Reader’s System: Steve from Kelowna
This Reader’s System takes us to the home of Steve from Kelowna. An ex-professional drummer, Steve runs a vending machine company.
Tell us a bit about yourself; what’s your background?
Well, I’m a musician, I’ve been playing all my life. I grew up playing in my parents’ band from age eight, so I’ve been playing music all my life and I’ve played, at times, very seriously, depending on how much work I’ve been doing, how serious my jobs are and business comes before music, right? I did try the pop star thing and realised how hard it is to make it, and since emigrating to Canada I’ve done a lot of good playing, but not taken it quite so seriously because it’s more important to have a career and get a job going and pay the bills, right?
My father’s partner was a British audio engineer. When they got to South Africa they did a lot of television because South Africa was young and they didn’t have television, so they were the original pioneers of TV. The South African Broadcasting Association used to consult with them, the military used to consult with them, especially because of this British electrical engineer. When I was at school—even in junior school—I used to have to go to his partner’s and sit there after school and have him lecture to me on electronics because he wanted to do electronics, and this guy used to explain how proper hi fi works: all the old Quad tube stuff and how it all worked and why, so he was an audiophile.
So I grew up in a house where they were building and playing and fiddling and selling gear for ever, but it was more mid fi than hi fi. The brands would be like Yamaha, back when the MOSFET and the VFET stuff was coming out. The type of speakers we had when I was growing up in the house were like the Yamaha NS1000 and the NS2000. Back in the day, they were one of the best speakers you could buy. We had electrostatics, magneplanars, old Tannoys, and their reference: they used to love the Kef Reference stuff, so we were often comparing against the Kef Reference stuff of the day. Just old school stuff, right? We listened to Garrard turntables. When I go to [Hammertone Audio’s] Dave Beetles’ I just about fall off my chair when I see this stuff, because they were listening to old record players; that’s what I grew up with. But I wasn’t really an audiophile listening to that stuff. I was more in to listening to... I wanted boom boom boom!
Where did you get your love of hi fi and music?
All of these things that I’ve already told you would be it: just growing up in a house where we were playing and loving music. And I’ve gotta say that most musicians aren’t audiophiles. Very very few are. But that’s why I love music the way I do: because I’m not playing as much now, I find I’m listening to music more.
I know you play the drums, but are there any other instruments you play?
[Laughs] No, never! My mum was a keyboard teacher—she’s an organ player in a band—but I just never picked it up. I tried: my dad wanted me to do that because my dad repaired. Everyone brought their organs, like the Hammonds, and their guitar amps. Every guy that had a guitar amp, my dad was the guy they brought them to, so he wanted me to play, but I just didn’t have it.
So have you ever actually been recorded on a commercial record?
Lots! I played you one here: I played you myself playing the other day.
Oh, was that you?! Cool!
Yep, that was back when I was 21. That was my first vinyl in the day.
I’ll have to get a copy of that record then!
It was a long time ago—22 years—and in a different country. It’s ethnic too, so it might be hard to find.
Talking of records, roughly how many records do you have?
I don’t know, 1,200 maybe.
Wow, so a fair-sized collection then.
[Laughs] Friends give me records, I buy... My records are not audiophile records, I buy ’em at Value Village. $1, $2, and then every now and then I splash out and buy 5 for $5, or $12.95 for stuff. I’ve got mates that have come up here and bring their $200 and $500 records, but there isn’t one of those in my collection! [Laughs] I just don’t have any of that stuff. For me it’s just simply putting on a record, listening to it for the music, and because I could get it. I saw it somewhere and it was cheap, so I would get it. Often I’ve listened to music I wouldn’t normally listen to or chose, but the record was clean.
What’s your favourite genre of music and what are some of your favourite records?
It’s very very mixed, and I find it changes according to the circumstances. So because we live in a smallish house here and I don’t want to blast my wife away, I tend to do my listening on weekends. I get up early and the first thing I do is have a cup of coffee and sit down and listen. I’ve found myself listening to more schmoozey stuff because don’t want to start blowing away the neighbours here because it’s a townhouse, right? So I find myself listening to more schmoozey music than I used to because I can listen to it slightly louder before it blows everybody out the house.
I listen to jazz—I love jazz—Oscar Peterson, Joe Sample, Wynton Marsalis, Tico Hamilton, all the standard jazz guys, Ellis Marsalis. I’m a huge blues fan, Keb Mo’s my favourite. Paul Simon’s my all-time favourite song writer, just because of all the stuff he’s done. I listen to a lot of guitar, so the South American guitar players like Acoustic Alchemy, Strunz and Farah, that kind of music. James Taylor, I just love him. I’ve become all folky, but this is something new. I used to pooh-pooh Bob Dylan, now all of a sudden I’m a huge Bob Dylan fan.
The times they are a-changin’!
