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| First Celestion Speaker - c.1925 |
Hello there! Been gallivanting west for the gritty, and east for the nitty, and chasing after pixie dust left and right ("All you need is faith, trust, and pixie dust." - Peter Pan) took me to strange climes and faraway shores. Rather than bore you with a blow-by-blow commentary, let me distill things to the essential minimum.
Back to the Past
Any thoughts on modern hi-fi audio are likely to lead back to that legendary name -- Jean Hiraga (1943 - ) Born to a French mother and a Japanese father, his life took a really enviable path. It was after completing his education that young Jean decided to move to Japan to join his father. It was that journey which transformed young Jean into the Godfather of modern hi-fi and the torch bearer of audio DIY.
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Jean Hiraga
(pic courtesy - 6 Moons) |
Post-war Japan in those days was in extreme flux in every field of human activity and endeavour. We know how one-man start-ups like Yamaha, Sony and a slew of others soon grew into giants in the electronics field and dominated the world with their innovative products. Companies, universities and talented individuals were researching and exploring the latest developments that filtered to the land from the West, particularly the United States. It was into this super-charged atmosphere that young Jean landed, and his impressionable and extremely gifted mind absorbed all that like a sponge.
It did not take long before Jean Hiraga migrated to the mesmerising world of audio. The science of audio reproduction was growing by leaps and bounds, and young Hiraga was captivated by the "new sound" of Directly Heated Triode amplifiers and exotic horn speakers that captivated the audiences of large cinema and public halls. Soon his enthusiasm and brilliance made him a specialist in anything and everything in audio.
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| L'Audiophile Editorial Office |
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| Demo at L'Audiophile |
Of course, in one corner of his heart he had a cherished relationship with France, his Motherland, the land of culture, style and fashion and everything that was 'nouveau' (modern or up-to-date). In the West research at the time was confined to the laboratories of major corporations and companies -- unlike what was happening in Japan at the time, supercharged by the brilliance of a million minds. Young Hiraga yearned to share his euphoria with the world at large. And thus began his epochal writings in the French hi-fi magazine 'Revue du Son'. His contributions in the 1960s could well be said to have laid the foundations of modern hi-fi concepts and practices.
Realizing his extra-ordinary brilliance and acumen, France wanted to re-possess the young technologist. He was offered the editorship of the prestigious French audio journal "L’Audiophile" (est: 1977). The rest, as they say, is history. And what history! Hiraga's brilliant forays into all aspects of audio design, including state-of-the-art amplifiers and novel loudspeakers, and hi-fi concepts in general, can truly be said to have established French high end Hi-Fi on an enviable pedestal. France, in a word, was leading the world of hi-fi from the front.
Even today Hiraga's timeless designs thrill audiophiles no end, and there are devoted followers of his who revel in the re-construction of many of his designs using rare original parts from those yesteryears. Every hi-fi / DIY forum has quite a few pages devoted to Hiraga's designs. The fact that today among audiophiles, names like Le Monstre and Hiraga Super-30 trigger euphoric reactions is ample testament to the brilliance and vision of the great designer and DIY guru.
DIY- the Japanese Roots that Matter
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| Typical Japanese Home Hi-Fi |
The post-war era saw the widespread adoption of American technologies in Japan's entertainment (primarily cinema) field. The fast expanding nascent market was dominated by cinema/entertainment giants like Western Electric, RCA, Jensen, JBL, University Speakers (USA), Celestion, Tannoy (UK) etc. Naturally American brands had monopolized Japan at the time, and the standard of "good sound" was set quite often by Jensen with its giant Ultraflex speaker with a 15 inch bass driver. (How many of us know that Jensen drivers were what powered the first Fender guitar amps in the 1940s?) But most of these thundering loudpspeakers had one major flaw -- their bass-reflex cabinets were "boom boxes". Almost any bass signal fed into it invariably came out as "single note" bass. (Even today we have many bandpass LF units from respected brands that sound impressive at first listen, but soon tire us with their single-note thumps.)
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Typical Theatre Speaker
of yesteryears |
Looking at DIY, which even in those early days, was attracting the hobbyist tinkerer, one thing is very clear. DIY attempts in the West usually centred around obtaining "brand-like" performance at a steep cut in costs -- the labour came free! But as we all know, research was centred around the labs of huge corporations, they paid little heed to the labours of the humble "man in the street".
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| The Ultraflex Plans |
However, the situation was totally different in Japan at the time when young Hiraga landed there. Japan was teeming with individual researchers and entrepreneurs, many of whom were musicians or classical music enthusiasts. Yamaha, Sony and a slew of other companies started by enthusiasts and who hankered after quality set the benchmark in many audio developments, and were instrumental in raising the bar of performance worldwide. Moreover, the Japanese theatre going public had finer sensibilities (probably as a result of their cultural background) and naturally they demanded the best!
