From our Dutch contributors Marja & Henk, we present you with their combined musical wisdom garnered over the last few years in their lofty loft in Rotterdam.
Our End of Year overview -- where 'year' is not strictly a period of 365 days -- is divided into three parts: Hardware; Software; and Miscellaneous. Even though we now have three categories, none of them is able to stand alone. All are intimately connected to each other. Hardware provides the means to bring the software to life. Miscellaneous sets the environment in which both have to act. Together these three components should transport the listener, us, into a certain state of ecstasy. An analogy of this is a fountain, with three sprays set up to keep a ball suspended as high as possible. If any of the three sprays is out of balance, the ball will tumble: Ecstasy gone. This means that the tuning of these three components is crucial to our happiness. Topnotch software, music, played back on mediocre hardware results in a lower state of ecstasy/height of the ball because the third component from the miscellaneous sector should balance with the hardware component and thus elevate the software in quality.
In our perception, everything can and has to be tuned to satisfaction. This tuning in itself is fun, fun & fun as Right Said Fred sung. Finding the right combination of ingredients for food, drink, music, love - in other words, LIFE... isn't that the purpose of living? This quest can take us to unknown areas, let us endure hardships and despair but also bring us joy and all the various stages of ecstasy. We have to borrow a little from the Sufis. The Sufi sees the end of the quest as the journey itself. Each person chooses his own path, be it Kama, Artha, Dharma, or Moksha as these facets are called in Sanskrit. Kama is love, Artha is money, Dharma is one's duty and Moksha is the work for paradise. We combine these four on our journey. But let's get back to the ground floor and describe some of our findings along the way.


Hardware 1: The Avantgarde DUO

We had reached a respectable level on the scale of ecstasy with the combination of an Audio Note Meishu, AN DAC2, CEC TL5100 disc spinner and AN-J/sp loudspeakers, bi-wired with AN copper and silver interlinks. A substantial part of our generated income was spent on accompanying software and life was good. Until, that is, we visited Triode et Company in Paris, France!

This outlet in the vicinity of the Periferique, the Paris circular, inventories Audio Note next to a treasure trove of tubes, capacitors and sundry other joys for the inveterate solder slinger. But the most stunning experience occurred when proprietor Philip Heitz invited us for a listening session that combined Audio Note with the Avantgarde Acoustic DUO horns. To make a long story short, we returned to Philip's more than once and in the meantime walked the way of Artha, money, to become proud owners of a pair of blue DUOs.

The DUO is an extraordinary loudspeaker. The unique concept of the spherical horn design, the strong magnets and the accompanying (sub)woofer coupled with stunning looks make it a true work of art. All music played with -- or better, through -- this loudspeaker is so much more involving than with most other designs. Microdynamics are produced with such ease that you merely have to close your eyes to enjoy the illusion of the performer actually sharing the room with you.

On the downside, the DUO is not an easily set up loudspeaker. The German designers have integrated so many tunable parameters that it takes a long time to get everything right. The height of the two horns is adjustable inside their rack. The (sub)woofer has volume and crossover controls and the whole affair can be single-wired, bi-wired or even tri-wired. All options have their own specific sound characteristic. So, basically, the DUO is a variety of loudspeakers all by its lonesome.

Hardware 2: 18-gauge jeweler's grade silver wire

Trotting the path on our journey to ecstasy, we met pilgrim Harvey Rosenberg, aka Dr. Gizmo. He told us of the unknown riches of silver wire. Instead of handing over piles of greenbacks for a length of high-end cable -- or, in our case, the despicable euro -- why not build one for yourself? Dr. Gizmo had a most excellent point there. On the next trip to New York, we went over to 47th Street and entered Myron Toback's. This purveyor to the jeweler's world stores, among thousands of shiny articles, various gauges of pure fine silver. Gizmo advised to use 18AWG, or 1mm Ø in the metric system, for high-level speaker cable. At $10 the ounce, the price is fantastic. $250 gives you a 100 meter spool of the stuff. These prices are approximate so check their site for details.


The best insulation is no insulation, air insulation second-best to vacuum. An article in a French magazine, about some Japanese audiomaniacs, informed us about the use of pure silk for cable insulation. Finding enough silk sleeves was not an easy task - cotton cord was much easier. Every good supplier of garment or furnishing accessories should have this cord in stock. Ours came from Bouchara in Paris, about 4mm thick and available in the most bizarre colors. Simply cut the silver to length, cut a slightly shorter length of cord and insert the silver into the cotton sleeve. Making a little loop at the end of the wire prevents it from getting stuck inside the fabric while fishing it through. Some shrink tubing fixes the sleeve to the wire and insures that the wire does not retract into the cotton. Then you're faced with the question of To Terminate or Not. Being no great fans of Arnold, we went for the less-is-more approach, with bare wire connecting to amp and speakers. And forget the myth of oxidizing. Silver oxide makes for a great conductor. Blackening should be no problem as long as you live on this side of Hell. Blackening is caused by sulfur vapors; if you watch your diet, this shouldn't be an issue.

