I make no secret of loving tubes. Perhaps I wear this infatuation around me like a cheap perfume. I woulda said aftershave, but I'm sporting a beard - facial hair, as one employer once lamented with distaste. However he did it, Walter sensed this character flaw and proceeded to teach me a lesson in humility. Ready?

Behold the future of ultrahigh power SET amplification married to power-factor-corrected switchmode power supplies: The 3000-watt 3XC3000 triode by EIMAC, A.U.S. Company, to be employed in zero-feedback mode in Walter's upcoming 300-watt single-ended triode monoblock. Loafing at 1/10th of capacity, it still will be the most powerful consumer-audio SET ever committed to production. If you can stay celibate for just one brief year, Walter may build one for you. That votes me out --what can I say -- but the sheer audacity of this project is a thing of mindboggling grandeur.

Back in the real world of $1,200 purchases, Walter's finalizing a product that will allow its owners to access global news -- sports, finance, politics -- via Internet radio. He explained that there are presently 150 Million short-wave users tapping into local or foreign talk-radio stations. He's assembled a staggeringly comprehensive database of all stations, around the world, that offer streaming web content.


Walter isn't talking music. The Feds have short-circuited that route by assessing user fees. However, said fees don't extend to talk radio. Walter envisions his monaural NBS radio as a tabletop device gleaming in shades of Platinum, chrome and silver, preprogrammed with all the access codes of the participating worldwide stations. Forget antennas, multiplexing, signal fade or adjacent channel interference - this signal would come in over the phone line.


This bit of delectable info was so far outside my field of expertise that I didn't know what kind of questions to ask, concerns to voice, dire warnings of impossible pursuits to raise. In other words, I was dumbfounded, smart repartees in the deep freeze upstairs. So rather than giving you an X-ray-vision skinny, I'm leaving you with this mere teaser; of a futuristic device that takes computer-derived global Internet connectivity and applies it to open-access international news.

Walter, in parting, give us your condensed mission statement for NBS that resulted in your Nome-de-guerre Nothing But Signal.

I started NBS 14 years ago with the $1,000/pr Serpent interconnect that was based on tuned shielding and hand-braided Litz construction for common mode rejection. What I'm going after, in all of my designs, is the elimination of noise that otherwise overlays the music signal and curtails dynamic range, thus expressiveness.


Noise is the enemy. Noise is the unnecessary baggage that most systems carry around like backpackers scaling a crest loaded up with stones - it kills the experience. In audiophile terms, it kills clarity, speed and dynamics. Your portrayal of me as some kind of saintly fellow (giggles) is of course humorous, no offense taken. But what I sense you're aiming at is accurate - music's my religion, my means to connect. It's where my talents and interests converge, where I regenerate, where I get inspired to pursue extremes for that added jolt of reality. I believe you've noted that listening to my system. In fact, I know you did - I saw your face. (Giggles again.)

Damn, I was so gone. I've never taken any drugs in this life. But I swear that listening to music in the right frame of heart alters your blood chemistry and brainwave activity - the same effects certain drugs are said to produce. So I'm an addict. Sue me. But it's the kind of addiction that causes no hangovers, doesn't impact your physical health and can be practiced until the very end if one doesn't abuse one's hearing.

That's so. Nobuko's wired the same way. There aren't many people that respond to music this strongly. It's always a pleasure to meet new members of our tribe. Thanks for the opportunity to share my vision of sound and music with the two of you.

Thank you, Walter. It was an experience I won't forget anytime soon.