Issue 13

AUGUST 15TH 2016

As is probably clear by now wersquove decided to shake things up a bit Our new format is designed tobe more readable and more manageable It will also allow readers to post comments directly afterarticlesand wersquoll see how that goes Kindly recall that ldquoyou suckrdquo doesnrsquot contribute to stimulating productive discourseand I will be watching

Wersquore pleased to present the first part of an incredible piece by Jason Victor Serinus Opera 101for those of us whose exposure to opera has never gotten beyond the thundersheets of the DeccaRing cycle I shamefacedly admit to being part of that group which is why we asked Jason to writefor us

Jasonrsquos knowledge of opera is matched by his enthusiasm and I hope that after you watch and listento the numerous clips hersquos selected yoursquoll share some of that enthusiasm Opera is a fascinating andoften beautiful medium and doesnrsquot have to be intimidating

Something else new in this issue a contest Read The Audio Cynic---ALL of it not just the lastparagraph---and send us your idea of something that is unquestionably uniquely NEW in audio Thewinner will receive a PS Audio LANRover US MSRP $599 Entries will be judged by PaulMcGowan and me all decisions are final so shut your piehole if you donrsquot mention this thing on yourtax return itrsquos on you not us operators are NOT waiting on your call and yadda yadda

Send your suggestions to Letters

Below yoursquoll see a picture taken during my recent trip to San Francisco because to me itexemplifies this issue a bridge from the past to the future I hope yoursquoll stay with us as Coppercontinues to grow and improve

FlutesTOO MUCH TCHAIKOVSKY

Written by Lawrence Schenbeck

Itrsquos not that complicated

Lauren Bacall said it best in To Have and Have Not ldquoYou know how to whistle donrsquot you SteveYou just put your lips together and blowrdquo

Which may be why the flute is the oldest musical instrument known to humanity Flutes going back40000 years or so have been unearthed in Germany They were carved from smallish animal boneshollowed out and given fingerholes Players simply blew across an opening at either end of the boneSuch ldquoedge-blown aerophonesrdquo common to many cultures evolved in two varieties side-blown ortransverse (like the Western concert flute but also the Chinese dizi and Indian bansuri) and end-blown (like the Arabic ney and Japanese shakuhachi) Donrsquot confuse end-blown flutes with fippleflutes like the recorder and pennywhistle They are constructed from tubes plugged at one endexcept for a hole you blow into That fipple directs your breath across a built edge making it hardernot to produce an acceptable sound You still have to put your lips together but only to cover thefipple hole

Why have flutes survived all these years

For one thing theyrsquore easy to play Whatrsquos more they sound simple My beloved CU orchestralmaster Abe Chavez once told me regarding a flutist we both knew ldquoLarry shersquos just like herinstrument no overtonesrdquo (I took his words to heart)

Flutes have limited dynamic range Their low notes donrsquot project well although really high flutenotes can drown out everyone else on stage What flutes do have is that pure folk-like sound plusjaw-dropping facility in rapid passagework A good flutist can tear through a whole bunch of notesfaster and cleaner than any trumpet trombone bassoon or marimba Listen to recorder-playerextraordinaire Kathryn Montoya ripping up some ldquodivisionsrdquo on John Come Kiss Me Now

(Ensemble Galilei From Whence We Came Sono Luminus DSL 92194)

You can do a lot with a flute No sound better sums up a shepherdrsquos idle afternoon a deep foresthidden in shadow or fairies flitting through a Shakespeare comedy A few Romantic and Moderncomposers have expanded their horizons further Listen to the pastoral yet somehow eery effectthat four flutesmdashfourmdashcan produce in Mahlerrsquos Fourth

That sort of creative scoring was more the exception than the rule in the 19th and early 20thcenturies The Romantic era ever more dedicated to heroic singular gestures pretty much sidelinedthe flute as a virtuoso solo instrument turning instead to violins and pianos which offered widerpitch and dynamic ranges also more impressive timbral flexibility

But flutists are a hardy bunch They keep playing keep improving flute technology and techniquekeep pestering composers to write them something Nowadays we are awash in excellent recordingsof the flute repertoire In fact thanks to a rare alignment of the starsmdashBIS Recordsrsquo foundingproducer Robert von Bahr and the very talented Sharon Bezalymdashyou can more or less one-stopshop right here (If you want downloads yoursquoll be directed to von Bahrrsquos worthy eclassicalcomSo two stops)

Bezalyrsquos dominance of the high-res flute landscape would be scandalous if she werenrsquot so goodSeriously if The Times (UK) called you ldquoGodrsquos gift to the fluterdquo wouldnrsquot you include that in yourbio In her case its not hyperbole

Bezalyrsquos most recent release (BIS-1849) consists entirely of two concertos one of which is atranscription of the Khachaturian Violin Concerto Your response to that will depend pretty much onwhether you like the original and many people do I found the other work Einojuhani RautavaararsquosFlute Concerto Op 69 ldquoDances with the Windsrdquo more engaging Bezaly gives us two versionswhich is one version more than most music lovers will need (Apparently flutists asked Rautavaara toprovide a three-flute version instead of his original four-flute scoring so he did) Theyrsquore virtuallyidentical And no three flutists are not needed Just one Bezaly

If yoursquore only getting started with flute literature it might be better to go with Great Works for Fluteand Orchestra (BIS-1679) It includes three main courses an orchestrated version of PoulencrsquosSonata for Flute and Piano plus concertos by Carl Reinecke and Carl Nielsen Like his ClarinetConcerto Nielsenrsquos 1926 Flute Concerto is a central work of the 20th-century solo repertoireNielsen dramatizes the proceedings by setting the ldquopastoral moodsrdquo and ldquomild characterrdquo of theflute against cruder more aggressive actions by other instruments Itrsquos very effective Bezaly staysin character but her energy and alertness make it clear that this particular forest sprite is nopushover

Also in the album Ceacutecile Chaminadersquos lovely Concertino (1902) Trust me if yoursquove ever hungaround flutists yoursquove heard this one Itrsquos a student exam piece commissioned by the ParisConservatoirersquos great flute teacher Paul Taffanel Chaminade incidentally was one of the fewwomen in her time fully respected as a composer

My other favorite work here is the Poulenc Sonata We can thank James Galway for the orchestratedaccompaniment he asked composer Lennox Berkeley who knew Poulenc well to try his hand at re-scoring the ldquoentirely pianisticrdquo original piano part Berkeleyrsquos restless imagination led him tosolutions that sound in no way keyboard-ish Best of all Poulencrsquos wit and melodic gifts surviveclothed now in gorgeous new colors

Interested in the original Get Champs Hill Recordsrsquo recent Francis Poulenc Complete ChamberWorks which includes an exquisite rendition of the Flute Sonata by Daniel Pailthorpe Co-PrincipalFlute of the BBC SO

Ready to go further I like Bezalyrsquos 2006 Bridge Across the Pyrenees (BIS-SACD-1559) with musicby Joaquiacuten Rodrigo Jacques Ibert and Franccedilois Borne accompanied by conductor John Neschlingand the Satildeo Paulo SO Further still Try Nordic Spell (BIS-1499) concertos by three Scandinaviancomposers or Bezalyrsquos all-Mozart album (BIS-1539) It is entirely possible that Mozart was notfond of the flute but you wouldnt know that from hearing whats on this album

The Mystery Of The MakingMUSIC AUDIO AND OTHER ILLNESSES

Written by Dan Schwartz

I never think about how mysterious the process of contemporary record making is or was to thepeople who buy those records Which when you think about it is really naiumlve --- since I devourstories about the making of records I love like a good meal

In the early days of recording with Bill Bottrell his studio Toad Hall was new and we experimentedwith the spaces There are some outtakes from the early weeks of Triage (David Baerwaldrsquos bleakand angry rant about America in the era of grunge was released in 1992 and seems startlinglyprescient today--Ed) that were recorded with the band in the large room and the board the controldesk in the little room Other than the acoustic treatments thatrsquos the traditional set-up By later inthe album the situation was reversed and thatrsquos pretty much the way it stayed Even when Irecorded Indian music in there the larger room was still used as the control room

Toad Hall was initially a bank in the very early part of the 20th century It was part of 3 reasonablyidentical spaces Bill leased two of them and started what modifications there were I first saw it Isuppose early in the spring of 1991 It was still just coming together My sometimes-roommateGeorge Newburn was the acoustic consultant --- he took me out there with an instinct that Bill and Iwould get along I was surprised to see my good friend Robert Newman (who had been the Motelsfirst drummer and whom I met when we played in Terry Reidrsquos band) was way up on a scaffold doinga faux-finish to a concrete beam painting it to look like wood I remember my visit there thatMadonna had just been in (and that George was mildly and humorously obsessed with the lipstick

stains on her Styrofoam coffee cup) I vaguely recall that Bill and I talked about Neil Young andwere more-or-less in agreement that he was all that was left

Meantime Baerwald was calling constantly talking politics usually late at night and I finallyencouraged him to put down on paper what he was talking about The next morning my phone rangat 6 AM he said ldquoIrsquove got your left-wing rant writtenrdquo and he read me ldquoThe Got-No-ShotgunHydrahead Octopus Bluesrdquo

A couple months later two things happened Baerwald was really leaning on me to produce hisalbum and George told me that he had found out that Bill was producing Michael Jackson Well Irsquomno dummy --- I knew AampM Records werenrsquot going to trust me with $300000 and I knew theyWOULD trust Bill if he was producing Michael So I called him and very soon after he Baerwaldand I were having drinks in Pasadena (OK they were drinking)

