It was 2 weeks ago today, on the 4th of November, that I had the pleasure and privelage of spending an afternoon at Tony Ky Ma's house. I knew this was going to be a wonderful experience, and I had been lookin forward to it ever since Tony sent me the invitaution a few weeks prior. Since I am no longer comfortable driving one of the busiest highways on the continent, I asked my friend Margaret to join me. This worked out rather well for us both as she had planned on visiting her niece who lives not too far from Tony. It took us about an hour and a half to get there.
Tony greeted us at the door and after the introductions, some small talk and a cup of wonderful Green Tea, we proceeded downstairs to his music room and workshop. I had seen pictures before that Tony posted, but I was completely unprepared for what my eyes feasted on once I stood back and surveyed the equipment. The first thing I said was "Tony, did you build this all yourself?", to which he gleefully replied in the affirmative. Tony is a very quiet, soft-spoken person, and I think he lets his creations speak on his behalf. Up until that point in my 59 years on this earth I had not seen such ingenuity and passion devoted towards the endeavor of this hobby. I mean, who would think of taking used parts, completely unrelated to audio, and build amplifiers and preamps with them. Who uses a DD turntable to power a belt-drive TT with garment filament as a belt? I asked Tony how he was able to check on and regulate the RPM's and he took out his Clearaudio disc, cued it up and then used another component attached to the DD table to show how it was done. I tried really hard to understand it. I suppose I could go on, but I'm not knowledgeable enough (obviously) to explain what it all does, and how they relate to another in this puzzle. I asked Tony a dozen questions or more, and I wish I had had a tape recorder so I could do a better job of relaying his answers here, but alas this little post is all you're getting from me. Despite my lack of understanding, Tony was very glad to try and explain things to me as non-technical as possible and I so enjoyed our conversation. We finally decided that it was now time to listen to some vinyl and tape.
Tony has a very nice Clearaudio turntable and we played some classical and jazz that sounded tremendous through his array of speaker cabinets and separate driver components. His room is quite generous in size and the playback sounded very dynamic. I was a bit surprised by this as room treatment was minimal. I suspect though that Tony would have added more had he felt it needed to be addressed. After about a half hour my friend Margaret, who is not an audiophile at all, was really getting into the music and the quality of what she was hearing. Since women tend to have better hearing than us old guys, this came as a pleasant aside.
Next up was some R2R goodness, which is what I was really looking forward to. Tony took out a 7" reel of a Nat King Cole recording and played it back through what I seem to remember as being a Telefunken R2R. It sounded absolutely sublime. I thought the LP was slightly brighter and maybe a bit more open or spacious, but the R2R was completely noise-free and appeared to have greater detail. Since this was my first experience with high-quality R2R, please forgive my ineptitude at not being able to describe its sound properly. I can tell you that I was impressed enough to consider adding a R2R myself, should I be so fortunate. I was very, very impressed.
I took some pictures, but they are crappy. Not the fault of the camera function on my phone, but very much the user. I hope you enjoy them anyway.
Tony - On behalf of Margaret and myself I want to thank you for your hospitality and the patience you showed while trying to educate me. It was very enlightening and I am so pleased that we were finally able to meet face to face. Thank you my friend!
PS: I will post a separate thread on our visit with Ed and Ultra Analogue Recordings.
Tony greeted us at the door and after the introductions, some small talk and a cup of wonderful Green Tea, we proceeded downstairs to his music room and workshop. I had seen pictures before that Tony posted, but I was completely unprepared for what my eyes feasted on once I stood back and surveyed the equipment. The first thing I said was "Tony, did you build this all yourself?", to which he gleefully replied in the affirmative. Tony is a very quiet, soft-spoken person, and I think he lets his creations speak on his behalf. Up until that point in my 59 years on this earth I had not seen such ingenuity and passion devoted towards the endeavor of this hobby. I mean, who would think of taking used parts, completely unrelated to audio, and build amplifiers and preamps with them. Who uses a DD turntable to power a belt-drive TT with garment filament as a belt? I asked Tony how he was able to check on and regulate the RPM's and he took out his Clearaudio disc, cued it up and then used another component attached to the DD table to show how it was done. I tried really hard to understand it. I suppose I could go on, but I'm not knowledgeable enough (obviously) to explain what it all does, and how they relate to another in this puzzle. I asked Tony a dozen questions or more, and I wish I had had a tape recorder so I could do a better job of relaying his answers here, but alas this little post is all you're getting from me. Despite my lack of understanding, Tony was very glad to try and explain things to me as non-technical as possible and I so enjoyed our conversation. We finally decided that it was now time to listen to some vinyl and tape.
Tony has a very nice Clearaudio turntable and we played some classical and jazz that sounded tremendous through his array of speaker cabinets and separate driver components. His room is quite generous in size and the playback sounded very dynamic. I was a bit surprised by this as room treatment was minimal. I suspect though that Tony would have added more had he felt it needed to be addressed. After about a half hour my friend Margaret, who is not an audiophile at all, was really getting into the music and the quality of what she was hearing. Since women tend to have better hearing than us old guys, this came as a pleasant aside.
Next up was some R2R goodness, which is what I was really looking forward to. Tony took out a 7" reel of a Nat King Cole recording and played it back through what I seem to remember as being a Telefunken R2R. It sounded absolutely sublime. I thought the LP was slightly brighter and maybe a bit more open or spacious, but the R2R was completely noise-free and appeared to have greater detail. Since this was my first experience with high-quality R2R, please forgive my ineptitude at not being able to describe its sound properly. I can tell you that I was impressed enough to consider adding a R2R myself, should I be so fortunate. I was very, very impressed.
I took some pictures, but they are crappy. Not the fault of the camera function on my phone, but very much the user. I hope you enjoy them anyway.
Tony - On behalf of Margaret and myself I want to thank you for your hospitality and the patience you showed while trying to educate me. It was very enlightening and I am so pleased that we were finally able to meet face to face. Thank you my friend!
PS: I will post a separate thread on our visit with Ed and Ultra Analogue Recordings.
