One Man’s Dream Redux

Fred Crowder’s system

In 2022, Fred Crowder and I travelled to California to hear a cost-no-object system, from which came Fred’s article, “One Man’s Dream”.  It was a celebration of one man’s journey through audiophilia toward an incandescent experience of recorded music.

Fred’s own journey was similar, even if not involving quite the same cash outlay, and the results have been amazing to hear.  I know, because I live down the street from Fred, and we get together about once a week for a listening session.  My system is no slouch for a normal audiophile (if there is such a creature).  But for a serious music lover (and ex-musician) such as myself to be able to walk a few hundred feet and find a sizable room centered around a pair of Acapella Triolon Excaliburs run by Audio Note and EMM gear is too much to be simple coincidence.

Thus, Fred’s own journey seems absolutely worth discussing.  First, though, a few comments about Fred’s listening goals and preferences.

Fred’s primary focus in listening for most of his life has been classical music.  However, he came of age during the years of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, etc., and couldn’t help but be influenced by the pop music of the era.  And, especially as he became involved with the audiophile community, he became increasingly exposed to jazz.  Now, he listens to all of the above.  More than anything, though, the greatest influence on the development of Fred’s ear has been the experience of listening to live music, which he does regularly, be it classical (in particular) or jazz.  Houston is blessed with a number of venues offering classical music including, but not limited to, the Houston Symphony, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and the Houston Grand Opera.

Between listening in the concert hall and observing the positives and negatives of reproduced music, he has, first off, learned what real musical instruments sound like.  Second, this listening has convinced him that reproduced music rarely sounds quite the same as live music.  However, with the right equipment, carefully chosen and carefully matched, it is possible to create a satisfying illusion of the real thing.  And that is what he is striving for.  An illusion of real musical instruments – recognizing, of course, that, particularly with pop and some jazz, the music makers may be looking for something else, in which case, the goal is to reproduce that something else as convincingly as can reasonably be done.

Fred himself sums his goals simply and succinctly: “I became determined to build a system which could recreate, as closely as possible, the sound of live, unamplified music, particularly classical music and jazz.”

For Fred, there are three keys to convincing sound: detail, accuracy and timbre.  He listens for these not only in the sounds of the instruments but also wants to hear openness and air as well, as he would in a live setting.  All of these things together mean that his ear is concerned with an end result that involves a spacious soundstage, and clear imaging of the instruments – placement in space.  Fred was very attracted to holographic reproduction in his earlier years as an audiophile and continues to enjoy that effect when true to the music.  There is so much studio trickery involved in the recording process, however, that pure holography in effect is not always reliable.

Fred is also deeply attracted to size.  Hence his larger-than-average listening room, and the Acapella Triolon speakers he has been using for a number of years (which are taller than him or anyone else in the room and reproduce notably-sized images).  Size is one of the defining givens of Fred’s system.  The sound stage, when reproduced across most of a 17-foot back wall, can seem remarkably more “real” than most.

Fred has been working towards his dream of great reproduced sound since the late ‘70’s.  It has been a process of both educating his ears and educating his mind in the art of the possible.  Because of his work as an attorney for a major corporation, Fred traveled a great deal.  “Whenever I could work out the time,” Fred says, “I would find the best local stereo dealer and go listen.  Or audiophile shows.  He adds, however, that “I think I’ve learned more from having different very good systems in my home for periods of time than from hearing all of the systems I’ve heard at shows or demo rooms or even at other’s houses.”  For that reason, let’s spend some time looking at several of the systems Fred has had that have influenced him the most.

Dahlquist-based systems:

During the late ‘70’s, Fred acquired a pair of the legendary phased-array, open-baffle Dahlquist DQ-10’s.  For Fred (and this writer and many others during those years), the DQ-10s introduced us to a world of time-aligned accuracy, openness, and light that was intoxicating.  The imaging could be extraordinary, with proper placement.  The illusion of looking into the depth of a soundstage, as opposed to the relative flatness we were used to, was not only enormously attractive; it was an inspiration and driver for the quest that seemed to inevitably follow.

And that search would be almost inevitable.  The DQ-10s, wonderful as they were, tended to be difficult to properly amplify and control, particularly in the bass.  This would typically lead to experiments with various amplifiers and subwoofers and modifications, ultimately followed by frustration.  In Fred’s case, this frustration eventually led him to what he now remembers as his first great system:

The Apogee System:

This system was assembled in fits and starts as finances, and patience with experimentation, permitted.

