SOUND TRAVELS

We visit a music lover with a truly encyclopaedic knowledge encompassing a wide range of musical genres and a stunningly natural system combining up-to-the-minute computer audio playback and a selection of classic audio components.

This issue Edgar Kramer interviews an audiophile who’s improved his B&W DM70s with new Focal bass drivers and treble panels from Christian Feillafé

Edgar Kramer: Do you have a first memory, a seminal musical experience?

Peter Smith: When I was a toddler I discovered the wind-up gramophone and became obsessed with the wonder that you could get music from a spiral groove and a bamboo needle. I had my first musical ‘goose-bumps’ listening to the slow movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony when I was about three years old. My earliest memories are of Caruso, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Heifetz and Schnabel. I learned Gershwin and Rachmaninov playing from their original 78s. I even taught myself to read—M for Mozart, etc., from the labels. The J of Jascha Heifetz confused me as I knew J started John but Jascha sounded like it started with a Y.

EK: And did that start you on the hi-fi journey or did something else launch you on the audio equipment quest?

PS: I developed a passion for discs. Even then I experimented with the different needles available from bamboo to different thicknesses of metal needles. My grandmother took me to symphony concerts from a young age, I learned piano from about 6 years old and sang in the local church choir where I learned to sight-sing from the printed score, and listen to the other choristers to blend with them. So music became very much a lifelong passion as 78s gave way to 45s and Long Playing Microgrooves. In 1960 I heard my first stereo system (Reiner’s Scheherazade) with the speakers in the corners of the room. They gave me an old copy of Gramophone magazine and the knowledge quest was on. I avidly read the reviews and then later the Penguin Guides to Recorded Music searching for the nuances in ‘good’ performances and recordings. The first speaker boxes I built housed Wharfedale Super 8s. Later I constructed my spherical concrete flower pots with a two-way SEAS dome and bass unit and started on the electronics of passive crossover design. Amazing sound for the time.

EK: You’re a long-term audio enthusiast and music lover and those years of experience have led to where you are now in terms of your music system. In your view, is there scope for upgrading or is it just a matter of fine-tuning or even leaving well enough alone?

PS: I am very contented with my current sound however I am always open-minded about ‘new’ technologies. I used to own a Sony DP101 player purchased in Hong Kong the week that player was launched. By then I was really ‘over’ the limitations of LPs, dust and the cleaning ritual, the pops and crackles and embraced the new format. I am still amazed that with each improvement in playback technology, the original CDs can still reveal an extra level of minute detail. I am now exploring the possibilities that JRiver has to offer and the convenience of selecting music through my iPad. Christian has brought over the prototype Mark 3 treble panels for my B&W DM70 speakers and I look forward to putting them into the system. All-in-all, a 50-year overnight success of continually trying new products and learning that just because something sounds different it is not necessarily better. I have also learned to differentiate between ‘snake-oil’ claims and valid new technologies.

EK: How would you describe the sound you’re getting from your current set-up?

PS: A very realistic holographic sound stage, flat frequency response and fast transients with a very tight bass gives an accurate rendition of all instruments and voices, which makes for a really satisfying musical experience. The speakers disappear and you can listen for hours without any fatigue. The sound stage becomes the whole end of the room.

EK: How did you go about achieving this end?

PS: I wanted to re-create a musical experience rather than being blasted with hi-fi energy. Further studies led me to two-way active crossover technology (Rod Elliott’s Project P09 electronic crossover) interacting with the room. This allows the amplifiers to control and damp the speaker cone movement, achieving tight bass. Measured room nodes below 250Hz are attenuated with JRiver built-in DSP Studio EQ software. The system starts in my study with a 4-terabyte hard drive built into my PC tower running JRiver software. JRiver was chosen because after careful listening and double-blind A–B testing between the CD player and computer it was indistin-

guishable on playback. I chose FLAC files to allow for more data tags such as where the CD was pressed, the producer, recording engineers and venue, etc; esoteric things that interest me. These details are added during upload to the hard drive.

The electrostatic panels with one micron Mylar acting as dipoles allow for whisperquiet soft passages, rapid transients and also high signal-to-noise ratios. Statistically, the system has an almost flat frequency response above 540Hz, THD is a measured 0.006% at 1.9kHz. Without careful measurements of the room/speaker interactions you are really flying blind (or deaf!).

EK: The B&W DM70s are classic speakers. Can you tell us about the modifications to the electrostatic panel?

PS: The enclosures have been modified to add ports as the Focal 10N 501 drivers are designed for a bass-reflex load. The port design was done with help from Kostas Metaxas’ software. The ‘stats have been extensively rebuilt by Christian Feillafé using specially-coated one micron Mylar as the diaphragm. The step-up audio transformers were redesigned to increase the voltage across the grids to 4,000-volts and are wound with multilayer primary and secondary interleaved windings to reduce leakage inductance for better high-frequency response. The cores are grain-oriented highperme ability iron. New coupling capacitors of polypropylene were added.

EK: Given your vast music collection, is there a genre of music you listen to mostly and who are some of your favourite artists?

PS: Depending on my mood I listen to a wide range of music from classical, hard rock, jazz, and film scores to the Goon Shows. Favourite artists include Evgeny Kissin, Ivo Pogorelich, Emil Gilels, Julian Rachlin, Milos Karadaglic, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, the Beatles, Santana and Oscar Peterson. New artists worth exploring further are Tom Odell, Sawyer Fredericks, Matt Corby, Troye Sivan and Matt Baker the jazz pianist.

EK: What would be your ‘desert island’ music albums if you could only choose, say three items?

PS: I would also need a proper electricity supply, a music room and my carefully built-up system, otherwise to contemplate just the CD under the palm tree might get a little tedious. I would need four. Can I have the Philips Mozart Complete Edition as one item, followed by the DG Beethoven Edition, the BIS Masaaki Suzuki set of Bach Cantatas, and the Philips Bernard Haitink Symphony box set. If I can only have three CD cases (doubles) I would choose Gilels’ Brahms Piano Concertos, Kissin’s Beethoven Piano Concertos and Skrowaczewski’s Brahms Symphonies.

EK: In what way does music affect your life, your emotions and the way you feel?

PS: I need a quality music fix each day to keep mentally healthy. One of my greatest joys is sharing my passion with friends and introducing them to new music from my encyclopaedic knowledge base.

EK: How do you see the way we will consume music in the future?

PS: Sadly, as CDs are phased out, the commercial world will see a deterioration in quality as per the ‘loudness wars’ compression and downloaded music ‘always available and on the go’ via earbuds in low quality. Mid-quality ‘muzak’ is now piped throughout homes as constant background noise instead of sitting down and con- necting with an emotional experience. Sadly, many ‘hi-res’ downloads are either over-engineered or do not really live up to the claim, unless originally recorded in a high-resolution format. The dust will need to settle on the newly-touted formats before I jump in.

EK: Where would you like the music industry to go or to evolve to?

PS: All children (and adults) would learn an instrument and play music with their friends, singing around the piano, learning about the quality and nuances of sound and performance. This would increase their expectations of musical reproduction and lead to new commercial pressures to develop sonically outstanding products to increase everyone’s musical enjoyment.

Without careful measurements of the room/speaker interactions you are really flying blind (or deaf!)...