The next night we all got together with Brian MacLeod and Gregg Arreguin and did our firstrecording Then Bill was busy recording Michael and Baerwald and I did a little development Whenwe reconvened in Toad Hall we did a couple days with Kavi Alexanderrsquos mics and drummer DavidBeebe and then a few weeks with David Kemper on drums and pianist Nicky Hopkins for a day Andwhen we finally started the album in earnest about 4 months after our initial recording the cast hadsettled Billrsquos tenant Kevin Gilbert MacLeod and Arreguin--- and the studio was reversed the bigroom was now the control room and the small room had become the drum room There might havebeen a handful of studios set up that way or Bill may have been the first I visited Mark Howard atTeatro Dan Lanoisrsquo place in Oxnard 15 years ago and by then they were set-up that way

It was extremely dead sounding in the drum room no reflections and so the prevailing ambiancebecame dead drums live everything else The only real treatments in the live room consisted ofacoustic fiberglass behind half-a-dozen long drapes and a bass trap above a floor-to-almost-ceilingbookshelf in the back of the room The console was a mid-70s Neve and the tape machine a StuderA800

But the real innovation came in the form of the collective musiciansrsquo monitoring the headphonesystem For one thing it was powerful a 400-watt-per-side Bryston amp But mainly it didnrsquot allowfor what came to be called a ldquoMore Merdquo control --- it was 2 channels a stereo send and that was itWe all heard the same thing if I wanted more me everybody got more me (That encouraged us tobe pretty circumspect when asking for more of ourselves) I canrsquot adequately describe what this didfor us --- in all my years of playing this was the first time that I had an experience of playing arecord AS I was making the record

Maybe I should explain myself in working up that point I had been used to using headphonesystems that separated rather than unified the players Everybody had a feed usually one of 3 or 4headphone sends --- or sub-mixes --- from the recording desk Thatrsquos what everybody had and it onlygot worse with years finally enabling us to literally create our own mix On a 2006 session with JimKeltner and a half-dozen other players Jim took off his phones and whispered to me ldquoWhat are youlistening tordquo Surreptitiously we collaborated in hearing the same things

This is probably among the many innovations that came with multi-track recording that led us downthe garden path and away from really making MUSIC My pal Terry Manning usually recorded withno headphones at all Itrsquos hard to imagine as gloriously ldquoprimitiverdquo as the REDD desks were thatthe Beatles had multiple headphone signals

In later years I found myself so reliant on Billrsquos system that even when we used a different studiowhen he really didnrsquot want to engineer I would sometimes needle him until we had a reasonable

facsimile of his great set-up if he hadnrsquot done it yet He once referred to his headphone system ashis real innovation

Finally there were usually enough open mics a Neumann U47 with a very wide field of pickup anda couple Neumann KM-54 or Schoeps small-diaphragm tube mics to give us all a sense of being inthe room --- even through standard-issue AKG 240s

As the record went on things became more and more tense between David and I culminating in usarguing in the ldquodrum roomrdquo away from prying mics in which he said that I ldquotook the lid off hisangerrdquo by encouraging him to write about what he was always talking about I replied that I didnrsquothave to believe him to believe it was right for him to say what the album was saying

Of course after 25 years itrsquos obvious that everything that he and we said on that album was utterlytrue

Next issue thoughts on Triage

Diving into Opera and Surfacing with Joy(Part I)

MY TURN

Written by Jason Victor Serinus

Perhaps I am one of those increasingly rare birds who never had to learn to love opera When I wasall of 11 my father brought home a deluxe faux leather-bound 3-LP RCA Victor tribute album to theiconic Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) When he lowered the ridiculously heavy arm of ourGarrard turntable onto the deeply moving sextet from Donizettirsquos opera Lucia di Lammermoor andCaruso Galli-Curci et al began to sing I exclaimed over the six voices projected by our Bozakloudspeakers ldquoDaddy Irsquove heard that beforerdquo

ldquoYeah you broke it when you were 2rdquo was my fatherrsquos reply

From that day forth I spent many an afternoon playing those three Caruso LPs over and over Verilyopera and specifically the acoustic recordings of Caruso Galli-Curci and Tetrazzini singing 19th andearly 20th century opera of the suffering Italian sort was in my blood from the time I was weaned AsI became a teenager I may have spiced my listening with Elvis Presley the Everly Brothers BuddyHolly Little Richard and finally Donovan but I always returned to Caruso

Nor was I alone in my love of Caruso My father who was born and raised on Broome Street on NewYork Cityrsquos Lower East Side told me that the day Caruso died people all over his immigrantneighborhood in both the Jewish and Italian ghettos brought their wind-up phonographs to their

Diving into Opera and Surfacing with Joy(Part I)

MY TURN

Written by Jason Victor Serinus

Perhaps I am one of those increasingly rare birds who never had to learn to love opera When I wasall of 11 my father brought home a deluxe faux leather-bound 3-LP RCA Victor tribute album to theiconic Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) When he lowered the ridiculously heavy arm of ourGarrard turntable onto the deeply moving sextet from Donizettirsquos opera Lucia di Lammermoor andCaruso Galli-Curci et al began to sing I exclaimed over the six voices projected by our Bozakloudspeakers ldquoDaddy Irsquove heard that beforerdquo

ldquoYeah you broke it when you were 2rdquo was my fatherrsquos reply

From that day forth I spent many an afternoon playing those three Caruso LPs over and over Verilyopera and specifically the acoustic recordings of Caruso Galli-Curci and Tetrazzini singing 19th andearly 20th century opera of the suffering Italian sort was in my blood from the time I was weaned AsI became a teenager I may have spiced my listening with Elvis Presley the Everly Brothers BuddyHolly Little Richard and finally Donovan but I always returned to Caruso

Nor was I alone in my love of Caruso My father who was born and raised on Broome Street on NewYork Cityrsquos Lower East Side told me that the day Caruso died people all over his immigrantneighborhood in both the Jewish and Italian ghettos brought their wind-up phonographs to their

windows and played Caruso records for hours on end Everywhere you went all you could hear wasthe sound of Caruso singing his heart out

My father also told me that when Caruso sang at the Met (New Yorkrsquos Metropolitan Opera) he oftentended to look up toward the people in the balconies All the lower income immigrant standees atthe backs of the upper tiers felt that Caruso was singing not to the rich patrons in the orchestra andboxes below but rather to them They loved him all the more for it and considered him one of theirown In my own way I did too

But that was a century ago For Americans raised on rock lsquon roll country pop hip-hop and the likethe postures vocal production and overall conceit of opera may seem strange Indeed the carefullytrained voices of opera singers are miles apart from the straight tones of pop and jazz artists

But if operatic vocal production and convention may seem strange to some imagine how someonefrom another culture might feel upon discovering for the first time a rock guitarist gyrating likecrazy and making all kinds of mean faces while strumming and plucking strings and occasionallyturning a knob or pushing a pedal Heavy metal hip-hop and the like all have their own performingconventions that are no more natural than high sopranos projecting high E-flats throughout thehouse I dont want to make a big case out of this but in what way are some of the accents thatwersquove come to take for granted from pop singers any more ldquounnaturalrdquo than the carefully enunciatedtakes on language common to operatic vocalism

Perhaps itrsquos unrealistic to expect that most younger readers or those who do not come frombackgrounds steeped in classical music will immediately take to opera It is after all seen by manyAmericans ndash the audience Irsquom writing for ndash as a ldquoforeignrdquo art form in which people in sometimesridiculous costumes pretend to be kings and queens heroes and heroines or various permutationsof maidens in distress and the saviors thereof It is also true that singers sometimes awkwardly moveabout the stage flailing their arms and braying like overstuffed bulls on their way to theslaughterhouse So many of the plots are antiquated and far too many scenarios ridiculous

Then again such a stereotypical description of opera is wildly outdated A large number of modernproductions of older operas attempt to update the scenarios in some way often by transporting thesetting to the 20th and even 21st century They also tend to favor singers who can act as well as theysing and look convincing in their roles Sometimes those updates work and sometimes theyrsquoreunconvincing or preposterous Nonetheless it sure makes things juicy when a woman whom a 19th

century opera originally consigned to live out her days in a convent instead sings her final aria(song) while turning tricks on a street corner amidst a smattering of empty syringes

Cultural Relevance

Another prevalent misunderstanding is that all operas are either in Italian German FrenchRussian Spanish or some other ldquoforeignrdquo language and address the events of earlier periods Wenow have a large catalogue of contemporary operas in English (and other languages) many of whichdirectly speak to the most pressing issues of our time

Thanks to recent revivals that have restored music and dialogue that was previously cut theGershwinsrsquo Porgy and Bess (1934)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=2hDtUNSrhqI

is now accepted as one of the first great American operas to deal with quintessentially Americansubjects Two decades later Carlisle Floydrsquos Susannah

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=hl_Hs4PNT-c

Susannah (1955) addressed stultifying intolerance (Benjamin Britten broached the same subject inBritain with Peter Grimes (1945))

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=WCU6kT2_bRs

Gian-Carlo Menottirsquos opera The Consul (1955)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=r3vCyCfL5Yk

addresses issues that arise when would-be immigrants trying to flee oppressive regimes and run intobureaucratic red tape