Fred had the original Apogee 8’ ribbons driven by a pair of factory matched Levinson ML-3 amps and ML6B mono preamps.  The front end consisted of a Goldmund Studio turntable, Vandenhul Grasshopper cartridge and Vendetta 2T phono stage.  Fred comments that “this was probably the fastest, most resolving system that I have owned; however, it never had any bass below about 50 Hz and over time I noticed that I was listening less and less.”

The Crosby Quad System:

Further reading and listening convinced Fred that another approach to the sound he was seeking led him to, not just Quads, but Crosby-modified Quad 63’s.  These were mated with Entec LF 40 subwoofers, driven by a Richard Lees modified Spectral DMC 10 preamp and a Spectral DMA 100 amp, all of which were – eventually – driven by first a Goldmund Reference then a Rockport Sirius turntable.  Fred describes this system as “in many ways the best that I have owned, though it had its limitations.”  The Quad panels in this configuration also tended to arc.  Shipping for repair service was a “nightmare,” as Fred reports.  He finally sold the entire system, except for the Rockport.

Reviewing:

Fred was a busy guy.  He practiced as a transactional attorney doing large international construction deals and had a wife and two children to look after.  Nevertheless, Fred’s seriousness of purpose when it came to music, and the reproduction of same, led him to explore the possibility of reviewing equipment.  Reviewing offered several attractions: sampling equipment directly in his home, among other equipment he knew; contact with readers and other reviewers; and direct contact with designers and manufacturers.  Fred has been contributing reviews to Dagogo for some 17 years.  The system Fred has today come about largely as a result of his reviewing activities over those years.

Acapella Triolon Excalibur:

After the Crosby Quad system, Fred listened to various speakers as he traveled to shows, visited dealers, and heard excellent systems in the homes of the people he met.  The Acapella Triolon Excalibur, with their unique plasma tweeter system (which does not employ a cone, but instead relies on heating air molecules), captured his attention.  When he had an opportunity to acquire a second-hand pair, he jumped, instinctively.  It was a two-thousand-pound risk – the packing cases alone occupy almost half of his garage.  Yet he has never looked back.  And never needed to.

So, at this point, he had one of the best turntables of its day (and remaining so), and one of the finest speaker systems.  The problem was what to put in between.

It was during this odyssey that we discovered that we were neighbors and began to have regular listening sessions.  So, I was able to observe and participate in this process.  It was one of the most interesting and educational musical experiences of my listening life.

Rather than reciting all the many entrants into that process, I will move ahead to the two principal winning manufacturers:  EMM Labs (Canada) and Audio Note (UK).  More specifically, Fred’s system includes various combinations of the following EMM gear: EMM Labs PRE (updated), EMM Labs TX2 SACD/CD Transport; EMM Labs DA2i DAC; and EMM Labs MTRX Mono Blocks.  From Audio Note, he has: Audio Note M-10 Signature Pre-amp; Audio Note M-9 RIAA Signature Phono stage; Audio Note S-9 Silver wire Step-Up Transformer; and Audio Note Balanced Kegon Mono Blocks.

The EMM gear is all solid state.  The Audio Note is all vacuum tube based.  Can they work well together.  Well, actually, yes.  Really well.

For several years, the preamp and amps were all Audio Note.  However, when the EMM mono blocks were issued, Fred borrowed a pair to review.  (By this time, Fred had become friends with Ed Meitner, for whom the company is named.  Ed was curious about Fred’s reaction, which was published in Dagogo).  In short, Fred found that the EMM mono blocks did a superb job of taking the signal from the AN preamp, amplifying it with exceptional cleanliness, to move it along to the Triolons with remarkable clarity and ease (which is how I heard it as well- indeed, it was the best transistor amp sound that either of us had ever heard – mainly because it seemed to add no sound of its own).

That combination existed for several years, until Ed decided to upgrade the mono blocks.  So, while the amps were gone, Fred installed the EMM preamp and ran it into the AN Balanced Kegon amplifiers.  To both of our surprise, this combination turned out to be very similar to the reverse, described above.

Before moving to the issue of overall sound of the system, I should add a note about the remaining gear.  Fred uses a Lyra Atlas lambda SL cartridge – “The only cartridge I would consider owning,” he says.  He uses Jorma Prime interconnect and has stayed with it even over several alternatives he has tried.  “Extremely musical,” is Fred’s view.  He uses Nordost Odin 2 from the cartridge to the phono stage.  For some years, he has used various combinations of Stage III Concepts power cords, including the Poseidon, Proteus and Kraken.  No others have impressed him sufficiently to warrant changing.  Finally, he uses Halcyonics Isolation Bases for digital gear; Finite Elemente Pagode Reference equipment racks and amp stands, an HRS equipment rack, Ayra Labs RevOpods and the Orbius record weight, and Stillpoint Ultra 6’s in some settings.

