By Juan C. Ayllon CHICAGOLAND, IL -- Life has been a whirlwind of professional and personal activity since Audio Expo North America (AXPONA) last month at the Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL with my wife last month. I feel that I am just now catching my breath, allowing me to process and post up a belated report in the days to come. One of the unexpected byproducts of attending this year’s AXPONA was my wife’s pronouncement that after seeing the sleek audio racks showcasing high end gear, we should get a clean new look and replace her beloved entertainment center that has resided in my listening and media room the last several years. After consulting friends and acquaintances and scouring the internet for viable options, we settled upon the Simpli Home Skylar 60 inch TV stand and a wall-mounted flat screen TV above. The center section of her entertainment center has moved upstairs to our living room, with the side shelving units moved to a hallway. Now, accessing and swapping out gear is so much easier! No more snaking cables behind the entertainment unit taped to poles or having to struggle fishing out interconnects or speaker cables that fall behind that wooden behemoth when moving gear. Hallelujah! I will be building a lightweight acoustic diffuser to place on the TV when engaging in listening sessions shortly. Oh, and there’s one more thing: I sold my beloved Von Schweikert VR-5 HSE speakers. After listening to a variety of cutting edge speaker technologies at AXPONA, I felt that it was time to upgrade. The catch is, I have not replaced them – yet. My plan is to review several speakers and eventually purchase a replacement pair. And so, for now, my listening room has no speakers whatsoever. It feels odd. Audiophile friends feel for me. “How can you go on without speakers?” they ask. My wife, who says I have an addiction, isn’t as concerned. I would tend to agree with her and, thus, choose to view the absence of speakers as a bit of a cleansing process – kind of like a fast, if you will. Of course, I don’t want it to go on too long, nor do I want to rush out and buy the first speakers play well in my space, either. Like a rebound relationship following a breakup, that could end badly! Their absence leads me to reflect. Looking back, I have heard a lot of speakers in and out of my living spaces through the years and have a pretty good idea of what I like and what I do not. Setting aside my late Father’s HeathKit system that he built when I was a child, as well as the countless stereos that college roommates shared, what follows are highlights from my experiences living with them. A Nose for Bose? Circa 1992, I was single in my early 30s, working part time and back in college fulltime to get my teaching credential. I had just arrived late to a summer party at the posh condominium of a friend, John, who owned a successful massage therapy practice in the wealthy community of Winnetka, IL. “I’m sorry, but I left a bottle of white zinfandel in the car,” I said, offering to run back down to get it. “You can leave it there,” John quipped, patting my shoulder with a smile (this was before I learned a great deal about wines waited tables at the now defunct Winnetka Grill in the summer of 1993 and Reza’s Restaurant on Ontario Ave. in Chicago when I student taught in 1994). He wore his success like his Polo shirt, Khaki pants and loafers – with a casual ease and a touch of pomp. “Try some of this instead,” he said, handing me a glass of red wine before heading into the kitchen to pour out the pasta he’d been boiling into a colander to serve al dente. “Make sure you swirl it like this to let it breathe,” he said, rotating the stem of his wineglass in small circles atop his table. “The way the rivulets of the wine forming tell you a lot about the quality,” he informed. At 31, I was living back at home with my parents to save money and, taking in his open plan bachelor pad with its hardwood floors, contemporary couch, loveseat, art prints and high top dining table and chair set with colorful ceramic plates and pristine silverware (Pier One, perhaps?), I was envious. And set against a wall was his stereo system – a multi-CD changer and a receiver flanked by a pair of black Bose 301 speakers sitting atop custom-built wooden display pedestals roughly three feet above the floor. “I am thinking of filling the pedestals with sand,” he said, adding that friends had done so and noticed improved sound. I wanted so much to be like him that it wasn’t long before I purchased a pair of Bose 301 speakers that I combined with a Pioneer receiver to round out my system. They played clear and loud and created a nice backdrop while listening to jazz and consuming hummus and a cheap bottle of Glunz merlot with a buddy in my parent’s basement or, alternatively sitting atop white plastic lawn chairs in the screen enclosed patio of my parent’s house when I had friends over in the summer of 1993. They got me through late nights grading papers and planning while student teaching at Whitney Young Magnet School in Chicago in the fall of 1994 – that is, when I wasn’t listening to jazz after 8:00 PM on WBEZ, an NPR affiliate, via my Realistic Boom box. However, after a half dozen visits to a downtown ivy-covered audiophile shop, Pro Musica, I was ready for something better. Bi-Polar to Go After I landed my first teaching job in the spring of 1995, I saved and purchased a pair of gorgeous, demo Paradigm Esprit bipolar tower speakers to celebrate. Standing roughly four feet tall, they were wrapped in a black sock and capped with a piano lacquer finished top. I bought an entry level Arcam CD player to go with it, Radio Shack wiring and the Pioneer receiver, using them to great effect at a winetasting party I threw together for some 50 people in a row house I rented with two roommates. Theirs was a nicely detailed and balanced presentation for the money and, along with a harp player friend’s performance to cap the evening, made for a party that even