And the sound? Amazing. We mono-, bi- and tri-wired the Avantgardes and our conclusion became that tri-wiring is best: Open, quick, clean, not harsh and very, very affordable. Instead of one meter of branded esoteric garden hose, you can experiment with half a mile of fine silver for the same price. Not satisfied? You can always convert the cable into a necklace or Brillo pad!

Hardware 3: The sound of music is the sound of the moment - so roll those tubes.

What is your mood? At home, your mood determines your choice of music. Contrary to a concert venue, we are free to make our own choices. We become our own program managers and have no worries -- or worries at least on a smaller scale -- over the size and cost of the orchestra we must hire for special occasions. We even become our own conductors. Just dive into the record annex' CD storage and pick what you and your co-listener fancy. But, like us, you can take it farther. For high-ecstasy listening, we turn to our Musicule® Spice Rack. Just as the equivalent kitchen rack allows, we flavor our music to the moment's likes. Sometimes you wish for savory, sometimes for sweet - all of which can be satisfied with the Musicule® Spice Rack.

What is this thing? Well, simply put, it is a collection of various makes and vintages of 300B triode. This limits our particular Musicule® Spice Rack to certain amps. In our rack, we have tubes by Audio Note, JJ, AVVT, Svetlana and KR. All possess their own musical flavor. Most of the time, we play either the AVVT or KR valves. The KR 300BXLS is based on the original Western Electric 300B design but Count Ricardo Kron took development far beyond. And although retaining typical 300B characteristic, his variant adds so much more: Bass extension, dynamics, a lower noise floor by eliminating a good deal of microphonics and, not unimportantly, an extended lifetime. The original design sported a mere handful of parts inside the glass glove; the KR uses 32 elements for the cathode alone. The extended lifetime and linearity are achieved with vacuum Torr figures not even found in outer space.


Hardware 4: TacT RCS 2.0 room correction device

We had the opportunity to review the TacT RCS 2.0 room correction system. It's a machine to tweak the musical signal in response to room acoustics and thus involves use of a PC. Too good to be true? At the time, the enclosed software did not like Windows 2000 and had to run under the NT version cloak, involving some addressing of capabilities at a certain firm in Redmond/Washington. Compatibility, anybody; multi-version support? Anyway, we eventually managed to coax NT into running and loaded the TacT software. Cables were rolled out to connect the PC to the RCS and insert the RCS between transport and DAC in full digital mode.

Manipulating the musical signal in the digital domain presents no problem in our view. The lack of musical skills with many so-called sound technicians, the mediocre production values and sometimes even worse pressings all validate the act. The TacT includes a dedicated microphone with calibration parameters that are input via the PC program, with the mike connected to the RCS. The whole procedure couldn't be simpler. You open a new measurement directory and start the procedure which sends a series of clicks first to the left channel, then -- after the PC receives the results -- the right while your computer screen displays a graphical representation of these measurement.


Ours equaled a nice Himalayan mountain ridge, with high peaks in the 60Hz region, a nice dip at the 170Hz woofer-mid crossover point and a quite steep roll-off in the 18kHz range. Ouch.

The RCS is capable of storing 9 different target curves to correct the measured room response, using some pretty fast DSP chips to do this job and providing a number of target curves on the enclosed CD/ROM to act as a basis for more elaborately tweaked curves. Don't aim for ruler-flat response. A slight rise in the lows and a gradual downward slope from 8KHz to 18Khz (beyond which roll-off became more pronounced) turned out to be in accordance with the way we humans hear.
Switching between bypass and desired response curve is stunning. The soundstage locks and everything falls into place. Timing is more exact, timbre and texture are more palpable - in brief, it works like a charm in our environment, bearing in mind that our setup was far from ideal, with an L-shaped room and the speakers along the long side of the L. Since then we've rearranged things and the speakers are now out in the room, at the topside of the L, with the listening position located at the base of the L, minimizing the influence of the RCS after protracted setup routines. For any room not suitable for perfect speaker positioning due to whatever reason -- and don't start about spousal objections because then you're really messing up -- the TacT RCS 2.0 is a killer tweak.