The Sound

I can sum up my experience of Fred’s system quickly:

The soundstage is very large.  It occupies most of the 17 feet of width where the system sits.  It is also very tall – 7 feet or so, with a sense of infinity space in those recordings in which concert hall air is well-delineated.

The system reproduces timbre more fully and accurately than almost any other system I have heard (if the information is in the source).  For example, if you hear a clarinet in an orchestra, you will hear the whole clarinet – the woodiness, the “top” (meaning the air and the attacks), and the underbelly.  So many other systems focus primarily on the leading edge, and miss the warm, round, woody sound of the instrument.

If the source presents a holographic image, the system will reproduce it with excellent accuracy.  This seems to be particularly true in Golden Age Decca recordings.  (Fred is very fond of the Decca sound and views it as a model of fine reproduction.)  However, the imaging can be great with other labels, and with Redbook CDs, and, particularly, with SACDs played through the newly updated EMM DA2i.  (See the recent review published in Dagogo.)

While the system shines with excellent source material, an interesting development in the last few years is that the system accommodates less-than-excellent material as well.  It is almost as if the designers recognized that us listeners would from time-to-time want to listen to some particular musician or piece of music that was simply unavailable in a top notch recording and considered that in the voicing of the gear.  Of course, some records, or CDs, sound so lousy that we take them off rather than endure, but this rarely happens.  It used to happen more.

For serious listening with “life-size” images and at comparable volumes (though not fully life-size, of course – I just mean this as a general descriptor), there is no system that I – personally – enjoy more than this system that I have described that resides down the street from me.  However, in fairness to a few other systems, I can enjoy something different for different circumstances.  For example, I have a library system based around the relatively inexpensive Audio Note AN-K speakers and Oto integrated amp that I relish for less serious, lower-volume listening.  For that matter, I can enjoy listening in the car.  Music fits into my life – as it no doubt does with most readers – in more than one size and flavor.

Comparing the Acapella Sphaeron system

As noted earlier, Fred and I both had the opportunity to enjoy our friend Jim’s Acapella Sphaeron system not long after the pandemic ended.  The system was described in the “One Man’s Dream” article mentioned above and published in Dagogo in May 2022.  Comparing the two systems is an interesting exercise.

Jim’s room is much larger than Fred’s, and more resonant.  Consequently, near-field listening turned out to be the most rewarding at the time of our visit.  As described in the article, the system represented a greater investment than Fred’s system, yet with mostly related or similar gear.  Thus, it is not surprising that the tonal quality of the two systems bore a satisfying family resemblance.

In the near field, we listened at lower volumes.  The sound stage was smaller, as one might expect.  The delicacy and imaging were remarkable.  I felt as close to the actual musical event as I’ve likely ever felt with some of the material, particularly Oistrakh’s rendition of the Beethoven Violin Concerto No. 1 on an early Columbia SAX LP.  That particular listening experience, which was breath-taking, is firmly embedded in my musical memory.  (Indeed, since that time, I have experimented with near-field listening with some BBC-type monitors and am happy to report that it can be imitated – up to a point – for a considerably smaller investment.)

Earl Weed’s system

Near-field listening is a different experience than the life-size listening that Fred has sought to achieve.  A system that can produce the size and power of this type of system with a notable level of tonality and delicacy is a rare, and expensive, beast.  For starters, most audiophiles don’t have rooms that can handle it.  I certainly don’t.  Then the equipment that is needed to do it right is often painfully expensive and requires careful match-making.  The stuff is also BIG.  Those of us with “housemates” of various types will usually have a tough time making that part of the equation work.

At my own house, I have an Avalon Eidelon-based system in my living room.  The Eidelon’s are run with Conrad Johnson electronics, which are fed by a tricked-out Linn LP12 and EMM Labs digital gear.  The Eidelon’s are on either side of a fireplace, about 4 feet from the back wall.  For me, orchestral images are perhaps 6 feet wide and 3-4 feet tall…somewhat as if one were listening to an orchestra from back in the balcony.  That’s what I can manage and afford, and I find it reasonably satisfying.  But it is not like “full-size” listening down the street, and I must confess that I have grown somewhat addicted to the larger soundstage, the bigger sound and the significantly greater resolution.

In this fashion, from my perspective, Fred has successfully put together a dream system.  Of course, is that going to stop him from tinkering with it.  Hell no!

I look forward to the next iteration.