily on one of the two TELOS Suites. Turntables by Spiral Groove and Continuum - see episode 1 - amplification by Ypsilon from Greece, speakers from Brodmann, Kaiser Acoustics (I like them a lot...) and German Physics. You won't get much change out of 200K$ there either! It felt incongruous to pair such a supposedly high-end electronics with a mid range Ovator 600 speakers. At least, I would have liked to hear the system on the Ovator 800, some of the very rare speakers managing to use the BMR technology properly. Besides, there was no way to listen to our own CDs or to rip an HDCD on the system. I was quite disappointed I have to say... I might surprise you in choosing the TechDAS and Gauder Akustik system as my gear of choice if I had 200K$ to spend on a new HiFi combo. It was the most coherent and musical system in that price range. Besides, the Air Force turntable is not only a "tour de force" but also prone to be a great conversation piece between a few glasses of Hospice de Beaune Pinot Noir. The system has all the bits and pieces not only to play your existing - and probably large - collection of vinyl but also can accommodate your CDs and digital files. At half the money I would go for the Kronos from Kyron Audio and just add a Bergmann Magne turntable et voilà! If I were to move into a smaller place, I would consider an all OPPO system, and keep my current NAD amp and REGA turntable and buy a pair of Q Acoustics 2020i foe less than 5K$! In conclusionIt was well worth getting up at 4.00am to fly to Melbourne and spend the day at the Show. The Intercontinental Rialto Hotel is very comfortable for the occasion and the absence of the usual crowds (probably not such a good thing for the organiser and the exhibitors, though...) made it a breeze to cover the event in one day. For sure I deliberately skipped a few rooms, and I surely missed a few products that I would have enjoyed discovering or revisiting, but life is all about choices and besides, this is my passion not a job I am paid for, so it gives me a bit of "poetic license" as they say...
I hope you have enjoyed reading my prose, and my Google Analytics results seem to confirm that you do. Thank you for your time and hope to see you again (virtually...) soon I can't believe it has been a year already since I was last in Melbourne for the previous Show! I woke up at 4.00am to catch the first flight from Sydney and was in Melbourne way before the opening time. Walking from Spencer Street Station to the Intercontinental is only a 15 mins walk, invigorating as the cold Melbourne morning air was "au rendez-vous". And the place was packed with 70,000 Jehovah Witnesses attending their annual gathering at the near by Etihad Stadium. Quite a sight and a very polite, well dressed and orderly procession, it was! With 42 exhibitors and maybe 50 rooms to visit, it is not a huge show, but all the important players in the local market and their suppliers are committed to give the audience a good time! And a good time I had, indeed...So here is my report organised in a different format, as I can! Involve Audio - The most innovative product and it is Australian!Combine electrostatic speakers, innovative signal processing technology, and a hint of vintage quadraphony and you are close enough to describing Involve Audio. Here are a few diagrams that might help understand how it works. And by the way, it does work! The interesting thing is that technically, you could use your own speakers and definitely your own amplifiers, as they are not part of the system. However, the way the speakers are designed, they take full advantage of the decoded signal and will bring you the best surround sound result. I actually find the look of the speakers quite interesting and they sound pretty good at the price. Kyron Audio - the most awarded product before and during the ShowIf you follow me on this blog, you will know that it is no secret that I really like those speakers - actually, I should say this system. I have been a great advocate since the beginning of Leon and Lee adventure with the Gaia, and now there is no excuses for not considering buying their gear, with the introduction of the Kronos. You need only a source to play music, and that be be your audio files on your computer, iDevices or Androids, and why not connecting an OPPO player and a turntable. That should leave you some spare cash out of a 100K$ to buy more vinyls... And I have been vindicated by Michael Fremer of Stereophile fame who could not find enough praise for the Kronos on his blog Analog Planet: http://www.analogplanet.com/content/kyron-audios-kronos-best-sounding-system-you-will-ever-hear. Michael was invited at the Show to run a turntable masterclass and he was enticed to go and have a listen to the Kronos. The boys were a bit nervous, I heard, but then they got over it! The cutest productsI didn't get a chance to listen to these cuties, but I have found memories of discovering WOO at the CES in 2012, where their minimalist look and great sound opened my mind to this genre. I will have a whole chapter of this review on headphones, miniDACs and amp in episode 2. SONY - the most innovative and coherent offer in AVVery good private demo of the various capabilities of the Hi-Res Audio new products from SONY, coupled with the amazing 85" - that's 2.15m diagonal! The video signal processing, the hi-speed refresh rate and the new pixel technology make you feel more looking at a slide projector than a TV screen. Who remembers the first demos by Dr Faroudja at CEDIA in the 90s. Incroyable! The audio side of things was not as stunning, but it was very good indeed for a Japanese designed speaker. I like the new three-part tweeter. Things were on the brighter side as a result. Where are the French?Although these four French brands of speakers have reputable distributors