impressed my friend, John, who enjoyed cigars with several of us outback afterwards. She Gets the Ring, I Get the Stereo The following fall, I was living in a lovely apartment with an engineer in Evanston two blocks from Lake Michigan. Life was grand. Then, I met a divorcee at the outdoor music venue, Ravinia Festival and went temporarily insane. Infatuated, I eloped with her at the county courthouse four months later. Taking out a loan for a diamond wedding ring, I ended up having roughly a thousand dollars left over when I got an unexpectedly great deal with a wholesaler in Diamond Row in Chicago. So, of course, I used the extra cash to upgrade my stereo, buying an Adcom preamplifier and Amp to replace the Pioneer receiver. Several months later while having dinner with my parents and my new bride at the Winnetka Grill, my father surprised me with news that I had some inheritance money that I could use for the purchase of my first house. We bought a four bedroom house in the northern suburbs of Chicago. The marriage didn’t last. One afternoon after teaching summer school, I walked into a half empty home and a note on my kitchen table. It felt like I was handed a blindfold and a cigarette. As I sat shocked on my futon couch, I realized my stereo remained. At least she didn’t take that, I thought. I had issues I did not even know about – as did she. We’d rushed in and made a mistake and after hosting a couple soirees there, including having a high school jazz quartet playing in my dining room during a raging blizzard, the house was sold. I downsized to a two bedroom bungalow in a nearby community. Quads for My Quibbles One Saturday morning, I had coffee in Evanston with Craig, a friend and audiophile I’d met at a relationship recovery group. He owned a pair of Quad 57 electrostatic speakers and spying them in an ad in The Chicago Reader, he said, “You should buy these!” I had heard his and was amazed at the unadulterated purity of the midrange and a magical quality of notes hanging in the air, so several days later, I traveled up to the visit its owner, who lived on the 17th floor of a skyscraper in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago, heard and purchased them. The Paradigms were sold, as were the Adcom components shortly, to be replaced by a Quad integrated amplifier and, shortly after that, a Naim integrated amplifier I discovered at Pro Musica. I gave the Arcam CD player to Craig, replacing it with a used Naim CD-1 player. As with Craig’s Quads, I found the midrange to be spectacular. In fact, I have never heard better; I closed my eyes during the viewing of a drama movie and felt the goosebumps as Denzel Washington quite literally sounded like he was in the room talking with me. It was that real. I purchased a pair of Duntech IB-20 subwoofers to fill out the lower end and was enthralled with the result. However, because a suppressor device was installed to protect the Mylar membrane from arcing on the stators should they be driven too hard, the upper frequency range was muddied and slightly muffled. My dissatisfaction grew with time. If I remove the suppressor, I would have that magical higher treble range covered, but would risk having to replace the costly Mylar membrane if I overdrove them. I was in a quandary, as I loved to push the volume hard at times, but didn’t want to lose money with inevitable repairs. Sadly, I sold them. I sold the integrated amplifier shortly afterwards as well. Bag It with Bag End Since before my divorce, I had been running a mobile DJ service, Amplified Arts, on the side and, as part of my setup, I used a pair of Bag End TA-15C speakers that I drove with a Crown PB-3 Power Base amplifier. Linked up to my TV, it made for extraordinary home theater sound that, when playing movies like Saving Private Ryan at high volume, for example, could make it sound like a German King Tiger Tank was driving through and live mortar shells were blowing up in my living room. This became my go-to hi-fi setup for several years. I was playing a lot of weddings and private parties on weekends and the prospects of unpacking and hooking up the very heavy and ungainly speakers and amp into my home system after every gig became wearisome. And as balanced, detailed and full-bodied as the Bag Ends played atop their stands in ballrooms, I noticed that sitting on my living room floor, they rendered voices that often sounded slightly boxy, muffled and artificial. They traveled with me to my next residence, a lake house I purchased from my mother that she’d bought after divorcing my father. Five years later, she wanted to move closer to the grandchildren. But before the move, I purchased something more suited for home playing. Blammo on the Jamo and Bring on the B&Ws I spotted a lovely pair of bookshelf speakers at the now gone shop, Audio Consultants in Libertyville, IL. I want to say they were Jamo speakers. They were heavily braced and resistant to vibration, being made of steel, the salesman told me, and they also had this cool glass window in back where you could view their pristine crossovers. I brought them home but, as pretty as they were, I couldn’t stand them; they were too harsh in the highs and gave me listener fatigue inside half an hour. The next day, I returned them and purchased a pair of B&W 602 bookshelf speakers that combined with the Duntech subs I had left over from the Quad days made for a pleasing and more relaxed soundstage. Headstands for Floor Standers My DJ side business continued to flourish, especially during the summer months when wedding season was in full swing. And while my B&W 602 speakers had a pleasant presentation, they were not spectacular. I longed for a pair of good tower speakers and after an especially lucrative, five hour-long wedding, I pulled the trigger on a pair of Martin Logan Sequel speakers that I’d spied at the Audio Consultants store in Libertyville. Slender and standing roughly six feet tall, they were imposing and attractive. About 12 inches wide, the upper two