DIY -- Footprints to Follow
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| A Beautiful Onken Classic |
A key factor in hi-fi development was that many Japanese companies were only happy to make available to the hobbyist their latest products for experimentation and improvement. Researchers and hobbyists, often disappointed by the high-priced brands, turned to DIY to obtain higher performance at reasonable costs. Very soon Japanese DIY masters proved beyond doubt that DIY was the "true way" to obtain uncompromised audio excellence. This, naturally, given the state of the Japanese industry, was a two-way street, and soon truly outstanding equipment designed by DIY gurus began to transform the theatre sound into what could be called "early hi-fi". Names of pioneering greats like Eijiro Koizumi, Tetsuo Nagaoka, Akihito Kaneta, Susumu Sakuma and many others have to be remembered with bowed heads by today's generation, as it is on the shoulders of these giants that the foundation of modern fidelity rests. It may also be noted that all of them were active contributors to the famous Japanese audio journal MJ Audio, which had a cult following in Japan and abroad.
Our first project too has an "umbilical connection" to this era. In those days, theatre sound bass meant the Jensen Ultraflex, or its many copies from other American brands. Truly the theatres "boomed" with the sound of these giant speakers behind the silver screen. But the boom sounded too "boomy" to Koizumi San, who set to work with an entirely new concept. Soon Japanese thetres resounded with the pure and life-like sound of "true bass" put out by the huge Onken speakers of his design. The Onken wave overtook Japan almost overnight. But today though many are not familiar with the name of the great master Koizumi, there is a devoted following in the West for his Onken-ported designs. This, it has to be underlined, happened chiefly as a result of the series of articles published by Jean Hiraga. Koizumi and his Onken design would have been left on the wayside had it not been for the exposure given to this epochal design by Hiraga. Yes, our humble project is one that uses Koizumi San's Onken concept.
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Cover of Nagaoka's book
Art of Speaker Design |
Nagaoka was another great man from the era, who designed and built more than 600 speaker designs with his own hands. He was rightly famous all over the world, and today his name is perpetuated by his association with the Fostex speaker driver brand and also with that of the Olson-Nagaoka back-loaded horn speaker. (Harry Olson was an RCA researcher and author of seminal works on audio.)
Akihito Kaneda is today remembered and revered for his many great amplifier designs, both tube and solid state. His book "Self-made Audio for the Music Fan" soon garnered fans all over the western world and even in developing countries like Malaysia and India. It was a veritable Bible for enthusiasts who wanted to follow the best practices in design to obtain uncoloured sound.
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| Kaneda's Book Cover |
The quirkiest among these past masters was perhaps Susumu Sakuma, master Chef, Poet and Amp designer/builder. He ran the 'Concorde Restaurant' in the seaside small town Tateyama, a couple of hours by train from Tokyo. Concorde was the "go to" watering place for audio enthusiasts. The main 'serving' at the restaurant was the great music played on the amplifiers hand-crafted by the master -- the menu was unchanging, Hamburger steak being the signature food (actually the only food available at the Concord)!
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| Sakuma San |
For days he would meditate at his small table in Concorde, and would start building the amp on the restaurant table with simple tools once the entire circuit was clear in his mind. The build itself was sort of a Zen mediation for him. He was a votary of Direct Heated tubes , with all stages coupled by inter-stage transformers made by Tamura. And his amps were always monophonic!
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Sakuma Book Cover
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Sakuma San's writing style was poetic, not at all like a typical article in an audio magazine. It usually opened and closed with a poem of his, and the articles talked about audio, poetry, film, and music. He was perhaps the only man who demonstrated his amplifier as an audio concert in Japan, Milan, Paris and Seattle to packed audiences. A legend truly. The 76 year old master bid goodbye to the world on 14th December 2018, leaving behind a rich legacy. His memory is perpetuated by the website Direct Heating. (
https://www10.big.or.jp/~dh/ )
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Sakuma San's fully transformer coupled
monophonic tube amplifier |
In short it may safely be said that the uniquely creative developments in the Japanese audio scene were what triggered the growth of hi-fi, particularly "high class fidelity" achieved as a DIY product in Europe and the West. Hiraga was at the centre of this tectonic shift, masterminding the movement with his contributions and audio demonstrations. The rest, as they say, is history!
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Jean Hiraga, Katsutaro Anzai at the
Tokyo Audio Fair, 1972 |
Today DIY audio is peopled by enthusiasts who adroitly juggle the latest technologies, and whose esoteric designs often surpass the performance of commercial products. Surely we owe an immense debt of gratitude to the pioneers and gurus of yesteryears like Hiraga and the Japanese masters who shaped our vision of fidelity.
What we are attempting to do here is to follow in the footsteps of those greats in our own humble way.
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