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http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/auditorium23/23.html
Keith Aschenbrenner of Auditorium 23
Auditorium 23 is a HiFi import-export, retail sales and research & development business in Germany. It was established in 1980 and is owned and operated by Keith Aschenbrenner. Keith is largely unknown in the USA HiFi scene, except among those in the audio underground who are knowledgeable about the early history of the SET movement in France and Germany; or those hip to the glories of single-ended triode amplifiers, Platine Verdier turntables or the magnificent & historic Siemens Klangfilm loudspeakers (which have made a few select appearances at US HiFi shows in the last couple of years). At home, Keith has achieved the status of cultural audio icon over the years. His admirers refer to him as the Tube Apostle of Germany for his trials, tribulations and ultimate success in introducing fellow German HiFi and music lovers to the glories of the combination of vinyl playback, singled-ended-triode (SET) amplification and high- sensitivity loudspeakers, all built using the best principles of classic designs. I get the impression that Keith is a little uncomfortable with the domestic notoriety bestowed upon him, preferring instead to modestly play it down by viewing himself first and foremost as an audio everyman and music lover – just like you and me.
L´Audiophile (http://www.audiophile.lu/)
In the early 1980s while traveling to Brittany in the west of France during the holidays, Keith came across the French enthusiast audio magazines, most notably the well-known L´Audiophile. L´Audiophile had opened a shop in Paris to demonstrate their do-it-yourself (DIY) projects and to sell parts to the DIY- infected HiFi hobbyists of France. Listening to music at L´Audiophile over their system was a shock to Keith. He immediately realized that his HiFi system at home was a far cry from the musical realism and dynamic truths that L´Audiophile achieved so easily in their demonstrations of Altec/Onken & Voice of the Theatre systems powered by a 20-watt Hiraga amplifier & Kaneda preamplifier, with a Platine Verdier turntable spinning the tunes.
When Keith went back home to Germany and listened to his system, he “realized it was just a ping-pong music experience. It was not bad really but the main fault was that I had been focusing on soundstage as a general target. I was looking between instruments instead of listening to music. It was more of an audio-visual experience than the row twenty musical experience of a concert hall. After being touched by the experience at Maison L´Audiophile, there was no way for me to go back.” Keith sold his gear and purchased a 20-watt Hiraga Le Tube, Kaneda DC1 [upper left], a 12-inch SME 3012 tonearm and a Denon 103 cartridge.
Keith admitted that after hearing the Shindo products, he thought that if he wanted to make a meaningful contribution, he would have to focus on loudspeakers instead of amplifiers. The market for loudspeakers was very different between Japan and Europe. It became his goal to find solutions in the European market that were “helpers for the little green amplifiers” from Japan. For example, the little Shindo Claret preamp had only two MM inputs. Given that the Denon 103 was Keith’s favorite inexpensive phono cartridge (and a moving coil), he tried experimenting with a couple of different transformers from a German transformer producer. When Keith found a transformer he really liked, he sent samples to Ken Shindo to get his opinion. However, Ken Shindo speaks no foreign languages. His answer to Keith was to send the next Claret preamplifiers with holes in the panels so Keith’s customers could add the transformers they wished – a non-verbal answer to a non-verbal question.
Keith pondered how Ken Shindo’s amplification products could be so successful at interpreting reproduced music when other approaches struggled so much with it. Ken Shindo’s design principles harkened back to an earlier era in audio. Keith believed those early principles were Ken’s — and now his — key to musical realism for any personal future loudspeaker designs. Keith began to research examples of those early designs to see if he could find out what made them work so well. Keith also investigated classic cartridges & tonearms and EMT broadcast turntables. He investigated legendary loudspeakers like Klangfilms, Altec woofers & drivers in custom Onkens cabinets and Voice of the Theater loudspeakers. Keith researched how the Western Electric philosophy differed from the Klangfilm philosophy and how the Westrex London philosophy compared to that of Vitavox or Cinemeccanica of Italy. With those loudspeaker designs for example, Keith realized that the quality of the wood construction had a lot to do with the quality of the sound. This discovery prompted him to contact the American Plywood Association. He wanted to learn more about the different grades of wood available and which ones would be best for creating cabinets in the Golden-Era manner. Keith found out that the best grades of plywood were not exported to Germany. This initially made things a little more difficult but they found a solution. Keith demurred. “This is only one example of the many challenges we encountered as we refined our understanding of how to get the full musical realism that those early high fidelity designs of Wente & Thuras, Harrison and Maxfield were capable of.”
They researched ideas as diverse as the operation of gramophones and electrical recording, electrical reproduction, the importance of tone to achieving an emotional response in film sound and the like. At this time, Keith realized how important tone was in evoking the full emotional response in cinema. Keith reminisced. “People voted with their feet by going to those cinemas where tone quality touched their souls.” The sound systems for the cinemas of those early days were not mass-produced products. Only a few operators were able to afford a Lansing Iconic system in the 1940s. The prices for oil capacitors in the 1950s, for example, were very expensive compared to people’s average salaries.
The HiFi industry of the 1960s and 1970s then departed from the finely tuned, expensive, hand-made and musically realistic high fidelity systems of the 1940s and 1950s. It turned to mass production, employing a lot of people to make its products. “It was the beginning of a change that would lead us to the consumer audio era of today with its digital amplifiers and kids who think the speakers of their iMacs are the golden standard. What I’d like to say is this: Listen to an original Altec 803 woofer with a paper surround or a 416 8C with a ferrite magnet and tissue surround using top quality electronics like Shindo. You will immediately understand what we have won and what we have lost.”
Keith has gained many insights researching historic audio designs and the principles that allowed them to infuse the breath of life into the music. I got a momentary glimpse of what these historic designs are capable of in my all too brief encounter with the Siemens Klangfilm loudspeakers at CES a few years ago. Those huge Klangfilms produced a riveting emotional experience that left me with the realization that we have a long way to go to make up for the ground we lost in musical realism and emotive ability over the last 30 years. When will the next Klangfilm appear? Will it ever? Or perhaps it has already?
In 1997, Keith unveiled his new Provence loudspeaker. It was remarkably different from what others were doing in loudspeaker design at the same time, what with its heirloom furniture quality construction and wide & flat chassis with an open backside. The Provence was a full-range loudspeaker with the French PHY-HP driver. Jean-Marie Piel, chief editor of the French Diapason magazine and owner of a complete A23 Shindo system, had introduced Bernard Salabert of PHY to Keith. PHY and Auditorium 23 were working with the material bronze in audio applications at the same time. Upon reviewing the Provence, Piel wrote in Diapason how this new speaker was “the intelligent combination of everything that had been done right in loudspeaker design during the past 50 years”. Aschenbrenner’s other loudspeakers designs (the Latour, Marsannay and Morgane) were unique designs based on the historical principles of Altec, Siemens and Western Electric. Keith is particularly fond of Bernard Salabert’s PHY drivers and believes they compare favorably to such historic designs as the legendary WE755. In fact, Keith does not believe there is a single present-day driver that can compare with the musical qualities of the PHY-HP H21-LB15, its only competition being the best drivers of the 1940s and 1950s. Keith doesn’t fancy over-damped cabinets either: “We learned how a small speaker cabinet for a full-range driver can be built like a musical instrument in order to fully develop its musical tone. For these applications, we wondered what would happen if we used the same kind of wood musical instruments are made of.” This led to the creation of the Appassionata loudspeaker built from the same wood that piano soundboards are fashioned from. In the brochure to the Appassionata, its maker admits that this particular design approach should not be embraced as the one and only valid way.
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