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Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Gotorama - some newly found stuff



In the last days, after re-installing the long-due and deeply missed Thomas Mayer's preamp and Franz's Partridge/300B monoblocks in my new studio, I noticed a new sonic feature I wasn't previously aware of: the improved quality of the Goto's drivers, last but not least the mighty SG-570 mid-low with the large S-150 horn allowed me to reach, after about 30 hours use, a much welcome new level of low-end resolution.

Strange, because - and despite the new room - every time a new piece of gear enters my audio system, I'm still able to recognize it: sometimes subtle, sometimes more palpable, yet FIRMLY true.

Gotorama, a playful, joyous, innocent nickname for my whole audio system is something deeper than plain, childish kidding: several musicians I personally know give to their most beloved instrument a nickname... a violin, a guitar, a tenor-sax, a piano... it's a friendly humanization of these wooden & metal artifacts, something which gives a grateful nearness to what these "callers" are able to do... nothing less than producing music.

Other music and audio lovers I know did the same with their systems... nicknames as various as creativity.

Gotorama... to make it short, folks: I had goose-bumps when, while listening to a record I know into its very inner details - i.e. "Jimmy Giuffre 3 - 1961" on ECM vinyl - I heard for the VERY first time a weird low-end effect.

Steve Swallow's nice double bass plays on a track (Cry, Want - on Thesis' side two) hitting some open, unfretted strings... I remember, I'm 120 percent sure, I previously only heard some "boom, boom" sounds... NOW, after the right hand hitting the E low string, it's clearly audible a new, fluctuating deep sound: it's the open string still vibrating in the studio air, as captured by the microphone... a sort of "wowowow" very low-pitched undertone to the fundamental E note.

Truly impressive.

I repeated this on a couple of Rudolph Streicher double-bass and piano discs I had handy in my studio, and, you'd bet it, on both the Telefunken's discs, after some definite low notes, again appeared these "ghost-like" undertones.

What happened? New drivers in my system allowed me a better, improved resolution or the larger room allows a better low frequencies propagation and expression than my smaller room at home... or, last but not least, I'm a cleaner, better listener now than I used to be in the (near) past, so I'm now aware of details I previously wasn't?

All the above? Can't say... but enjoying.

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