in Australia, none of them chose to show their French wares at the Show, and I believe the Aussie audiophiles are missing out on some great products. Hopefully this will be different next year. Devialet had team up with Athom and a special edition of their GT-1 to give us one of the most spectacular demo of the Show. No sub, just two very good bookshelf speakers. The CD transport was provided by OPPO, although the DAC in use was the Deviate. The speakers were also further equalised with the proprietary SAM technology which covers about 60 different speakers as of today, but up to 200 before the end of the year. The system is keenly priced as well. Speaker odditiesMost speaker designers follow some of the same principles and end up with different box designs, relying on proprietary drivers, esoteric loading, complex crossover and cabinet geometries variations to deliver what each believes to be the best sound at that price point. On the other hand a few, like Kyron Audio, Siegfried Linkwitz and the two culprits here, Brodmann and DC10Audio make wonders out of designs that are not following the book. I have been willing to find out about these speakers in real life for quite a while, as I suspected that although their design is very unconventional, they might actually work very well. And guess what? I was quite impressed! And yes they were very well fed by a YBA CD transport, an Allnic DAC and an YBA amplifier, and I was welcome to play one of my favourite CDs - Patricia Barber's Cafe Blue, A Taste of Honey on HDCD - and the high sensitivity coupled with the horn dispersion made it for a very smooth, dynamic and precise sound. And they look gorgeous too...WAF! I have discovered these speakers at the CES in 2012 and was quite intrigued by them. I have since had a chance to listen to them numerous times here in Australia with mixed results. But at this Show, they were paired with Thrax - which I first heard driving Kaiser speakers - and an Ypsilon CD transport which i love the look of - and the result was mesmerising. Having just not one, but two tweeters on the front baffle for the top of the range model shown here (a no no in MY book...) and the bass-midrange drivers on the side of the cabinets, you need a particularly good positioning to reproduce the sort of diffuse sound that you experience in the concert hall when you are far away from the orchestra. These speakers are amazing on classical orchestral music, and at reproducing cellos, one of my favourite instruments. Thumbs up! A few turntables for good measureThat's it for Episode 1! On the next and final episode, I will review DACs and headphones and their partnering amps, all the major British brands including my report on the private listening session of the Statement amplifier and associated gear from NAIM. And obviously, all the nice Australian gear like Legend, Richter, Osborne and Krix. Until then...good night!
The Australian Audio & AV show in Melbourne will take place in 10 days at the Intercontinental Rialto Towers, as in its previous incarnation on which we have reported at the time. The French contingent this year is still minuscule with only five brans represented and the noticeable absence of Davis Acoustics, Elipson and Waterfall Audio. Although not really French anymore we welcome YBA to the fold! We will be watching a few other brands dear to us but will regret the absence of Bryston which is not listed yet as an exhibitor. Stay tuned as there is still time for them to register... Interestingly enough there are a few record labels exhibiting, so we will be listening! I hope you will be visiting if you live in our part of the World and feel free to approach me for a chat - it is always a pleasure to meet my readers in the flesh!
And the answer is...MASS and turntables. The recent passing of Jean-Constant Verdier triggers this article and will take us on a journey in time to revisit three of the most famous French High-End turntables and pay tribute to the two designers behind these mighty designs, JC Verdier and Pierre Riffaud. It is quite amazing to see the resemblance between these two, don't you think? Interestingly enough, both Jean Constant Verdier and Pierre Riffaud came to massive designs from very different paths. Jean Constant worked for ERA and designed a very flimsy turntable with a underhung sub chassis and innovative "virtual pivot" arm. I owned such a "bijou" after leaving home and letting go of our Dual 1219 turntable to my sister - who still has it, I believe. The ERA turntable was very well regarded at the time and it was also used in a "combo" with amplifier, tuner and matching speakers, called the "Bloc Source Quarante", named after the industrial designer who put it together Danielle Quarante, born in the same year as JCV, 1938 (btw, quarante in French means forty, so I originally thought it was a model number...) and was available in blue, white, red (French flag anyone???) and orange. See photos below. I really like it! Pierre Riffaud started by re-engineering Garrard 401s - he still does it by the way... and in that process started to design a new platter for it and reusing the oversize and very reliable motor as well as the very strong spindle and bearing. JC Verdier went on to design "levitation" for his turntable, first magnetic, and now hydraulic, on the more recent "Magnum" which competes with Pierre Riffaud's Heritage and Clearaudio Statement, and probably a few more I am not aware of... It definitely has the biggest platter and the heaviest at 60kgs, with 3 motors of 30kgs each and a solid marble plinth, raising the total weight to 400kgs! JCV claims it is the heaviest on the market, not the most expensive but just the best The difficult part would be to organise a comparative listening session, and I don't fancy my chances to be successful with that project...
