Chad Kassem at Nov. 6th Innovative Audio Event Delivers Good Vinyl News!

200 attendees (give or take a few) in 5 groups of 40 have a great listening experience and then descent upon the record racks

The British prime minister Harold Macmillan, who was known as Supermac during the 1950s, once famously declared, “you’ve never had it so good.” Something similar could be said about vinyl lovers. As several listening events at Innovative Audio, a carefully curated store located underground in midtown Manhattan, demonstrated over the past several days, vinyl has returned to the heart of the high-end audio hobby.

The first event featured two stars in the vinyl firmament, both of whom have done a lot to ensure the resurgence of the black disc. One was Chad Kassem, the owner of Acoustic Sounds, who was recently dubbed the “wizard of vinyl” by the New York Times. Acoustic Sounds is headquartered in Salina, Kansas, where it’s at the frontier of LP production.

The other big cheese was none other than our very own Michael Fremer. Kassem made several announcements, including a new Rhino 45rpm series culled from the Warner Records catalog, among the titles: Ry Cooder's Paradise and Lunch and Boomer's Story, Gordon Lightfoot's Sundown, Gram Parsons' Grievous Angel plus titles from Jethro Tull, America, George Benson and other desirables (all cut from the original analog tapes). The official press release series announcement is coming in a day or two.

Kassem also spotlit his release of a set of 45 RPM Living Stereo LPs, all using the original Classic Records series metal parts by playing a "Night on Bare Mountain" excerpt from the legendary The Power of the Orchestra. The difference between then and now (apart from making them available again) is that they will be pressed on both sides, avoiding dishing problems that apparently afflicted some of the originals. When I told Kassem that I never experienced that particular issue, he laughed and said, “You were lucky!”

Lucky, too, were the customers who streamed into Innovative Audio. They pretty much cleared out the bins of Acoustic Sounds LPs that were for sale, including a nifty new reissue of Van Morrison’s album Moondance that will be shipping from Kassem’s factory several weeks from now (Tracking Angle’s Fred Kaplan stood patiently in line to buy his copy) —even though Chad announced that a damaged master tape and a poor sounding EQ master were bettered by a 192/24 bit file used for the reissue. "We cut it 10 times before we were happy" Chad told each group of listeners, all of whom were equally happy with the sound. The Moondance and Astral Weeks rows you see below were empty by night's end.

Put bluntly, I was taken aback at the avidity with which the customers were purchasing the multifarious albums for sale at Innovative. It reminded me of a previous visit to the Shibuya area of Tokyo, where vinyl aficionados would zealously search the bins for their favorite albums.

Kaplan and Fremer

Kassem also played a few tracks from the upcoming Bob Marley & the Wailers releases cut at Abbey Road all-analog using the original master tapes, which the label and Marley estate insisted remain in Europe. For this series Kassem, accompanied by Sterling Sound's Ryan K. Smith visited Abbey Road where veteran mastering engineer Frank Arkwright cut the lacquers, guided in part by the original cutting notes brought by Smith. Island founder Chris Blackwell had Sterling Sound cut the original Marley lacquers.

The gathered were also overwhelmed by the sound of the Marley test pressings with exclamations of "I never heard that before!" heard at each of the 5 sessions. Kassem also unveiled a 45rpm UQHR test pressing of ZZ Top's Tres Hombres comparing the new edition cut essentially flat from the master tape to the original Sam Feldman Bell Sound edition, which sounded shrill on the vocals and weak on bottom.

Kassem finished by playing two selections from an upcoming Blues Masters series of live recordings put to 1/2" tape at Blue Heaven Studios during the decades of "Blues Masters at the Crossroads" concerts. Performances by Tony Joe White and Tab Benoit drove the crowd wild for both the music and "you are in the church" sound.

Kassem's encore was to announce that he'd planned on making an even bigger announcement at Innovative Audio of an upcoming reissue series but at the last minute the label told him to wait a while longer.

Vinyl was also at the center of the next day’s event, which was centered around the introduction of the Japanese firm TechDAS’ new Air Force 10 air bearing tonearm. On hand to present it were Motofumi Hirata, the head of international sales for TechDAS, and Maier Shadi, the American importer of TechDAS and the proprietor of the Audio Salon in Santa Monica. The tonearm was coupled to the TechDAS Air Force One turntable which served as the source for the Wilson Master Chronosonic XVX loudspeaker. The preamp, phono stage and amplifiers were all flagship products from the D’Agostino line.

Air Force One Premium Turntable and Air Force 10 Radial Air Bearing Tonearm

Hirata is a true gentleman and very modest in discussing the prowess of his products. But the sound was remarkable and the new Air Force Ten tonearm, it must be said, made a major contribution to it. The things that stood out to me were the black backgrounds that the Air Force 10 helped produce and its refined delicacy. This tonearm may be imperturbable when playing LPs, but it’s going to make waves in the audio world. With the former LP archive of legendary TechDAS founder Hideaki Nishakwa on hand, Hirata played, among other things, the opening to the digital Phillips album, Misa Criolla, sung by Jose Carreras. It really did seem as though the backing chorus was floating on a cushion of air—to hear it so clearly delineated was a real pleasure.

As near as I could tell, the audiophiles who attended the second day’s session agreed. Indeed, after Hirata played a Groove Note LP of Jacintha singing “Danny Boy,” the audience was stunned. The bad news was that we had to adjourn for dinner. The good news is that Shadi left the turntable and tonearm in situ. Anyone interested in hearing what we heard simply needs to head to Innovative Audio, where you may feel that you have stumbled into an Ali Baba’s cave of sonic treasures.