Closer to the present day Americarsquos John Adams is especially known for his politically-themedoperas among which are Nixon in China (1987)

httpsyoutubeDXXmjR0aCug

The Death of Kinghoffer (1991)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=FtnXSra0ZYQ

and Doctor Atomic (2005)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=CNP9Ayq-6qA

Other topical English-language operas include Anthony Davisrsquo The Life and Times of Malcolm X(1986)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=JY-MniKGHtQ

Mark-Anthony Turnagersquos Anna Nicole (2011)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=fPxEDoQzYE8

which follows the comic-tragic rise and fall of model Anna Nicole Smith and an opera that firstmade it to New York City this spring Daniel Schnyderrsquos Charlie Parkerrsquos Yardbird [see this articleand this one as well]

Jake Heggie who has become one of Americarsquos most successful opera composers first made hismark with Dead Man Walking

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=Uw2i8_Ie8d8amplist=PL6D2B53A19A4AD531

The opera which by some accounts is the most frequently performed American opera todayaddresses the death penalty in the most heart-wrenching compassion-inspiring manner imaginableAudiences are generally reduced to tears at good performances of the work Another of Heggiersquoslarge scale operas Moby-Dick (2010) was a huge success I was so moved at its San FranciscoOpera premiere that I attended a second time during the run and remain convinced of the operarsquosgreatness

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=Z9CmZ531N1s

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=hl_Hs4PNT-c

Susannah (1955) addressed stultifying intolerance (Benjamin Britten broached the same subject inBritain with Peter Grimes (1945))

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=WCU6kT2_bRs

Gian-Carlo Menottirsquos opera The Consul (1955)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=r3vCyCfL5Yk

addresses issues that arise when would-be immigrants trying to flee oppressive regimes and run intobureaucratic red tape

Closer to the present day Americarsquos John Adams is especially known for his politically-themedoperas among which are Nixon in China (1987)

httpsyoutubeDXXmjR0aCug

The Death of Kinghoffer (1991)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=FtnXSra0ZYQ

and Doctor Atomic (2005)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=CNP9Ayq-6qA

Other topical English-language operas include Anthony Davisrsquo The Life and Times of Malcolm X(1986)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=JY-MniKGHtQ

Mark-Anthony Turnagersquos Anna Nicole (2011)

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=fPxEDoQzYE8

which follows the comic-tragic rise and fall of model Anna Nicole Smith and an opera that firstmade it to New York City this spring Daniel Schnyderrsquos Charlie Parkerrsquos Yardbird [see this articleand this one as well]

Jake Heggie who has become one of Americarsquos most successful opera composers first made hismark with Dead Man Walking

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=Uw2i8_Ie8d8amplist=PL6D2B53A19A4AD531

The opera which by some accounts is the most frequently performed American opera todayaddresses the death penalty in the most heart-wrenching compassion-inspiring manner imaginableAudiences are generally reduced to tears at good performances of the work Another of Heggiersquoslarge scale operas Moby-Dick (2010) was a huge success I was so moved at its San FranciscoOpera premiere that I attended a second time during the run and remain convinced of the operarsquosgreatness

httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=Z9CmZ531N1s

In the past three months Irsquove reviewed two new politically relevant operas by Americans both ofwhich lend themselves to fairly intimate chamber settings the two-act version of Jake Heggiersquos Outof Darkness (2016) which deals with the Holocaust ndash its second act specifically addresses the Nazioppression of homosexuals ndash and Gregory Spearsrsquo Fellow Travelers (2015) which addresses theLavender Scare of the McCarthy Era in which untold thousands of homosexuals discovered theirgovernmental careers and lives wrecked by McCarthyrsquos anti-gay witch hunt

What is Opera

But perhaps I get ahead of myself Letrsquos take a giant step backwards and do a little Opera 101

Opera is an art form that melds both sung and instrumental music with text (libretto) in a mannerthat is hopefully both dramatic and theatrically compelling Merriam-Webster calls it ldquoa drama set tomusic and made up of vocal pieces with orchestral accompaniment and orchestral overtures andinterludesrdquo The Cambridge Dictionary in turn calls it ldquoa formal play in which all or most of thewords are sung or this type of play generallyrdquo

The definition of opera gets really dicey when you try to distinguish opera from musical theater ofthe American sort Itrsquos equally challenging to differentiate European and American operetta (lightopera) from full-fledged operas that include spoken as well as sung dialogue (recitative) WhenBizetrsquos ever-popular opera Carmen is performed complete it includes spoken dialogue Ditto forMozartrsquos Die Zauberfloumlte (The Magic Flute)

The choice of venue also figures strongly in categorization George and Ira Gershwinrsquos Porgy andBess for example is considered musical theater in some circles because it premiered on Broadwayrather than in an opera house But when you take into consideration that it had no choice but topremiere on Broadway because its all-Black cast (then called ldquoall-Negro castrdquo) was not allowed toperform in an opera house and then examine its overall structure in unabridged form its identity asan opera becomes clearer Is Stephen Sondheimrsquos Sweeney Todd musical theater or is it in fact anopera that got its start in a musical theater context

Grooving on Opera

Appreciating opera takes some effort While itrsquos certainly possible to play excerpts of melodic 18th

and 19th century arias in the background and be touched by their beauty listening to a completeopera requires far more concentration Especially if the opera is in a language you do notunderstand and the libretto (story) is well thought out and complex it can be extremely challengingto figure out why people are either singing their hearts out or laughing it up without following thelibretto in print or as projected in live performance and video As for the longer operas of RichardWagner or operas that are not strictly tonal listening without following the words closely is moreoften than not an invitation to frustration if not to outright futility and abandonment

Even before I attended opera my appreciation for opera and art song grew exponentially as I beganto listen to and acquire multiple recordings of the same arias I encountered on that seminal Carusoreissue album For the first time I discovered that the accompaniment matters In fact in somecases eg Wagner and Strauss the orchestral accompaniment is as or even more crucial to themusical message as the vocal line

I also discovered through listening to recordings and attending live performance that peopleperformed the same arias very differently Not only were their voices different but they also sang atdifferent tempos and made different interpretive choices as to what words and notes they wouldemphasize when to linger or speed up etc Some of these choices of course were dictated by

conductors or technical limitations including the length of a 78 record and union rules aboutovertime But just as many were determined by the individual temperaments of the singers

What finally opened opera and art song wide for me was discovering how each voice resonateddifferently within my being Some singers made beautiful sounds but left me emotionally uninvolvedOthers including singers who were technically imperfect touched me so deeply that I went to sleepwith their voices in my head and heard them when I awoke

For years ndash decades in fact ndash I spent hour after hour comparing voices and interpretations on myown It was only in 1999 when I was first offered the opportunity to write a CD review that Irealized that I had spent a decent part of my teenage and adult years developing my critical listeningskills by comparing recodings

Certainly it is not necessary to do what I did in order to love opera Indeed many people who haveseason subscriptions to opera companies and have been attending opera for decades have neverspent time comparing interpretations They are content with letting the beauty of the music washover them

For people with a taste for discovery and adventure however listening to the same classic Italianaria performed by sopranos Emmy Destinn Rosa Ponselle Claudio Muzio Maria Callas RenataTebaldi Mirella Freni Leontyne Price and Anja Harteros ndash or to turn to tenors Enrico CarusoBeniamino Gigli Jussi Bjoumlrling Giuseppe di Stefano Luciano Pavarotti Plaacutecido Domingo PiotrBeczała Josef Calleja and Jonas Kaufmann ndash is to discover an oft-astonishing range of musical andemotional expression The more deeply you explore the more the emotional and spiritual vistas ofopera can open to you

Throughout this introduction to opera I link to performances on YouTube In doing so I in no waywish to suggest that the sonically compressed files found on YouTube can convey the huge range ofcolor and emotional that singers devote their lives to Rather these carefully chosen links will giveyou a taste of what great singing sounds like If yoursquore moved by what you hear please check out thesingers who speak to you via CD LP or hi-res downloads

End part I

Letting Facts Get in the Way of a Good StoryTHE AUDIO CYNIC

Written by Bill Leebens

If the internet is good for nothing else itrsquos great at destroying a good story by providing factualevidence to the contrary The flip side is that by widely and instantaneously distributing falsehoodsitrsquos also excellent at spreading nonsense

Jim Smith discussed the latter in issue 12 in his discussion of things we KNOW are truehellip but justainrsquot so (ldquoThe ACK Attack and Uncommon Knowledgerdquo ) In this column I want to look at the formerin a very specific case

Most of us are hugely patronizing and unremittingly arrogant when it comes to viewing the pastldquoOh look at how much smarter we are nowrdquo we think A classic example of a tsk-tsk-producingcomment is one wersquove all heard a million times In 1899 the US Commissioner of Patents CharlesH Duell was alleged to have said ldquoeverything that can be invented has been inventedrdquo

Only one problem he never said it The quote appears to have originated in the humor magazinePunch in 1899 where the statement was made as a joke Imagine a flippant quote from The Onionturning up in 2133 being taken seriously by historians thatrsquos about the same

ldquoSo Leebsrdquo you may ask ldquowhatrsquos your pointrdquo

Letting Facts Get in the Way of a Good StoryTHE AUDIO CYNIC

Written by Bill Leebens

If the internet is good for nothing else itrsquos great at destroying a good story by providing factualevidence to the contrary The flip side is that by widely and instantaneously distributing falsehoodsitrsquos also excellent at spreading nonsense

