Visiting Mike Malinowski and descending into his dedicated basement soundroom with 2 x 6 studs on 12" centers, double-thick sheetrock, concrete flooring and optimized geometries (ca. 17' x 22' x 8') was akin to entering every hardcore audiophile's wet dream. Let the following photos speak for themselves.

Below, the proud owner is flanked by Lloyd on the left and partner Fred Law on the right. Fred tends to get no respect from certain heavy hitters in the audio press despite being a full-time member of the Walker Audio Brain & Elbow-Grease Trust. In fact, Fred personally builds the entire air-supply delivery system for each table as well as lends a hand in the manufacture of the ValidPoints and Resonance Control Discs while building all the wooden enclosures for the Velocitor, Phono Stage and Motor Controller. Next time you see Walker Audio at a trade show and want to get a table for review, make sure to not only kiss Lloyd's butt but Fred's as well. Fair is fair. Try running their table without the air...


The omnipresence of tuning discs all over these components should be a dead giveaway for the level of attention afforded so-called 'tweaking' here. Mike and I would spend three happy hours watching the team of Lloyd and Fred go through endless repeats of Stravinsky's Firebird suite to chase down an obvious gremlin which plagued Mike's recently revamped system. In the end, the massive Elrod power cord on the VTL amp proved to be the culprit. All the turntable adjustments they had made to morph the sound into various directions to overcome shortcomings of life, energy, dimensionality and top-end extension ended up unreasonably close to where they'd been when we first arrived. Watching the two in concert was a free master class lesson in the higher aspects of expert system tuning.


View the culprit cord in the lower right picture. Once a frustrated Lloyd had asked the owner whether he could temporarily replace it with a Silent Source unit he'd brought with him just in case, everything locked in and within 15 minutes, an exhausted Lloyd & Fred had settled on the final table calibrations and the system cooked.


The before-and-after differences of this rig which had just recently arrived at its current product mix and was thus still in a state of relative flux were truly staggering. What had been hard and flat at first had given way to truly ferocious dynamics, extremely impactful bass, excellent depth and a touch of sweetness that had been MIA before. It was obvious to me that this speaker utterly lacks a voice of its own and thus becomes a pure conduit for whatever it is fed. Something as apparently trivial as one lone power cord on the partnering amp could completely upset the overall balance to impress upon anyone prepared to go this kind of financial distance the absolute need to get everything just so. Alvin Lloyd of Grand Prix Audio once told me that race car drivers change tires each time the car leaves the stall even if it goes for a measly mile only. They adjust tire pressure for each track and alter it when external temperatures change. What really transpires in these pit stops naturally goes far beyond these simpleton examples but they still illustrate that when you're competing for the checkered flag, you better have all of your ducks in a perfect line.

In the final analysis, I believe that Mike will eventually change his electronics. From what I heard at Lloyd's and know from various reviews, his turntable is as good as it gets. From what I heard here, I also believe that the speakers are non-pareil and beyond reproach. While the presentation now had body and flow -- dynamics and scale were never an issue at all -- it still lacked that certain ephemeral something that transform an excellent system into one that makes the magic. Both Lloyd and Fred vouchsafed that the previous installation around the X1s and Tenors monos had been Major-Juju-Goose-Bump-Central. They wouldn't have touched it with a feather. With speakers now even superior to the mighty X1s, all that remains for Mike is to find the perfectly copasetic pre/amp mates to regain that elusive magic. He'll then have a system not only the envy of reviewers everywhere -- it already is that -- but also that of even the most demanding and discerning of music lovers in the world.


With an enviable collection of vinyl and immaculate taste in music, Mike's all set to commandeer 6moons' J10 spot for the kind of exclusive HighEnd kit nobody else on the team could responsibly accommodate either for lack of space, experience, partnering equipment or all of the above. Look for Mike's debut review on the Walker Audio Proscenium Gold Signature turntable as a piece of upscale electronics he's intimately familiar with as the front-end crown jewel in a 25-year+ audiophile career. Don't be surprised to see him follow it up with an amplifier or preamp review - we just have to research exactly what might fit his particular bill. Welcome aboard, Mike!

PS: Depending on reader response and possible invites, this first-ever Forbidden Fruit Tour might see future installments. Your scribe had a blast and is ready for seconds if the right group of geographically kindred audiophiles steps forward to allow me to put together an equivalent adventure again.


PPS: In case you're still wondering whose posthumous remains to stuff into your bong, the author of that juicy quote was Rashaan Roland Kirk, a black and blind cat of unusual creativity who could play three wind instruments at once and worked at the cutting edge of Jazz of his time.