Software 1: The Lucho Label

Why do so many fellow seekers for ecstasy leave the path so early? Is it fair? It's a fact of life for sure - but still!... One of those leaving us too early is Ab de Jong, producer for his own record label Lucho. This label in turn was named after a friend who left the path. It was this Lucho who introduced Ab to a variety of Latin musicians and music. Either living in Holland or flown in to cut an album, Lucho found the most intriguing artists and styles. Combined with uncompromised recording and pressing quality, the Lucho label was pretty successful. Styles covered range from Argentinean tango to Brazilian Forro, from Spanish flamenco to Surinam kaseko.


Many artists got their jumpstart on Lucho and are now recording with bigger labels or -- if clever -- remain independent and do it themselves. Among the highlights of this obscure label are the two CDs covered in Srajan's portion of this report, of a unique concert Astor Piazzolla and Osvaldo Pugliese gave together in Amsterdam. Lucho also brought another form of art to the audiophile scene. By asking famous Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte to do the cover art for the CDs, many cartoon lovers discovered the music behind the artwork. Some CD sleeves are now such high-priced collector's items that we have no choice but to make copies of the CDs if a thorough search for the real deal comes up empty-handed.

Software 2: ExactAudioCopy

As mentioned above, sometimes you have to make a copy of a CD. Be it for archiving or cultural exchange, the copy should be of the very best quality to do the music and its creators justice. Many music lovers use popular CD writer software like Nero or WinOnCd. But are we to be happy with their results? Not. This is not always due to the PC software. Many problems stem from store-bought, factory-made, official overpriced CDs!
With a PC -- no Mac version yet -- a package called ExactAudioCopy confirms the trouble with official CDs. Start with a good CD reader, preferably a SCSI version of one of the better makes like Plextor. Read the desired CD tracks with ExactAudioCopy to a dedicated disk drive in your PC. Hard drives are cheap nowadays so 100GBs of storage is no longer a problem. You will notice that EAC adjusts the processing speed according to the quality of the CD read. Certain portions of a CD are read at top speed, other parts or tracks may take up to half an hour or even more! The purpose of EAC is to get the best possible copy of the RedBook material and transfer it to hard disk. If desired, the captured data can be edited to further enhance the results. After this, a copy can be burned to CD, again preferably via a SCSI burner of the better makes.

This EAC software is a must for all serious music lovers. It can elevate the quality of many store-bought CDs and so the joy of listening to them. And what about the possibility of making a compilation of your own favorite music for fellow seekers on the path, strictly noncommercial of course? Best of all, EAC is still absolutely free - the author is happy with a postcard and nice stamp to register!

Software 3: Patrick Bruel Entre Deux

How does France enter the picture now? First, the French invented -- or otherwise appropriated -- good food and drink. In the miscellaneous part, we will mention some of it. Next, they have language and attitude. In recent political events, we all have de- or appreciated their own minds. They also produce various products with a distinctive style. We love their cars and have been driving them from the day we were legally allowed: The Deux Cheveaux; the DS (pronounced day-esseh; la deesse, the goddess); the SM with the terrible Maserati engine but sleek looks of a spaceship. Driving one of these cars is a feast. Driving through Paris in such a car is heavenly and scores high on the ecstasy scale.

French music is a different beast. Chauvinists as they are, the lyrics are in French. That has -- at least for us -- two advantages. Our French is reasonable but not perfect. We still must translate on the spot, intuitive comprehension remains futuristic. So listening to French music eliminates the distractions of stupid lyrics. The language barrier obscures things like "The sky is blue, I love you, be my baby" which is dynamite. Now you can concentrate on the sound of the voice and the accompanying music.
All-time favorites are Michel Fugain and Patrick Bruel. Fugain, with his powerful and entertaining songs, started in the 70s with his troop Big Bazar and has developed ever since, with Bruel rediscovering his roots in classic 30s/40s French chansons, duetizing with Charles Aznavour, Danielle Darrieux or Kahimi Karie and Django/Hot Club de France-style guitars. In the right mood, his Entre Deux double CD is spot-on.

Software 4: Carel Kraayenhof Street Tango

A special reward here goes to Carel Kraayenhof, the Dutch bandoneon meister. Carel started off as a punk playing the harmonica in Irish folk bands. The moment he heard the bandoneon and tango, he was completely hooked. Coincidental meetings with an Argentinean expatriate resulted in his first real bandoneon. Hard-earned money allowed his travels to Argentina where he studied with the best of the best to master the bandoneon whose left hand mimics a cello, the right more of a brass section. The logic behind the placement of the buttons -- if indeed there is any -- is hard to grasp. Back in Holland, his income shrunk back to nothing and he and his wife lived with her parents. Although he recorded some CDs with his Sexteto Cayengue on Lucho, it took until 2002 when Carel was invited to play at the wedding ceremony of Dutch crown prince Alexander and his Argentinean wife Maxima. The emotions of ecstasy culminated in Maxima being brought to tears by the piece "Adios Nonino", images of which went all across the globe.