Jim Smith discussed the latter in issue 12 in his discussion of things we KNOW are truehellip but justainrsquot so (ldquoThe ACK Attack and Uncommon Knowledgerdquo ) In this column I want to look at the formerin a very specific case

Most of us are hugely patronizing and unremittingly arrogant when it comes to viewing the pastldquoOh look at how much smarter we are nowrdquo we think A classic example of a tsk-tsk-producingcomment is one wersquove all heard a million times In 1899 the US Commissioner of Patents CharlesH Duell was alleged to have said ldquoeverything that can be invented has been inventedrdquo

Only one problem he never said it The quote appears to have originated in the humor magazinePunch in 1899 where the statement was made as a joke Imagine a flippant quote from The Onionturning up in 2133 being taken seriously by historians thatrsquos about the same

ldquoSo Leebsrdquo you may ask ldquowhatrsquos your pointrdquo

My point is that itrsquos often easy to adopt the attitude of that quote or of Ecclesiastes ldquoThere isnothing new under the sunrdquo And the reason itrsquos easy to adopt that attitude especially in maturetechnical fields like audio is that there seem to be few fundamental breakthroughs The advanceswe see are primarily rehashes of old findings adapted to new technology or simplified for automatedmass production

In other words ho-hum

Diligent readers of Vintage Whine know that the moving coil loudspeaker dates back a century withJensen and that needles tracing grooves go back 140 years to Edison Amplifiers Also nearly acentury old Microphones Basically the phonograph in reverse and just about every technologyimaginable has been utilized---Irsquove even read of using a small sample of radioactive material whoseemissions through air would be modulated by soundwaves and would thus able to produce anoutput signal Voilardquo A mic

So what is there in audio these days thatrsquos really new Diamond-dome drivers Advances inmaterials science applied to Edgar Villchurrsquos 1958 patent Plasma speakers Siegfried Klein wroteabout ionic drivers in the early lsquo50rsquos and the singing arc was known in the 19th century

What about digital audio Binary representation of data goes back to the 19th century and PCMgoes back to 1937 with Reeves in the UK Class D amplification Pretty much every type of circuitand power supply that you can think of were explored by the end of World War II if not earlier

Certainly not everything that can be invented has been invented And yet try to come up withsomething in audio that is truly new and not just an advance in materials science or a repackagingof old ideas

Let me hear from you what is there in audio that is really really NEW

Best answer gets a free PS Audio LANRover USB Transporter MSRP $599 US Paul McGowanand I will judge the responses and our decision will be final no whining allowed If you win and theprize shows up on Audiogon we will hunt you down and kill you (Seriously I am so not kidding)

Tell us what you think Give it a shot Send us an email here

Conversion ConversationQUIBBLES AND BITS

Written by Richard Murison

Todayrsquos DACs with a few very rare (and expensive) exceptions all use a process called Sigma DeltaModulation (SDM sometimes also written DSM) to generate their output signal A simplistic way tolook at SDM DACs is to visualize them as up-converting (or lsquoupsamplingrsquo) their output to a massivelyhigh frequency ndash sometimes 64 128 or 256 times 441kHz but often higher than that ndash and takingadvantage of the ability to use a more benign analog filter at the output In fact the bit depth is alsoreduced (usually to 1ndash3 bits) in order to simplify the process of digital-to-analog conversion at ultra-high bit rates That is a bit of an over-simplification but for the purposes of the point I am trying tomake today it is good enough

Doing such high-order up-conversion utilizes a great deal of processing power and the provision ofthat processing power adds cost Additionally the manufacturers of the most commonly used DACchipsets give away very little about their internal architectures and donrsquot disclose the mostsignificant details behind their approaches Many DAC manufacturers are therefore quite coy abouthow their product functions and this coyness is often expressed through cavalier usage of the termslsquoupsamplingrsquo and lsquooversamplingrsquo Many of those manufacturers employ DAC chipsets withprodigious on-chip DSP capability (such as the well-known and widely used ESS Sabre 9018) andthen fail to make full use of it in their implementations

Letrsquos consider a hypothetical example Wersquoll take a 441kHz audio stream that our DAC chip needs

to upsample by a factor of 64 to 288MHz before passing it through its SDM The best way to dothis would be using a no-holds-barred high-performance Sample Rate Converter (SRC) Howeverthere are some quite simple alternatives the simplest of which would be to just repeat each of theoriginal 441kHz samples 64 times until the next sample comes along (a process sometimes called azero-order hold) What this does is to encode the ldquostairsteprdquo representation of digital audio we oftenhave in mind in fine detail (Personally I would refer to this as oversampling rather thanupsampling but marketing types donrsquot tend to listen to engineers)

If we are going to use this approach though it comes with consequences As mentioned it resultsin the accurate recreation of the stairstep waveform at the output of the DAC The effect of thisstairstep is to add additional distortion frequencies to the analog output waveform Fortunatelythese distortions will all be at frequencies above 2205kHz where no original audio data wasencoded in the first place The analog output filter will therefore require a brick-wall response tostrip them out which means that it is not so lsquobenignrsquo any more

So instead of our DAC applying a zero-order hold to the incoming 441kHz waveform suppose ituses a high quality Sample Rate Conversion (SRC) algorithm to properly upsample it Suchalgorithms incorporate digital filters to filter out the alias signals which are encoded above theNyquist frequency of the incoming audio stream The result is a clean signal that we can pass intothe SDM and which will be precisely regenerated without any stairstep at the DACrsquos output Agood upsampling algorithm will exhibit essentially no ultrasonic residue so we no longer need anaggressive sonically worrisome analog brick-wall filter

Letrsquos take another look at these two scenarios The first needed an aggressive analog brick-wallfilter at the output but the other in effect had the same brick-wall filter implemented digitally at anintermediate processing stage If the two sound at all different it can only be because the twofilters sound different Is this possible In fact yes it is An analog filter has sonic characteristicsthat derive from both its design and from the sonic characteristics of the components from which itis constructed The digital equivalent ndash if properly implemented ndash only has sonic consequencesarising from its design There is a further point which is that digital filters can be designed to havecertain characteristics which their analog counterparts cannot but Irsquom not going into that here Thebottom line is that if properly designed a diligent DAC designer ought to be able to achieve bettersound with this lsquoupsamplingrsquo approach than with the previously discussed lsquooversamplingrsquo approach(again I must emphasize this is MY usage of those terminologies which is not necessarily everybodyelsersquos)

Using the lsquoupsamplingrsquo approach I have just described it should make little difference whether yousend your music to the DAC at its native sample rate or if you choose to upsample it first using yourplayback softwarersquos built-in upsampler However that assumes that the upsampling algorithm usedby the DAC is at least as good as the one used by your software There is no guarantee that this willbe so but to be fair most half-decent modern DACs do employ sophisticated upsamplers If yourplayback software gives you a choice of upsampling algorithms then you can sometimes get to hearthis for yourself A few years back specialist algorithms such as Izotope were very popular for thispurpose

The bottom line here is that if your DAC is any good you should expect it to sound better (or at leastas good) with your music sent to it at its native sample rate than with it upsampled by your playbacksoftware ndash even if you are using Izotope or something similar If it doesnrsquot the difference is probablydown to whose upsampling implementation is better For some time now it has seemed to me that agood measure of a quality DAC is that it sounds better ndash or at least as good ndash with no upsamplingapplied by the playback software (FWIW This is how I use my own PS Audio DirectStream DAC)

Stan White An Overlooked VisionaryPart 2VINTAGE WHINE

Written by Bill Leebens

A fundamental principle of scientific enquiry was stated most famously by Carl Sagan

ldquoAbsence of evidence is not evidence of absencerdquo And no he wasnrsquot talking about the OJ Simpsontrial

In writing pieces about dead folks based largely upon material from third- and fourth-party sourcesI am constantly aware of the possibility of being horribly horribly wrong I liken it to what isgenerally called ldquothe fossil recordrdquo as an aspiring paleontologist at age 6 I learned one set ofsuppositions and conclusions about the prehistoric world based upon what had been dug up up tothat point in time Half a century later wersquove dug up creatures and evidence that have caused mostof our understanding of prehistory to be discarded and then rebuilthelliplikely to be discarded again

Oh well---so it goes No one ever said history was a business for cowards

My point is that I want to get things right and thatrsquos particularly difficult when little information isavailable Which brings me back to my subject Stan White My interest was piqued by tiny ads inAudio magazine for Stanrsquos ldquoShot Glassrdquo speakers 40 years ago I subsequently discovered that Stanhad a long history in hi-fi and as it turned out he was active in it for several decades after those adsran

Since last issue Irsquove learned a great deal more about Stan and his work Part came from plain old

Stan White An Overlooked VisionaryPart 2VINTAGE WHINE

Written by Bill Leebens

A fundamental principle of scientific enquiry was stated most famously by Carl Sagan

ldquoAbsence of evidence is not evidence of absencerdquo And no he wasnrsquot talking about the OJ Simpsontrial

In writing pieces about dead folks based largely upon material from third- and fourth-party sourcesI am constantly aware of the possibility of being horribly horribly wrong I liken it to what isgenerally called ldquothe fossil recordrdquo as an aspiring paleontologist at age 6 I learned one set ofsuppositions and conclusions about the prehistoric world based upon what had been dug up up tothat point in time Half a century later wersquove dug up creatures and evidence that have caused mostof our understanding of prehistory to be discarded and then rebuilthelliplikely to be discarded again

