Experience Music Philosophy

Just as the name Experience Music implies, I am very serious about music and love to create systems that communicate the full emotional impact of great musical works. I believe in custom commissioned products because every effective music reproduction system is different, just as every room, listener, and music listening style is different. Custom products are optimized to the particular need, want, and requirement, thus improving performance over a more generic and broad-ranging product.

In selecting Experience Music for your product commission, you choose someone that understands that the system is much more than the sum of its parts. It is a true synergistic union. All components in a system interact. We have all seen how moving speakers around a room affects the sound, but few of us have built entire systems to better understand the complex relationships from each component of the chain to the next. How many of us have gone down that dead end road of Magnepans and electrostatics only to find that a proper amplifier, much less a magical one, does not exist for such speakers? This is the most common example of just how critical system synergy is in a music reproduction system.

I am an outspoken believer in horn loudspeakers and high quality, low distortion vacuum tube amplifiers. I firmly believe that the marriage of these two is the pinnacle of music reproduction as we know it. Horn loudspeakers, though very complex to design, offer unrivaled clarity and true dynamic realism. They will also play to realistic volume levels without stress or strain. Once you have heard the effortlessness of horns, it is difficult to go back to the obviously strained and distorted sound of direct radiators. Another, less talked about, major advantage of horns is that they allow the use of very low distortion triode amplifiers. As most true horn loaded speaker systems exceed 105 dB/watt, they require less than one watt for nearly all listening levels. Typically producing only a few watts, the directly heated triode vacuum tube is the most linear amplification device ever created. Transistors are smaller and more efficient, but not more linear. (This is why they require excessive amounts of feedback.) When measured well below their power limits, which is where they are used with horn loudspeakers, a single triode amplifier exhibits only a small amount of second harmonic distortion and no higher order distortion. This performance is unparalleled in the world of music reproduction.

I firmly believe that from a high level perspective, the best schemes for music reproduction were already in place in the 1920’s. Since that time, we have only managed to make reproduction equipment smaller and more affordable, not better. What has happened on a micro level is that materials have gotten better, allowing systems of much greater bandwidth today. What we also have in today’s small-scale triode and horn revival is the benefit of years of listening and higher quality source material. In the 1920’s, the best and the brightest worked in the field of electronics. Today, we can use their wonderful theories and apply them with new materials and techniques. We are only standing on their shoulders, but they are mighty shoulders indeed.

Unfortunately, these large horn systems are not within the grasp of everyone, and, therefore, compromises must sometimes be made. These compromises are often due to limitations of physical space. Sometimes they are due to budget considerations. Custom commissioned components and systems have an advantage in either case. I can help you to identify your priorities and successfully create a system that matches your needs. My experience from building custom equipment increases my knowledge of minute system changes from capacitor materials to transformer core materials and allows me to address your needs, not to sell a one size fits all product that I have been manufacturing in exactly the same way for many years. Custom work has been my business, and it has led to long lasting product placements and, with them, joy to the friends that have requested these unique pieces.

Please contact me to discuss what you want or need. I offer a 30 day money back guarantee, although no one has ever taken me up on it.

Peace,

Me