I have not had a chance to listen to any of these separately, just the Classique at Point Musiques in 2011, and that was certainly better than my REGA, but how much better these top of the range turntables would be compared to the Classique or to my current upgrade of choice, the Bergman Magne, a mere 12K$... Pierre Riffaud will not give you a price for the Heritage, saying to me with a cheeky smile: if you ask, it is that you can't afford it! ditto Epure, Verdier or Clearaudio... But having said that, I have the upmost respect for people who dedicate their whole life to the pursuit of perfection at any cost, whether they design turntables like these two, or speakers like Wilson Audio, KEF, Cabasse or a meal like Guy Savoy, Joel Robuchon or Heston Blumenthal. So RIP, Monsieur Verdier, in the knowledge that your son will continue holding the fort and we will continue spinning vinyl on whatever turntable one can afford, leaving some money in the bank to buy more records, good food and wine and listen to music in good company... One of my best friends and ex-colleague at HP just passed away and left behind him the largest collection of HP Test & Measurements instruments and computers in the World with over 750 pieces, most of them in working order! You can read your heart content about his journey at www.hpmemory.org One of his most recent acquisitions was a very rare so-called Barney Oliver amplifier. This product has been made in a very limited series of less than 500 units, manufactured by HP employees, following HP manufacturing quality standards (the famous Class B...) after hours and was sold at cost to HP employees and their families. Interestingly enough, a number of them have survived and are still working as well as when they were built more than 40 years ago in 1972. I personally worked for HP from 1978 to 1992 and it has certainly be one of the highlights of my career. Barney Oliver passed away in 1995 and I don't think I ever met him. Even if I have, I never knew he was an audio freak of the highest order, a fan of JBL speakers and the V15 Shure cartridge, components for which this amplifier was optimised. I had a chance to exchange a few emails with Siegfried Linkwitz regarding this amp, but Siegfried was not a fan of JBL, so he didn't bother with the Barney Oliver design...and I couldn't get more info out of him. Fortunately, a few other HP and non HP people have come forward who still have this amplifier. I have approached them for some inside stories and up-to-date measurements and listening notes. I will keep you posted as soon as I hear from them. Ideally, I would really like to be able to make up my own opinion and I am calling out for help to see if anybody would have one to loan me for a few days either here in Australia, or willing to ship one to me (Christmas is around the corner...) Interestingly enough, Barney Oliver designed his amplifier with quite a limited bandwidth and a high level of negative feedback. One could also reduce the bandwidth further with filters at 5, 8 and 10 KHz, primarily to listen to 78 RPM records or poor FM reception. Even though, here is what somebody has to say of his listening experience:"This amplifier sounds incredible on virtually every level. First and foremost, it is a very sweet sound – a bit on the warm side but not overly lush, and highly detailed but not at all analytical – it is a very musical and involving amplifier with excellent dynamics and literally no listener fatigue. Another aspect of the sonic performance that is amazing is the extremely quiet noise floor, even at full volume. The clarity is also astonishing, with extremely low harmonic distortion that specs out to less than 0.01%, 2 mw to maximum power for all frequencies."
It sounds like this amplifier has some of the qualities of a tube amplifier, but with all the muscle and low noise and distortion of a transistorised design: not a mince feast! And this is the reason why I am keen to do more measurements on the impulse response/slew rate of this amplifier, as I know from experience with many amplifiers and with my own Bryston 3B this is a key factor in the timbre accuracy, dynamic range and overall enjoyment of long listening sessions... |
AuthorBorn in France, well travelled, relocated to Sydney in 1997. Archives
July 2023
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