Yeah! Before, I was listening to Simply Red, and more cool music, like Red Hot Chili Peppers, so I’ve definitely changed and my musical tastes are going towards the folkier stuff and a lot of that is because I think my stereo plays that kind of music the best! [Laughs]
So you listen to music your stereo likes!
Yeah! I play stuff my stereo likes. It’s interesting that it can effect the type of music, because if it does it well, “Oh, I like that. That sounded great!”, I can listen to it a little bit louder than if I put Boston on. If I put Boston on and crank it up, it blows everyone out of the house, including me, so now I find myself listening to Carly Simon and the schmoozier stuff just because I can turn it up a bit and have the speakers and amp in their sweet spot and I’m starting to enjoy it.
I noticed that you do have a CD player; roughly how often do you listen to vinyl as opposed to other sources? I get the impression its mostly vinyl.
I was listening to CDs all the time, and then my in-laws phoned and said that they’d found a box of my old records in the basement that I’d left there. I got those—that was only a couple of years ago—and then decided that I had to get a turntable. I went and bought a Dual 505 for $100 at the pawnshop in Penticton. I brought it up here and hooked it up, and you know how terrible those things are! [Laughs] So I started sticking some records on and I wasn’t so sure how good they were sounding because of the level of the turntable. I was listening and listening, and then I bought another one. I’d just started a business so I didn’t want to spend too much money on a turntable, but I wasn’t really thinking that records sounded too great, because the turntable was just so bad.
But then I started going to [the Hi Fi Attic’s] Lyle and talking to Lyle, and he’d say “No, you know you could try this”. So Lyle was starting to play something then, I was listening to the Regas and stuff but nothing was really turning me on, and then slowly but surely I started listening to better equipment and I started to upgrade. And then I bought a cheap Rega P3 with a Grace 707 arm, and suddenly, a light went on! Bam! You listen to this and there’s such a dramatic difference because there’s a certain level of record player you have to get to before vinyl starts singing, and I’ve found that the P3 was right there. And then I bought that Thorens TD160, which I highly modified, and it was boom! the lights went on.
I started finding that the only reason why I was listening to CDs was because I had cool CDs to listen to and I didn’t have so many cool records. As I’ve been buying more records, I listen to CD less and less. I would say that now I listen to CD about 5% of the time. I probably listen to CDs once a month, and I listen to music every day. It’s only because every now and then I think “I’ve gotta hear some Keb Mo; I don’t have his record and if I don’t listen to the CD I’m not gonna listen to it at all”. And it’s harsh! When I first start listening it’s quite harsh: it takes a while to get used to it. I only listen for the good because I’m not a vinyl elitist, although that being said I do sometimes think that “good sounding CD” is an oxymoron [laughs]! I do understand that vinyl is dramatically better than CD; if I had all those CDs on record, I would probably never listen to a CD.
What was your first system, and how has it evolved over the years?
Because we had so many stereos in the house, it was always a combination of gear my dad wasn’t using, but the first one I actually remember was when he bought me one of the big Sonys, the ES series. They had one that was Japan only, but it was so big it wouldn’t fit in any of the stands, so he came home with it and said “I’ve bought you this, it’s so up your alley”. It weighed like 50 pounds, so I had that and a set of Technics speakers. They were surprisingly good for what you would consider that make to be.
Then I had one of the early Philips 4X oversampling CD players, for years until I left. But I wasn’t really listening to music how we would now. I was turning the bass and treble controls up and listening to boom boom boom, although I should have known better because my dad was showing me a different thing when I was listening to his music. But being younger and a being a musician, I was tending to listen on my own stuff with the boom boom boom. I had a Technics turntable as well, so I was listening to records on my own Technics turntable, but I was also able to go and hear a Garrard and hear the difference between the idler drives, how dramatic it was: although they had a bit of inherent rumble, how immediate the music was, how much more powerful and bigger the sound was than my Technics direct drive.
What about more recently?
I had some Mission speakers, which I still have today, I have two sets of my old Technics speakers—no wait, I’ve just remembered I gave one of those away the other day! I have my Antique Sounds Labs tube amp that my wife got me for my birthday about 8 years ago. I was listening to some vintage Marantz stuff, I had a Model 140. I still have my older Maratz stuff, I’ve always been a huge fan of the vintage Marantz gear.
More recently I’ve been listening to a lot of gear with Lyle up at Hi Fi Attic, and it’s been a big help to me. One day I was in there and I saw this Tangent Acoustics system and they kept telling me “Hey you should listen to this thing”, but it looked so funny I wasn’t interested, and I tapped the box and it had that British boxy sound, and I didn’t want that. After a while, one day Greg said, “Come on, do it now. If you don’t like it you can bring it back. You’ll like it!”. So I bought it and brought it home and hooked it up, and I haven’t longed for anything else ever since! It works for me, it works in my room, and I didn’t pay a lot of money for it, but it just sounds great to me. My ears like it.