Oh well---so it goes No one ever said history was a business for cowards

My point is that I want to get things right and thatrsquos particularly difficult when little information isavailable Which brings me back to my subject Stan White My interest was piqued by tiny ads inAudio magazine for Stanrsquos ldquoShot Glassrdquo speakers 40 years ago I subsequently discovered that Stanhad a long history in hi-fi and as it turned out he was active in it for several decades after those adsran

Since last issue Irsquove learned a great deal more about Stan and his work Part came from plain old

research including bleary-eyed reading of Stanrsquos numerous patents much more came from Stanrsquoslongtime friend and agent in Germany Hermann Ruwwe (Vielen Dank Hermann) Letrsquos backtracka little filled in with additional info

Stanley Fay White was born in Minnesota ca 1920 grew up in St Paul After serving as ameteorologist in the Air Force during World War II he studied physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic inNew York state with additional studies at the University of Chicago After the war he devotedhimself to the design of electronics and speakers designed to faithfully reproduce music

Why

In a 1975 interview with High Fidelity Trade News (and who knew that such a mag ever existed)White said that the invention and use of the atomic bomb greatly influenced his worldview ldquoWhen Isaw how the work of physicists was being harnessed by the military I decided to apply my mind tocreating alternative and peaceful ways of getting energy from the atomrdquo

The products that appeared beginning in the early lsquo50rsquos gave evidence of an active and wide-ranging intellect unafraid to explore new ground hellipoccasionally coupled with the over-the-topexuberance (a far nicer word than hype)often seen in that era (think tailfins push-up brasTechnicolor 3-D) There also seemed to be a bit of an obsession with celebrities from music and themovies

Whitersquos US patent 2866513 filed November 24 1952 simply headed ldquoApparatus for GeneratingSoundrdquo details the design and construction of variable-flare horns for loudspeakers primarily back-loaded horns which could be curled within a cabinet behind a driver This was ldquothe Miracle of Multi-Flarerdquo as Whitersquos gosh-wow ads of the period put it

Even within the hoopla there was evidence of a real physical and philosophical basis Under theheading ldquoBreaking the audio sound barrier through the Miracle of Multi-Flarerdquo the text read ldquoANew Conception of High FidelityhellipSound is a three dimensional audio vibration occurring along atime axis (a fourth dimension ) Through THE MIRACLE OF MULTI-FLARE [he just couldnrsquot helphimself] you can hearhellipfor the first timehellipsounds reproduced as they originally occurred in theirproper time sequencerdquo

Keep in mind that this is 20 years before time-alignment of loudspeaker drivers and linear phaseresponse were thought to be important---much less mentioned in a mainstream ad Stan Whitebrand speakers so equipped were listed between $6950-$1500---certainly not inexpensive in theearly to mid-lsquo50rsquos and equivalent to $625-$13500 today

Years later White was still proud of his accomplishments during this period although there werehints of both hyperbole and resignation in this email written to me in 2003 ldquoI described roomcapacitance as a factor in a patent filed in 1952 [mentioned abovemdashEd] This is why my tiny LePetite could generate 20 Hz in a corner of a reasonable sized room Sound obeys its own laws notthe laws some say it should have Ignorance can be a terrible thing to deal with Creativity is not ablessing---it is a curserdquo

Room-loading by loudspeakers is a topic generally thought of in conjunction with Paul Klipsch or RoyAllison---but White was clearly aware of the phenomenon and utilized it in his mono loudspeakerdesigns

The November 1953 issue of Audio featured an article by White describing his Powrtron (sic)amplifier A vacuum tube amp (of course) Powrtron was notable in that it featured a version of theVan Scoyoc phase inverter was designed to have linear power response invariant of load and

included a plug-in electronic crossover that could be used with two amp sections on the samechassis Again this was forward-thinking stuff for the times Marantzrsquos Model 3 electronic crossoverdidnrsquot appear until 1957

The Powrtron was offered as a commercial product in 10- and 20-watt versions without or with thecrossover respectively The Audio article can be read herehttpwwwaudiofaidateorgitarticoliPowtronpdf

White had two notable associations within the world of music-recording with Duke Ellington andwith Bill Putnam Ellington requires no introduction and owned electronics and speakers fromWhite A 1954 ad shows Ellington and White at the Chicago Audio Fair under the heading ldquoWhy Ibought a Stan White Speakerrdquo The hipsterish text reads ldquoStan White Speakers are the most Weuse them exclusively in all our reproduction workrdquo Putnam opened Universal Recording in Chicagoafter the war and it was an early independent (non-label-affiliated) recording studio on the leadingedge of technological advances Putnam and Les Paul are jointly credited with having inventedmultitrack recording White amps in speakers were in use at Universal when Ellington and his bandrecorded half of the Ellington rsquo55 album there (Putnam later moved to LA and founded UnitedRecording backed by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby He also founded the equipment brandsUniversal Audio and UREI)

included a plug-in electronic crossover that could be used with two amp sections on the samechassis Again this was forward-thinking stuff for the times Marantzrsquos Model 3 electronic crossoverdidnrsquot appear until 1957

The Powrtron was offered as a commercial product in 10- and 20-watt versions without or with thecrossover respectively The Audio article can be read herehttpwwwaudiofaidateorgitarticoliPowtronpdf

White had two notable associations within the world of music-recording with Duke Ellington andwith Bill Putnam Ellington requires no introduction and owned electronics and speakers fromWhite A 1954 ad shows Ellington and White at the Chicago Audio Fair under the heading ldquoWhy Ibought a Stan White Speakerrdquo The hipsterish text reads ldquoStan White Speakers are the most Weuse them exclusively in all our reproduction workrdquo Putnam opened Universal Recording in Chicagoafter the war and it was an early independent (non-label-affiliated) recording studio on the leadingedge of technological advances Putnam and Les Paul are jointly credited with having inventedmultitrack recording White amps in speakers were in use at Universal when Ellington and his bandrecorded half of the Ellington rsquo55 album there (Putnam later moved to LA and founded UnitedRecording backed by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby He also founded the equipment brandsUniversal Audio and UREI)

If you are a reader of fine print you may have noticed ldquoA Division of Eddie Bracken Enterprisesrdquo atthe bottom of the above ad Whitersquos interest in Hollywood was nearly his undoing introduced toEddie Bracken (a vaudevillian turned comic film actor best known for roles in several PrestonSturges films Bracken went on to have a lengthy Broadway career--- I even saw him in Hello Dollyin 1978 while on my honeymoon) White found a hi-fi fan whom he felt could both bankroll him andintroduce him to Hollywood stars and give his business a boost

Stan ruefully recalled the association in a staccato 2003 email ldquoNo one ever made money withBracken He put $5000 in and then shortly afterwards wrote a check for cash (the $5000) and blew

it at the track He lsquoloanedrsquo his daughters inlaws $100000 and then went bankrupt for $6000000almost destroying the inlawsrsquo businesshellipOver his career he conned over $25000000 from friendsand acquaintances Had five kids Wife lived like a church mouse most of her life Generosity wasnot a word in his vocabulary Psychotic as hellrdquo

They always say that a bad business-partner is worse than a bad spouse but the Bracken associationdid at least result in a bizarre ad featuring Charlton Heston and his wife stiltedly endorsing StanWhite speakers Whether that was a blessing or a curse who knows

The May 1956 issue of Audio featured another article by White describing ldquoBeta-Tronrdquo a systemutilizing motional feedback from a second coil on the tweeter to the amp to reduce distortion againusing the Powrtron amp with its electronic crossover The system was offered as a commercialsystem but apparently didnrsquot achieve success The next commercial system Irsquom aware of thatfeatured such a second coilfeedback set-up was the Infinity Servo-Statik of 1968 followed by moremainstream applications from Philips in the 1970rsquos Whitersquos system was unusual in that it wasutilized on the tweeter where the others used it on the woofer for lower IM and Doppler distortionWhy White used it on the tweeter is a bit of a mystery (ldquothat doesnrsquot make any sense to me at allrdquosaid Infinity founder and Servo-Statik designer Arnie Nudell when I described Whitersquos servo-tweeterto him) The article can be read here (scroll down to page 28)

During 1956-lsquo57 White received a pair of patents (2923783 ldquoElectro-Acoustical Transducerrdquoand3046362 ldquoSpeakerrdquo)pertaining to the construction and configuration of speaker drivers Onedescribes layered cone-construction using multiple materials up to frac12rdquo in thickness the goal beingthe creation of a driver which would truly behave as a piston The other describes drivers driven byvoice coils at their periphery---the goal of which was unclear White did build a speaker with a thick-coned 15rdquo woofer with its voice coil at the outer edge but itrsquos unclear if it ever reached productionFor that matter exactly what ldquoproductionrdquo meant for the Stan White brand is unclear

All told White received seven patents in the US and one in Germany all pertaining to loudspeakerdesign andor construction and they contain a number of unique ideas and features They alsotended to break new ground his patents are referenced in patents held by AKG BampW Bose FostexGoodmans Harman JBL JL Audio Paradigm Pioneer Polk and Sony Pretty impressive for a littleguy working alone

After the late lsquo50rsquos there a number of lost years in the life and career of Stan White---at least as faras me being able to detail his activities Whitersquos associate Hermann Ruwwe mentions simply ldquoStanworked for Rectilinear Avid GE and a number of other companiesrdquo so presumably there wasconsulting work or stints as an employee

