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<p>Happy new years to you and yours and may 2014 be a great year for us all. *PS Audio has a number of new products we’re excited about launching this year and I’ve been sitting on pins and needles waiting to tell you. *But that isn’t happening today. *Today we continue with our story from yesterday about first times.</p>
<p>Radio station engineer Jim Mussel invited me to his home to hear what I couldn’t at the station, so poor the Quadraflex monitors were. *Jim assured me that there were better speakers, better electronics and “something I’ve never heard before” awaited my arrival at his home.</p>
<p>We both lived in Santa Maria California, a sleepy little town along the Central California coast, inland from the water by about 30 miles. *It was a farming town, mostly sugar beets and strawberries. *Jim’s home was a modest 3-bedroom track house, the kind you see all over California. *They seem to spring up like mushrooms in a blink of an eye. *His stereo system was in the living room and occupied most of it. *In each corner was a JBL horn loudspeaker and on the table between the speakers, some ancient looking tube equipment. *Tubes!</p>
<p>“Jim, you have tubes?” *This was during the days when transistor based electronics was sweeping the country in the form of the Japanese receiver invasion. *Within what seemed a blink of an eye, not one stereo store I knew of carried tubes anymore, it was all solid state Japanese and American brands of receivers and integrateds. *I remember thinking how far technology had advanced us to be rid of these ancient fire bottles.</p>
<p>“Sure. *No one that really likes music listens to a receiver. *They sound awful.” *I learned that Jim’s “ancient” tube equipment was actually brand new and made by a company out of Minneapolis called Audio Research. *Both his preamp and power amp were from AR and they were pure tubes, fed from a Thorens turntable.</p>
<p>Jim turned to me and asked “what would you like to hear?” *At the time, one of my favorite tracks was Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein from the album They Only Come Out At Night. *The album featured an instrument I was very excited about, an ARP 2600 synthesizer. *At the time I was heavily involved in designing my own synthesizer and loved every aspect of these amazing instruments. *I played that track on the air quite a bit just because I loved the synthesizer solo in the middle. *So he cues up Frankenstein and lets it rip.</p>
<p>I was used to listening to this track on the radio station monitors and my headphones at the station. *I listened loudly. *The sound from the monitors was loud, but two dimensional and flat, as was the norm for the lackluster system at the station. *Only I didn’t know that. *I didn’t know that until I heard the same track on his system through the JBL corner horns. *That was a moment I will never forget and it changed my life and its course forever. *It sounded unlike the record I was used to from the very first note. *Then there was the dual drum solo and the synthesizer solo. *OMG. *The drums were pounding as if they were in the room. *Attacks of the snare and tom toms were so realistic it really did sound like the Edgar Winter group was right in the room. *I was stunned. *I had no idea. *How was this possible?</p>
<p>I think we must have listened to that track two or three times until he refused to play it again and wanted to put something else on. *I kept grilling him trying to find out why it sounded so different. *How could this make such a difference from what, I assumed, was a great system installed in the radio station already?</p>
<p>Jim patiently did his best to explain the world of high end audio to me but I didn’t get it. *What I did get was how much better it sounded than anything I had ever heard. *Heck, it sounded better than most live concerts I had been to and all this in someone’s living room with ancient tubes powering it. *I was stunned. *I was hooked.</p>
<p>And here I am today.</p>
<p>Send me a note telling me your story of the first experience if you get a chance. *I’ll pick the best ones, clean ‘em up and publish a few.</p>
<br /><span class="c4"><img src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-spamfree/img/wpsf-img.php" width="0" height="0" alt="" class="c3" /></span>
[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/frankenstein/12841/]
<p>Radio station engineer Jim Mussel invited me to his home to hear what I couldn’t at the station, so poor the Quadraflex monitors were. *Jim assured me that there were better speakers, better electronics and “something I’ve never heard before” awaited my arrival at his home.</p>
<p>We both lived in Santa Maria California, a sleepy little town along the Central California coast, inland from the water by about 30 miles. *It was a farming town, mostly sugar beets and strawberries. *Jim’s home was a modest 3-bedroom track house, the kind you see all over California. *They seem to spring up like mushrooms in a blink of an eye. *His stereo system was in the living room and occupied most of it. *In each corner was a JBL horn loudspeaker and on the table between the speakers, some ancient looking tube equipment. *Tubes!</p>
<p>“Jim, you have tubes?” *This was during the days when transistor based electronics was sweeping the country in the form of the Japanese receiver invasion. *Within what seemed a blink of an eye, not one stereo store I knew of carried tubes anymore, it was all solid state Japanese and American brands of receivers and integrateds. *I remember thinking how far technology had advanced us to be rid of these ancient fire bottles.</p>
<p>“Sure. *No one that really likes music listens to a receiver. *They sound awful.” *I learned that Jim’s “ancient” tube equipment was actually brand new and made by a company out of Minneapolis called Audio Research. *Both his preamp and power amp were from AR and they were pure tubes, fed from a Thorens turntable.</p>
<p>Jim turned to me and asked “what would you like to hear?” *At the time, one of my favorite tracks was Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein from the album They Only Come Out At Night. *The album featured an instrument I was very excited about, an ARP 2600 synthesizer. *At the time I was heavily involved in designing my own synthesizer and loved every aspect of these amazing instruments. *I played that track on the air quite a bit just because I loved the synthesizer solo in the middle. *So he cues up Frankenstein and lets it rip.</p>
<p>I was used to listening to this track on the radio station monitors and my headphones at the station. *I listened loudly. *The sound from the monitors was loud, but two dimensional and flat, as was the norm for the lackluster system at the station. *Only I didn’t know that. *I didn’t know that until I heard the same track on his system through the JBL corner horns. *That was a moment I will never forget and it changed my life and its course forever. *It sounded unlike the record I was used to from the very first note. *Then there was the dual drum solo and the synthesizer solo. *OMG. *The drums were pounding as if they were in the room. *Attacks of the snare and tom toms were so realistic it really did sound like the Edgar Winter group was right in the room. *I was stunned. *I had no idea. *How was this possible?</p>
<p>I think we must have listened to that track two or three times until he refused to play it again and wanted to put something else on. *I kept grilling him trying to find out why it sounded so different. *How could this make such a difference from what, I assumed, was a great system installed in the radio station already?</p>
<p>Jim patiently did his best to explain the world of high end audio to me but I didn’t get it. *What I did get was how much better it sounded than anything I had ever heard. *Heck, it sounded better than most live concerts I had been to and all this in someone’s living room with ancient tubes powering it. *I was stunned. *I was hooked.</p>
<p>And here I am today.</p>
<p>Send me a note telling me your story of the first experience if you get a chance. *I’ll pick the best ones, clean ‘em up and publish a few.</p>
<br /><span class="c4"><img src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-spamfree/img/wpsf-img.php" width="0" height="0" alt="" class="c3" /></span>
[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/frankenstein/12841/]