There’s a certain level that you can get to when you’re listening, where it involves you. If I’m listening to an inexpensive stereo, it doesn’t pin me down, I just walk away. This one is just at that level where I spend too much time in front of it; it sucks me in. It’s a high enough level that it sucks me in, and I’m listening to records every day which is awesome. I can hear the things its not doing right, like the box colouration, but I can live with it—the warts on it I can live with. I really like the sound of this system; it works for me.
I see that you have two turntables; what are they?
Oh! What happened is that with Lyle talking with me and teaching me, and my friend Paul in Vancouver who’s a collector, he’s got lots and lots of gear. He’s heavily into the digital formats because of his job, but he can’t bring himself to listen to CDs: he has to listen to vinyl. He’s so hooked on vinyl that he’s even changed the CD player in his car to a tape deck! So, in talking to Paul and talking to Lyle, I’ve been slowly upgrading my turntables. I’ve got four now.
Four?!
Yeah! I’ve got my TD 160, my Rega with my Grace arm. Lyle said to me that the old Denons sound amazing so I sourced a Denon: I’ve got a DP 62L, which is one of the old Denon direct drives with its own arm, and I really like it because it’s simple, it’s quick: it gets up to speed in 1.5 seconds. It’s kind of half way between a record player and a CD player: you switch it off, it stops, and you change the record over. I like having several so that I can use different cartridges and experiment and I can just have fun.
Finally, my friend Paul kept telling me about the Kenwood Rock, and I kept talking to Lyle about it and he kept saying “No, Rega’s perfect for you. For the level of your hi fi the Rega P3’s probably perfect, you don’t want to have a hi fi of this level and then go and spend 10 grand on a turntable. It’s gotta be in line”. Then my friend Paul brought the Rock up to me—’cause he’s got several [laughs], he’s got spares—and he said take a listen to it and he left it here. I liked it so much that he sold it to me, dirt cheap. I rewired the arm, and I change the cartridges all the time and fiddle.
What cartridges are you using at the moment?
I’ve got a moving coil Signet TK5E, which I really like—it’s my only moving coil—but then I have the Linn K9, the ADC XLM Mk 3 Improved, three of the Grados going back the the ZT+, the Grado Green, and another one which is either a Blue or a Green. I’ve got an Audio Technica because I have an integrated arm on the Rock, I’m able to switch cartridges in 30 seconds and rebalance and go off. It’s just playing.
And what amplifier are you using?
I mostly use my Tangent Acoustics amp, but every now and then, because I like to have a bit of fun, I’ll bring my tube amp out, hook it up and listen to it for a while. But I tend to gravitate back to the Tangent Acoustics; it’s just the way this room works. By the way, this is actually a difficult room for sound. The upstairs room sounds amazing. I’ve got my Missions up there and if I bring them down here they get very harsh. For some reason, this room seems to make them very forward and analytical. Whatever I put in here, it tends to suck the bass out of them and they get harsh. But upstairs is the TV room and my wife likes to watch TV, so I can’t be sitting there listening to my stereo in there. Our house is not about stereo; this is my area: make it work. I can only get about 18” away from the wall, so I can’t have a rear ported speaker, so that’s why this works for this room and I sit on a beanbag in the middle, because there isn’t a place to put a chair in this room to sit in the middle of the speakers, so I sit on a beanbag.
What’s next on your wish list?
It’s quite simple, and I must tell you that I like my system enough and I go up to Lyle a lot. I listen to a lot of gear with Lyle, ’cause I really respect the guy. He’s my audiophile hero. I love the way he thinks and I love his openness. So I’ve listened to a lot of gear with him and because I have Les as a friend who often asks me this question, we often have this conversation, so it’s a very easy thing for me. If I had to chose any turntable, that’s simple: I’d go to Lyle and buy a Nottingham Analogue Spacedeck. It’s about a 3 grand deck and I really believe that it would take me right to the peak of what I would appreciate. I’d probably go for an Audio Technica OC9 just because of the price, but if someone gave me a Lyra I wouldn’t complain! I’d really like the MartinLogan Spires, but I wouldn’t drive them with what you do: I’d drive them with a Bryston 4B. So it’s not a big wish list; I’m blessed with an inexpensive taste! I like the boutique places, and I honestly believe I could put a system together for five grand that would totally take me to my happy place.
And then lots of money on records...
Yeah, I’d spend the rest buying a few records that I need too. If I want a record I could buy it, right? But I don’t like spending money on stereo, so that’s why I’m not an audiophile!
Equipment List
Analogue sources Kenwood KD-550 and arm, Denon DP 62L and arm.
Cartridges Signet TK5E, ADC XLM MK 3 Improved.
Digital source Sony DVP NS500V.
Preamp Tangent Acoustics Lupus Princeps.
Power amps Tangent Acoustics Lupus Servus, Antique Sound Lab.
Speakers Tangent Acoustics TM1.