As mentioned lsquoway back at our beginning I first encountered Stan White by way of tiny classifiedads for his ldquoShot Glassrdquo speakers in Audio magazine around 1975 It appears to have been a periodof renewed creativity as two more patents were granted in 1976 (3961378 ldquoCone Constructionfor Loudspeakerrdquo and 3997023 ldquoLoudspeaker with Improved Surroundrdquo)which detailed thesalient features of his ldquoglassconerdquo drivers

To clarify the cones were not like Momrsquos Pyrex baking dish they were composed of plasticsreinforced by glass fibres or micro-spheres The patents very precisely define the construction andgeometry of the ribbed mostly-flat cone and the parabolic surround

it at the track He lsquoloanedrsquo his daughters inlaws $100000 and then went bankrupt for $6000000almost destroying the inlawsrsquo businesshellipOver his career he conned over $25000000 from friendsand acquaintances Had five kids Wife lived like a church mouse most of her life Generosity wasnot a word in his vocabulary Psychotic as hellrdquo

They always say that a bad business-partner is worse than a bad spouse but the Bracken associationdid at least result in a bizarre ad featuring Charlton Heston and his wife stiltedly endorsing StanWhite speakers Whether that was a blessing or a curse who knows

The May 1956 issue of Audio featured another article by White describing ldquoBeta-Tronrdquo a systemutilizing motional feedback from a second coil on the tweeter to the amp to reduce distortion againusing the Powrtron amp with its electronic crossover The system was offered as a commercialsystem but apparently didnrsquot achieve success The next commercial system Irsquom aware of thatfeatured such a second coilfeedback set-up was the Infinity Servo-Statik of 1968 followed by moremainstream applications from Philips in the 1970rsquos Whitersquos system was unusual in that it wasutilized on the tweeter where the others used it on the woofer for lower IM and Doppler distortionWhy White used it on the tweeter is a bit of a mystery (ldquothat doesnrsquot make any sense to me at allrdquosaid Infinity founder and Servo-Statik designer Arnie Nudell when I described Whitersquos servo-tweeterto him) The article can be read here (scroll down to page 28)

During 1956-lsquo57 White received a pair of patents (2923783 ldquoElectro-Acoustical Transducerrdquoand3046362 ldquoSpeakerrdquo)pertaining to the construction and configuration of speaker drivers Onedescribes layered cone-construction using multiple materials up to frac12rdquo in thickness the goal beingthe creation of a driver which would truly behave as a piston The other describes drivers driven byvoice coils at their periphery---the goal of which was unclear White did build a speaker with a thick-coned 15rdquo woofer with its voice coil at the outer edge but itrsquos unclear if it ever reached productionFor that matter exactly what ldquoproductionrdquo meant for the Stan White brand is unclear

All told White received seven patents in the US and one in Germany all pertaining to loudspeakerdesign andor construction and they contain a number of unique ideas and features They alsotended to break new ground his patents are referenced in patents held by AKG BampW Bose FostexGoodmans Harman JBL JL Audio Paradigm Pioneer Polk and Sony Pretty impressive for a littleguy working alone

After the late lsquo50rsquos there a number of lost years in the life and career of Stan White---at least as faras me being able to detail his activities Whitersquos associate Hermann Ruwwe mentions simply ldquoStanworked for Rectilinear Avid GE and a number of other companiesrdquo so presumably there wasconsulting work or stints as an employee

As mentioned lsquoway back at our beginning I first encountered Stan White by way of tiny classifiedads for his ldquoShot Glassrdquo speakers in Audio magazine around 1975 It appears to have been a periodof renewed creativity as two more patents were granted in 1976 (3961378 ldquoCone Constructionfor Loudspeakerrdquo and 3997023 ldquoLoudspeaker with Improved Surroundrdquo)which detailed thesalient features of his ldquoglassconerdquo drivers

To clarify the cones were not like Momrsquos Pyrex baking dish they were composed of plasticsreinforced by glass fibres or micro-spheres The patents very precisely define the construction andgeometry of the ribbed mostly-flat cone and the parabolic surround

White continued to refine the drivers and his ldquoShot Glassrdquo systems for the rest of his life as well asdeveloping some unique theories on the nature of matter from the particle level to the cosmic Inthe US speakers and the occasional Powrtron-based amp were sold under the White Sound brandlimited numbers of glasscone-based speakers are still made today in Germany by Ruwwe Audio

As in the lsquo50rsquos Whitersquos product blurbs were a combination of the factual and the audacious A late-lsquo70rsquos brochure for the Shot Glass speakers says that ldquohellipour cone moves like a chunk rather thanflapping like a bed sheethelliprdquo and that the center cap ldquo helliplike the keystone of an arch cements thecone structure into a granitelike mass that is indestructiblehelliprdquo

Echoing his earlier statements about bass from small speakers White wrote about his lsquo70rsquosexperiences at Chicago CES ldquoFour of my Shot Glass speakers in a 20 ft square alignment put out20 Hz in McCormick Place People thought I was Cerwin-Vega [ the providers of speakers for theSensurround theater systems of the lsquo70rsquos]rdquo

In the 1975 High Fidelity Trade News article White discussed theories about atomic structure and aprocess by which synthetic diamonds could be made ldquobig enough to make telescope lensesrdquo Even inemails to me in the early 2000rsquos Stan mentioned ldquohis processrdquo never making it clear if it had everbeen put to practice Regarding diamond circuit chips he wrote ldquoIn my process diamond is laiddown in layers with circuits on them The wafer can be a half inch square vertically connected Theshortened distance increases speed

ldquoSilicon circuits are made by diffusionrdquo he wrote ldquoThis means that if the chip gets hot the diffusioncontinues and the circuits short My diamond units are deposited no diffusion life very longDiamond never melts---at 4000 degrees it turns to gashellipa small unit will handle gobs of power I likethemrdquo

The communications I received from the then-octogenarian Stan White were an often-puzzling mix of insights and anxiety riddled with sad tales of abuse and lost opportunities As with ldquohis processrdquo ofdiamond production I couldnrsquot always tell what was theory and what had actually occurred Heproduced a book on ldquonew physicsrdquo which I found interesting but largely incomprehensible I wasnrsquotknowledgeable enough to judge the work Irsquom still not He was clearly a very bright guy with someinteresting ideas who had a number of accomplishments as well as a number of disappointments

Hermann Ruwwe wrote to me ldquoStan passed away Dec 14 2006 he died peacefully in his sleep Hewas one of a kind old school no gimmicks an American hero in the audio fieldrdquo

Irsquom sorry Stan wasnrsquot better known in his homeland A visionary and a dreamer he clearly had a lotto offer

Jerry GarciaMUSIC TO MY EARS

Written by WL Woodward

If you were born on August 9 1995 yoursquore turning 21 today You have earned the right to go out andget fractured with all the same friends yoursquove been hammering with for years But tonight dagnabityou can puke anywhere and pull the birthday card

If you died on August 9 1995 you might be Jerry Garcia

When Jerry was 4 he was holding a piece of firewood for his older brother wielding an axe Older brocut off little Jerryrsquos right hand middle finger My favorite part of that story is the brother latersuggested Jerry play the banjo I was an older brother and did my best to torture the minions belowme But that took a particularly weird absence of concern

In 1972 I graduated high school purely by the grace of a hot young biology teacher Ms SharisFrom her perspective I had skipped a large number of classes and avoided or worse ruined requiredlab sessions From my perspective I had friends in that class who needed help rolling joints Publicservice The problem was I had already been accepted to a state college based on some haphazardcriteria like ACTrsquos SATrsquos and a few good years in school But I had to graduate high school Collegesare really sticky about that

Jerry GarciaMUSIC TO MY EARS

Written by WL Woodward

If you were born on August 9 1995 yoursquore turning 21 today You have earned the right to go out andget fractured with all the same friends yoursquove been hammering with for years But tonight dagnabityou can puke anywhere and pull the birthday card

If you died on August 9 1995 you might be Jerry Garcia

When Jerry was 4 he was holding a piece of firewood for his older brother wielding an axe Older brocut off little Jerryrsquos right hand middle finger My favorite part of that story is the brother latersuggested Jerry play the banjo I was an older brother and did my best to torture the minions belowme But that took a particularly weird absence of concern

In 1972 I graduated high school purely by the grace of a hot young biology teacher Ms SharisFrom her perspective I had skipped a large number of classes and avoided or worse ruined requiredlab sessions From my perspective I had friends in that class who needed help rolling joints Publicservice The problem was I had already been accepted to a state college based on some haphazardcriteria like ACTrsquos SATrsquos and a few good years in school But I had to graduate high school Collegesare really sticky about that

The last day of school and I know my one problem was talking this young woman who had beencompletely clear all semester she knew my name and didnrsquot like it into at least giving me a passinggrade And of course she knew exactly why I was standing in her classroom that June afternoon

Ms Sharis had a distracting clothing style with tight sweaters and pumps with black hose It waslike taking biology from Katherine Ross Yoursquod think Irsquod have spent more time going to that class butI had that whole public service thing going on Now my immediate future required an ability toconvince this woman I was worthy of grace or at least pity without staring at her chest

I have no idea how I got out of that one I really donrsquot I could make something up but honestly itrsquos ablank Anyway that fall I was a freshman at UConn living in a dorm with a hundred other idiots whowere pledged to destroy the world starting with their roommate On my floor was a guy who alsoneeded help rolling joints and had an amazing record collection His predominant passion was theGrateful Dead