This success was followed by the SACD Tango Royal on the Dutch Pentatone label. This multi channel hybrid has sold like hot cakes and at last Carel made some money which he partly re- invested in various Argentinean projects like a music school in Buenos Aires. The Tango Royal effort lacks the spontaneity of previous recordings, is more soft and rounded and aimed at more popular and commercial appeal. Alas, Carel is back now with his Sexteto in Street Tango, a wonderful project that's been on his mind for a long time. Around 1987, Carel was asked by Astor Piazzolla to play the bandoneon in Astor's Broadway musical Tango Apasionado. This musical was inspired by a Louis Borges story, "Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night". It chronicles big-city life and sports parallels to Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story".

Now Carel Kraayenhof has arranged and recorded pieces of Piazzolla's and Bernstein's musicals side by side. Street Tango [Decca 038-367-2] is receiving our High-Energy-Leading-To-Ecstasy Award in which Carel, his sextet and a chamber music orchestra move the tango to Beyond Tango. From our listening notes we quote: "This version of Bernstein's "Prologue" is the most haunting, scary and gripping version ever. It's playing now at high volumes and the spaciousness and depth are uncannily realistic. You should only play this track on the very best of equipment - the transients and percussion in "Rumble" are scarily dynamic."

Street Tango comes with a bonus, too. For the 18 euros we forked over for this beauty, it included a DVD video, a real tango road movie as Carel and company travel to Buenos Aires to perform at the 10th anniversary of Piazzolla's death. Through the bankrupt city, we follow Carel in his search for tango's essence. Street shot are mixed with concert cuts and Carel as narrator tells us about the origin of tango. We also meet the widow of Osvaldo Pugliese who has become a sort of grandmother to Carel. A wonderful detail is clarinetist Louis Sclavis playing some of the background music.

Miscellaneous

The third spray of our illusional fountain that keeps the ball of ecstasy up is the environmental part. What makes a listening session perfect? We already have selected the perfect music and married it to the hardware to reproduce it as best as we can afford, borrow, steal or otherwise obtain for that cherished moment. The mood of the music is the basic ingredient that determines the environmental settings. Contemplative music is served with dimmed lights and sandalwood fragrances. Here we play Shakti, Vishwas Mohan Bhatt or Bach. Citrus scents and open curtains to allow the view over Rotterdam with all of its lights make room for more urban sounds. Rock, some ambient cuts and even Luka Bloom come to mind. For live concerts like Live around the world with Miles Davis or, something with Frank Zappa somewhere (no overdubs!), the lights dim halfway and the curtains are drawn.

Lights have to be adjustable but no electronic dimmers should impact the electrical circuitry. Our 200-watt halogens can be gradually adjusted from a warm, deep orange to a blistering white. When walls and ceiling are painted or decorated with anything but white (e.g. sand-colored), you may light the room in any color you wish. Of course the clothing you wear or don't wear should be comfortable. Why not adjust its style to the origin of the music? Try a caftan, put on a fez, make a fool of yourself - but above all, get into the music.

And now for the internal seeker. Start your listening session with a healthy but not heavy meal as you might doze off otherwise. How about great pasta? Boil it to perfection, al dente, by using great dried pasta like Barilla and add it to boiling salted water. Bring the water back to the boil, let it boil for no more than 2 minutes and then remove the pan from the heat. Now observe the suggested steaming period with the lid still on. When that time's up, draining of the water leaves perfect pasta. Add a light sauce of freshly chopped baby tomatoes, basil, a little olive oil and some raisins. Transfer the lot into a bowl pre-rubbed with a garlic clove and presto: Bon appetite!

After dinner, those who (still) smoke shouldn't intake the heavy stuff for this occasion. A Cuban can be overwhelming, let alone the greener varieties of smoke ware. For drinks, only settle for the best. We personally recommend - yes, champagne, the bubbly stuff from France, making a great companion for almost all occasions, whether happy or sad. Always have a bottle in the fridge. Our choice? Brut as brut can be. The so-called non-dosee champagnes do not contain added sugars. Sold as Ultra Brut, they really are the best. The small winery of Jacques Selosse in Avize and Cramant has some beautiful super bruts. A more accessible champagne is Moet et Chandon Brut Imperial. Do not go for the Moet et Chandon Brut White Star as that is a sweeter version specifically marketed to Americains...

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