thirds of their structure consisted of a curved, transparent electrostatic panel sandwiched between black, perforated metal with holes similar to a cheese grater, thin wooden blonde oak beams to either side that, unlike the Quads, was in no risk of arcing, while the bottom portion was a black, box-like structure with a good sized powered woofer. While the midrange was not as lifelike as that produced by the Quads, it was nevertheless shimmery, extremely clear and dynamic, capturing a good slice of the magical quality I’d heard before with the 57’s and blending well with the highs and the lower end that acted like subwoofers. What’s more, I could play them plenty loud. The woofer integrated well with the electrostatic panels and made my living room come alive again. A Realtor in Speaker’s Clothing I had been a perennial bachelor, dating off and on with no relationship lasting more than several months. However, in February 2010, I began dating Belle, a beautiful divorced mother of three from Belfast whom I’d met at church. Since I spent most evenings at her house, several months into our relationship, I decided to setup my stereo in her living room. She and her teen children were astounded at the full, detailed and lifelike sound enveloping their abode. Even though they lived in a 4,500 square foot home in the wealthy north shore community of Riverwood, they only had a simple Bose Acoustimass system with two tweeter cubes, a receiver and subwoofer complementing Belle’s entertainment center (her ex was a wealthy doctor). It was like comparing a Shelby Mustang with a Smartfortwo Passion Cabriolet. Music, movies, streaming radio all sounded much, much better. We got engaged that following August, put our homes on the market and sold both of them by springtime, allowing us to get married on July 23rd with a new home. Looking back, Belle often said that she was convinced that the sleek Martin Logan Sequel speakers helped sell her home. Who was I to argue? By Special reQuest We had been married little over a year when Belle asked me to give up my mobile DJ business. She did not want me staying out late on weekends away from here. I agreed, so I began selling off my equipment. Right about then, I got the itch to upgrade again using the proceeds from the sell-off. I spotted a pair of larger Martin Logan electrostatic speakers, the reQuest in the showroom at Audio Consultants. Wow. They were bigger, wider and more powerful looking. With Belle’s okay, I put down some money. Several weeks had passed when my stepdaughter asked me to show her the speakers. When I arrived, they were no longer on the main floor. I inquired what had happened and, after a little hesitation, the manager informed me that Belle had paid them off. They were mine when I was ready to take them home! To say that the reQuests presented a broader and deeper soundstage than the Sequels would be an understatement. I was enthralled. Movies, jazz, rock, blues, Gospel, reggae – it all sounded better, fuller and weightier – especially when I added a vintage Mark Levinson ML-9 amplifier to the mix. Von Schwinged We were getting into the swing of things as a married couple a couple years later when we decided to put in hardwood floors ourselves. My brother lent me a compressor and assorted tools, showed me how to put down boards and helped me at times in installing the flooring. It was quite an undertaking, but ultimately, we were successful. I had recently attended and reported my first audio show, AXPONA 2014 and was beginning to sense that the reQuests, as balanced and powerful as they were, lacked a certain lifelike quality in the midrange that I wanted and, what’s more, Belle no longer wanted them to dominate our living room. When I spotted a used pair of Von Schweikert VR-5 HSE speakers listed for sale on Audiogon by a dealer, I mentioned this to a business acquaintance I’d met at AXPONA. He said, “Run, don’t walk, to get them!” I drove up to Ann Arbor, MI with my mother, bought and returned home with them in her Subaru hatchback. It took about nine hours, but was well worth the drive. Standing 42 inches tall and sheathed in a lovely maple veneer, they looked like furniture (my mom, who is not an audiophile, said that she wanted the speakers!). And the midrange was excellent and lifelike. Voices sounded especially natural. Acoustic and electric instruments were true to life. Granted, the bass was understated, but with the purchase of a Hsu Research ULS-15 Mk2 subwoofer, that was not an issue. I had sonic bliss once again. Combined with the upgrades in cabling and supporting components, my system was singing brilliantly! Looking Ahead Fast forward to the present: my wife and I sold our first house together in order to move into a ranch home that might suit us better as we grow older. Last year, I had the opportunity to listen to a world class set of horn loudspeakers in my living room for four months. They were breath-taking, vivid, nuanced and incredibly dynamic – and beyond my means. Now as I enter the twilight of my audio consumerism years, I am looking to see what other sounds, I can experience, review and – perhaps – purchase. Here’s to the adventure!
3 Comments
5/19/2018 06:35:10 pm
Juan, what a great story and what an audio adventure. I really enjoyed your journey into being an audiophile. Great read...
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Dan Starr
5/22/2018 11:41:02 am
Juan, I enjoyed reading of your audio travels, and have begun trying to do a timeline of the gear I’ve owned. But, I’ll never remember all the wire and interconnects!!
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5/22/2018 12:18:23 pm
Thanks, Ken and Dan! It's always good to hear from you, Ken, and I appreciate that and can relate to what you're saying, Dan, about spending tapering off in retirement. My spending is already fairly limited and, once I retire, I'll no doubt be doing as you are. Do let me know how your chronology goes.
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