There is a wonderful state that happens when you discover something after it has been around for awhile Like Catholicism Wait thatrsquos not right Like hearing a recording of Benny Goodmanrsquos 1938Carnegie Hall concert as a teen in 1968 or finding an author like a Bradbury or a Vonnegut aftertheyrsquove written most of their stories That 1956 Ford Victoria at the church car show

In 1972 Jerry and the Grateful Dead had already released some of their best work Live DeadAoxomoxoa Workingmanrsquos Dead American Beauty I ran down that rabbit hole and had a ball And Icouldnrsquot keep up A live album Europersquo 72 with the cream of their live performances in that era wasfollowed the next year with Wake of the Flood That album was so highly anticipated byDeadHeaddom I bought it instead of hot dogs on a whim I brought it home and left on some errandprobably to shoplift hot dogs Album still in the wrapper When I got back my roommate and hisgirlfriend were bustin it out in his bed with Wake playing on the turntable With someembarrassment my roommate shouts out ldquoDude sorry to break that out but this album is amazingItrsquos our second time throughrdquo His girlfriend made no move to put her clothes on Those were thedays

Jerry was more than the Dead He did learn to play banjo and I wish there were videos of himplaying because he was a beautiful player of three fingered banjo without a middle finger He tookup pedal steel and started New Riders of the Purple Sage with John lsquoMarmadukersquo Dawson and DavidNelson dragging along Dead guys Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart That band broke into a genre ofcountryfolkrock that blew up with the Eagles the Flying Burrito Brothers Jimmy Buffet JacksonBrowne Commander Cody Little Feat In that same period Jerry hooked up with David Grismanmandolinist extraordinaire and formed Old and In the Way a straight ahead bluegrass band withguys like Vassar Clements on fiddle (John Hartford filled in during rehearsals) and Peter Rowan onguitar At press their debut album in 1975 is still the top selling bluegrass album

So one minute yoursquore listening to the psychedelic weirdness of Aoxomoxoa then Casey Jones andlittle surprises like Garcia playing pedal steel on Crosby Stills and Nashrsquos Teach Your ChildrenThatrsquos right Put that piece of shit song in your head (sorry itrsquoll be over in a minute) and dig on thatpedal solo Yep Jerry Then hersquos got a hit bluegrass album All of that while hersquos doing all thosegreat Dead albums of the 70rsquos and early 80rsquos The guy never stopped That was the key to JerryGarcia He was ambitious in only one way and that was to be better every day at whatever music hewas working on

Of course our respect and love for Garcia certainly had a generational thing going on where weoverlooked and forgave his substance habits It was the 60rsquos then the 70rsquos 80rsquos We thirsted for hisfreedom and drank from his talent Many believed drugs could be how to follow As the decades

ticked our generation realized the folly of THAT shit Damn Canrsquot hold a job down and we ainrsquot allJerry Garcia By the 80rsquos everyone had moved on But we still listened and never forgot his beautythat had nothing to do with his personal bullshit

Eventually Jerryrsquos musical powers became indirectly proportional to his happy intake Way too earlyCertainly an object lesson But like all people larger than their skin there are many layers to thoselessons Like the wife who asks her husband if the dress makes her butt look big you choose yourtake-away Mine is the joy Irsquove gotten with his songs his solos and his incredible crinkling smile youcould almost hear

So thank you Ms Sharis Thank you for sending me forward

How I Spent My Summer VacationFEATURED

Written by Bill Leebens

I freely admit that I am a nerd Aside from music and audio I omnivorously absorb architectureantiquarian books cars and all manner of mechanical devices When traveling alone I have noproblem indulging and pursuing those interests Traveling to San Francisco recently with my long-suffering Significant Other on an allegedly romantic vacation I was still able to carve out a fairamount of time to indulge my interests and yet managed to keep her happy Mostly

I think

South of the city we visited the Burwells father and son They build retro-nuevo speakers withamazing cabinetry solid wood horns and vintage Altec and JBL drivers Not your standardaudiophile fare but a type of speaker I came to appreciate at old recording studios in Memphiswhere Altec monitors were generally paired with McIntosh tube ampsThe Burwellrsquos speakers werevery nice indeed--- lively dynamic and surprisingly unobtrusive

httpwwwburwellspeakerscom

Heading closer to the city we visited my old friend Cookie Marenco at OTR Studios the base of

ticked our generation realized the folly of THAT shit Damn Canrsquot hold a job down and we ainrsquot allJerry Garcia By the 80rsquos everyone had moved on But we still listened and never forgot his beautythat had nothing to do with his personal bullshit

Eventually Jerryrsquos musical powers became indirectly proportional to his happy intake Way too earlyCertainly an object lesson But like all people larger than their skin there are many layers to thoselessons Like the wife who asks her husband if the dress makes her butt look big you choose yourtake-away Mine is the joy Irsquove gotten with his songs his solos and his incredible crinkling smile youcould almost hear

So thank you Ms Sharis Thank you for sending me forward

How I Spent My Summer VacationFEATURED

Written by Bill Leebens

I freely admit that I am a nerd Aside from music and audio I omnivorously absorb architectureantiquarian books cars and all manner of mechanical devices When traveling alone I have noproblem indulging and pursuing those interests Traveling to San Francisco recently with my long-suffering Significant Other on an allegedly romantic vacation I was still able to carve out a fairamount of time to indulge my interests and yet managed to keep her happy Mostly

I think

South of the city we visited the Burwells father and son They build retro-nuevo speakers withamazing cabinetry solid wood horns and vintage Altec and JBL drivers Not your standardaudiophile fare but a type of speaker I came to appreciate at old recording studios in Memphiswhere Altec monitors were generally paired with McIntosh tube ampsThe Burwellrsquos speakers werevery nice indeed--- lively dynamic and surprisingly unobtrusive

httpwwwburwellspeakerscom

Heading closer to the city we visited my old friend Cookie Marenco at OTR Studios the base of

How I Spent My Summer VacationFEATURED

Written by Bill Leebens

I freely admit that I am a nerd Aside from music and audio I omnivorously absorb architectureantiquarian books cars and all manner of mechanical devices When traveling alone I have noproblem indulging and pursuing those interests Traveling to San Francisco recently with my long-suffering Significant Other on an allegedly romantic vacation I was still able to carve out a fairamount of time to indulge my interests and yet managed to keep her happy Mostly

I think

South of the city we visited the Burwells father and son They build retro-nuevo speakers withamazing cabinetry solid wood horns and vintage Altec and JBL drivers Not your standardaudiophile fare but a type of speaker I came to appreciate at old recording studios in Memphiswhere Altec monitors were generally paired with McIntosh tube ampsThe Burwellrsquos speakers werevery nice indeed--- lively dynamic and surprisingly unobtrusive

httpwwwburwellspeakerscom

Heading closer to the city we visited my old friend Cookie Marenco at OTR Studios the base of

operations for Blue Coast Records and her download empire Given Cookiersquos earthy persona herstudiorsquos homey vibe comes as no surprise Irsquove been to a lot of studios and OTR is of the make-the-musicians-comfortable variety rather than the space shuttleclean-room isolation booth feel of somestudios

On a side-trip for breakfast Cookie pointed out the road that (eventually) leads to Neil Youngrsquosranch ldquoBut hersquos not there anymorerdquo said Cookie ldquoHe lost it in the divorcerdquo

Thatrsquoll teach you to fool around with actresses Neil

Sunday in the city meandering down Van Ness I spied a group of incredible vintage cars in ashowroom Long-suffering SO indulgently circled the block---not easy in that part of SF---and weparked to take a look The showroom carried no signage and I still have no idea what the companyis Through the showroom windows we saw a treasure-trove of great old cars

Irsquom sure that the value of all the cars combined was well into eight figures Sheesh

SO suggested a visit to the Cable Car Museum which not only has an interesting variety of historicaldisplays but acts as the hub for the cable system The cable car system was devised notsurprisingly by a maker of wire ropes and cables It is ingenious if Rube Goldberg-esque in itscomplexity

I once confused cable cars with trolleys but theyrsquore not the same at all Trolley Cars generally havean overhead electric line which connects to the car by way of an antennae-like feeder arm whichconveys the juice to electric driving motors Cable cars have a remote power plant with engines ormotors (in SF originally steam engines--now each line has a 500 HP GE electric motor) which drivegiant pulleys called sheaves The sheaves transmit force to a cable 1 frac14rdquo in diameter which runsunderground routed by a series of pulleys guides and idlers The cars are propelled by a plier-likeldquogriprdquo operated by the motorman which actually increases or lessens the grip on the driven cablewhich pulls the cable car along

There are four separate lines in the SF cable system all four are driven from the powerhouse at theCable Car Museum The longest line is nearly four miles long the shortest just under two milesThink about the network of pulleys guides and idlers required to route and change direction of amoving cable under the city streets---itrsquos amazing The technology may seem somewhat antiquated---and it is---but it works The cable is lubricated with pine tar which you can smell while riding thecable cars What do they use for brakes going down those steep hills Blocks of pine pressedagainst the wheels You can smell them burning when the going is tough

Amazing stuff

httpwwwcablecarmuseumorg

Finally down at Fishermanrsquos Wharf there is an arcade rather grandly entitled Musee Mecanique

which features mechanical games and devices from the penny arcade eras Much of it was familiarstuff for me one piece which was very familiar indeed was an old Gottlieb Sing Along a pinballmachine I spent many hours mastering during my high school years Even mechanical devices cangenerate emotional attachments

httpmuseemecaniquesfcom

Points Of PickupFEATURED

Written by Haden Boardman

The point of contact between the cartridgersquos generator system and the actual moving vinyl record isof course the stylus mounted on to the cantilever The stylus has to cope with the enormous forcesthrust upon it and stay tracking the groove Just like every other part of a record playing system itwill impart its own mechanical vibrations and resonances upon the sound vibrations passing throughit Keeping the stylus mass small helps reduce record wear and increase fidelity

It is not just the size but the shape and the finish which matter All styli are amazing works of artthe skill in making and mounting the most basic shapes is immense and some of the more complexprofiles are mind boggling

A simple lsquosphericalrsquo tip is somewhat frowned upon in High End circles but if small enough and wellpolished they are perfectly valid stylus types The natural progression from a lsquosphericalrsquo tip is tocarefully polish two sides and make it more elliptical usually to a ratio of 115 Lower pricedlsquoellipsesrsquo may well have a lower ratio more expensive a higher ratio Even more expensive andmore difficult to manufacture are the lsquoline contactrsquo the diamond is now machined to form very sharpedges much finer than either the spherical or elliptical types Different manufacturers give all thesequite fancy names but the premise remains the same a very small contact area with the vinylrecord The most famous development of this type is worth mentioning this was by a chap calledlsquoShibatarsquo in Japan it was developed to extend playback bandwidth enough resolve the 45 KHz signalrequired on Quadraphonic CD 4 four channel discrete records This wide bandwidth cannot harmstereophonic replay either

The last type of stylus profile was developed by the famous Dutch firm of Van den Hul Underanalysis they concluded the best stylus profile to replay records with was one very similar to therecord cutter itself with refinements so it didnrsquot damage your precious records on play back Thereare of course variants and competitors such as Fritz Gyger Paratrace MicroLine etc

A lsquosphericalrsquo stylus type has minimum contact with the groove The more you progress throughelliptical and fine line through to Shibata the stylus sits very snug in the records groove with thewhole edge of the stylus in contact with the record groove wall

As mentioned earlier the stylus is mounted on to the cantilever which transmits all of thevibrationsmusical information in to the main body of the cartridge The cantilever needs to be ultrarigid and ultra light most commonly it is a thin-wall metal tube but sapphire carbon and otherexotic materials have been used Mounting the stylus tip is no easy thing More budget designssimply lsquogluersquo the tip in place whereas more expensive types use lsquoclaspsrsquo not dissimilar to those usedon a diamond wedding ring Somewhere in between the end of the cantilever tube is formed in to alsquoflatrsquo and the stylus tip pierced through It is obvious alignment is critical ndash and with all thesemicroscopic procedures you can begin to appreciate why some styli and cartridges cost as much asthey do

Cartridge generators the parts that turn the mechanical energy in to an electrical signal are no lesscomplicated and varied The four main types of generator system are crystal (which are not reallyhifi ndash I am wasting no time on these) moving magnet moving coil and moving iron Moving magnetor MM is possibly the most common type At one end of the cantilever is the stylus at the other atiny tiny magnet(s) The vibrations wiggle the magnet in front of (usually) four small coils These fourcoils can be a lsquoreasonablersquo size and are reasonably sensitive producing a fairly healthy output inmillivolts (usually quoted between 3 and 7 mv) The coils are wired in a lsquosum and differencersquoarrangement which translate the up and down and side to side movements in to distinct left andright audio channels For more information check out Alan Blumleinrsquos classic 1930s patent and texton stereophonic sound MM cartridges tend to be quite light and compact and are what is classed ashigh compliant cartridges They suit lower to medium mass arms

Moving coil ( MC) switch this around the magnet is fixed and the coil is attached to the end of thecantilever The coils need to be microscopically tiny to remain low mass enough to track a recordcorrectly may be only 25 turns of wire used per winding Different armature designs vary from across shaped device (like an lsquoXrsquo) to winding directly in the cantilever In most MC cartridges a fairlysubstantial (heavy) magnet is fitted This gives the advantage over a MM cartridge of saturating thecoils with magnetic flux which makes for a very linear response

MC of course have their problems Those coils need connecting to the back of the cartridge pins withmicro fine wire (usually a continuation of the coil itself) and those tiny tiny coils are only capable ofgenerating very very tiny outputs in micro volts some as low as 100 uV This places demands on theamplifier chain and requires nothing but the finest arm cables to connect it Moving coils weightquite a bit too The heavier the magnet the more linear the performance ndash but the higher the massThe smaller the coil the more linear the performance but the lower the output High output movingcoils exist they literally have much larger coils compromise exists here

Easier for the electronics to be more linear but a slightly less linear cartridge Ortofon patented thestereo moving coil cartridge back in 1961 It again was pretty much identical to Blumlein Butthrough the 1960s and 1970s you either paid Ortofon to use their patent didnrsquot bother or came upwith something else Audio Technica came up with something else their cartridges are based on arecord cutter in reverse With just two coils lsquoon toprsquo of the cantilever The current en vogueNeumann DST uses a similar system too but with the coils virtually lsquosat on toprsquo of the stylus-

certainly gets around some cantilever problems But post-1983 when Ortofonrsquos patent run out itwas a free for all And most manufacturers use a generator system pretty similar to this classicdesign

London DECCA produced the most successful moving iron pick-ups Again there isnrsquot much of acantilever in fact there isnrsquot one A lsquoTrsquo shaped armature has the stylus at its base and the ironinductors are placed within a set of coils above and below the iron inductor (a magnet sits on top ofthe entire structure) In a conventional stylus a cantilever has a critical lsquopivot pointrsquo between thestylus and the generating system ndash some manufactures go for a very short cantilever others a longone The DECCA has none There can be no doubt the powerful sound this gives But it is veryunkind to record and record wear is somewhat enhanced compared to more standard methods

There are of course variants on these themes BampO moving micro cross (in recent years revived bySoundsmith) Technics HPC Grado plus some outright oddities STAX electrostatic (more electrets)ribbon strain-gauge optical

As you can see there are very many variables in cartridge design Is a MM cart with a line contactstylus better than a moving coil with a spherical tip Answers on a post card although yours trulyhas always been more of a lsquocoil fan It must also be remember the smaller the stylus tip the smallerit moves in the groove and the smaller its output The lower the output the better your electronicsbetter be

The most important thing to consider is arm compatibility A high mass cartridge (low compliance)needs a high mass arm otherwise it will distort and mistrack A low mass high compliance cartridgewill likely be lsquobottomed outrsquo by an arm too high mass Sadly even manufacturers get this wrong Andwith all these variables you can see why Once you have the right arm its vital to align it with therecord groove correctly Not just the tracking error but also the vertical tracking angle or VTA Aspherical stylus is quite unfussy about this in comparison to a Shibata which is critical Failure toset this right will mean a very expensive Shibata will mistrack and sound much worse than styli aquarter of its price

Whoever said record players are easy

Vine and WindowPARTING SHOT

Taken by Paul McGowan

Terri and I were vacationing in France a few years ago and had stopped at a roadside vineyard forlunch I spied this great art of old vines creeping up the side of the building offset by the window

certainly gets around some cantilever problems But post-1983 when Ortofonrsquos patent run out itwas a free for all And most manufacturers use a generator system pretty similar to this classicdesign

London DECCA produced the most successful moving iron pick-ups Again there isnrsquot much of acantilever in fact there isnrsquot one A lsquoTrsquo shaped armature has the stylus at its base and the ironinductors are placed within a set of coils above and below the iron inductor (a magnet sits on top ofthe entire structure) In a conventional stylus a cantilever has a critical lsquopivot pointrsquo between thestylus and the generating system ndash some manufactures go for a very short cantilever others a longone The DECCA has none There can be no doubt the powerful sound this gives But it is veryunkind to record and record wear is somewhat enhanced compared to more standard methods

There are of course variants on these themes BampO moving micro cross (in recent years revived bySoundsmith) Technics HPC Grado plus some outright oddities STAX electrostatic (more electrets)ribbon strain-gauge optical

As you can see there are very many variables in cartridge design Is a MM cart with a line contactstylus better than a moving coil with a spherical tip Answers on a post card although yours trulyhas always been more of a lsquocoil fan It must also be remember the smaller the stylus tip the smallerit moves in the groove and the smaller its output The lower the output the better your electronicsbetter be

The most important thing to consider is arm compatibility A high mass cartridge (low compliance)needs a high mass arm otherwise it will distort and mistrack A low mass high compliance cartridgewill likely be lsquobottomed outrsquo by an arm too high mass Sadly even manufacturers get this wrong Andwith all these variables you can see why Once you have the right arm its vital to align it with therecord groove correctly Not just the tracking error but also the vertical tracking angle or VTA Aspherical stylus is quite unfussy about this in comparison to a Shibata which is critical Failure toset this right will mean a very expensive Shibata will mistrack and sound much worse than styli aquarter of its price

Whoever said record players are easy

Vine and WindowPARTING SHOT

Taken by Paul McGowan

Terri and I were vacationing in France a few years ago and had stopped at a roadside vineyard forlunch I spied this great art of old vines creeping up the side of the building offset by the window

Vine and WindowPARTING SHOT

Taken by Paul McGowan

Terri and I were vacationing in France a few years ago and had stopped at a roadside vineyard forlunch I spied this great art of old vines creeping up the side of the building offset by the window