High-End Audio in Japan, Part One: First Impressions
Before I talk about the three master craftsmen whom I had the pleasure of visiting on my just-completed trip to Japan, I’d like to share my first (and I hope not last) impressions of the country itself.
Like Germany or Turkey or the Netherlands or Great Britain or any of the beautiful places I’ve been to, Japan is a distinctive mixture of new and old. In its towns, particularly in the gigantic metropolis of Tokyo, which is the largest city I’ve ever seen, it seems thoroughly and sometimes almost frantically modern. With its millions of flashing neon signs and blazing marquee lights and the hundreds of thousands of buyers and sellers jamming its sidewalks and storefronts, a district like the Akihabara (Tokyo's huge electronics quarter) could pass for a cross between Times Square and the Las Vegas Strip on a busy Saturday evening. All the towns, even the smaller ones like Hachioji and Kawagoe, have this same dense, festive, unabashedly mercantile look. But that look is deceptive.
Enter any store—no matter how gaudy or plain—and you will invariably be met with a politeness and graciousness that is as formal and characteristic as the slight bow with which you greet and are greeted. No matter what you buy or where, this unstinting courteousness makes your transaction feel like something more elevated than a mere exchange of money for goods, although it is that, too, of course—something more like an exchange of respect, a bond of civility.
Step away from the city streets into the exquisite home of someone like Mr. Taro Hirayama (the view from whose beautiful listening room window opens this essay), and you discover this ancient bond of civility in its purest form. It’s as if you’ve stepped out of the rush of modernity into a time so simple and elegant and formal and beautiful that it is like a sonata turned into manners and morals, into landscape and décor.
It is this ancient music, this marriage of commerce and grace, that the three men I’m going to tell you about—Kiyoaki Imai of Audio Tekne, Naoto Kurosawa of Technical Brain, and Osamu Ikeda of Ikeda Sound Labs—have brought to a kind of perfection. None of them is merely offering goods for sale; each of them is also offering you a lifetime of learning and making. I shall not soon forget Isamu Fukumoto saying of Mr. Imai, the author of every piece of Mr. Fukumoto’s fabulous Audio Tekne system: “He hasn’t just made these things for me; he has taught me how to hear them.”
When you buy from these men, you aren’t just buying goods; you are buying all they have to offer—all that they craft and all that they know.
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1999 - 2011 NextScreen. All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
Comments
Hi Jonathan
I really look forward to reading your impressions of Japan. My dealings with the Japanese have always been extremely pleasant, civilised and gratifying.
If you are able, I would greatly appreciate contact details for Mr Osamu Ikeda of Ikeda Sound Labs, as I have been unable to contact Samurai International, whom apparently distribute his products.
Thanks and kind regards
Andy Stuart
Andy,
I will be posting my blog about Mr. Ikeda shortly. FYI, Samurai International no longer distributes Ikeda Sound Lab products. They are now being imported and distributed in the U.S.by Tangram Audio. You can go to Tangram's Web site at www.tangramaudio.com/ and find contact information for Yujean Kang, who is Tangram's CEO. I can tell you for a fact that Yujean is an extremely sweet and able man. I'm sure he'll be happy to help you.
Jon
The Japn audio esthetic would make a nice book for publishing as to how to bring that tranquil, idealic expression of audio art into western homes.
I look forward to reading more about your trip. I used to live in Japan and always looked forward to the next issue of Stereo Sound, the most lavishly produced of the many high-end stereo publications in Japan. The best part (if you read Japanese) is the column written by editor Okihiko Sugano, who pays a visit to the homes of two audio nuts each issue, listens to their system, and interviews them about their quest for good sound. Sugano's big theme is that the stereo is a reflection of who you are, so high-end audio isn't about the persuit of perfection, it's about self-expression. He gets very philosophical about this. It's great because there's plenty of room for all variety of stereos, with homage paid to every school, including connoisseurs of Western Electric movie sound systems from the early talkie era. Serious romance.
Wish I could read Japanese to read some of the great audio magazines I see on the racks there on my annual trip. The print quality of the magazines is fantastic. I agree with Mr. Valin about Japan's amazing mix of tradition and modernity. Mr. Valin's comment about the fantastic customer service is one of the things I really love about Japan. However, the one industry that I've experienced bad customer service is high-end audio. The audio salesmen all seem to have an air of superiority about them and can be quite standoffish, which is surprising given the high dollar value of the goods they are selling. Anyone else experience the same thing in Japan? Japan is an audiophile paradise; great record stores, lots of stores selling a great selection of equipment and accessories.
Winston,
Funny you mention this because, yes, I did have a similar experience to yours at a very well known high-end audio store in the Akihabara. In fact, it was the one and only place in Japan that reminded me of the United States (at least in the bad old days of hi-fi cowboys). The clerks were snotty know-it-alls who barely gave their clients the time of day, and, in spite of literal tons of fabulous gear from all over the world, the sound was...awful. In fact, Mr. Ikeda asked me what I thought of the sound at this particularly famous high-end salon and when I said I thought it was terrible, he smiled and nodded his head in agreement.
I thought it a great irony that all of these world-famous brands were shown so poorly and so ungraciously, while the work of the little-known (outside of Japan) Japanese masters I came to visit sounded breathtakingly wonderful and the men themselves were models of courtesy and graciousness.
Jon
Hi Jonathan,
What is it with the attitudes of guys in some of these 'high-end' stores???!!! Just like you and Winston, I had the worst shopping experience of my life when one day in 2000 I walked into a 'high-end' store in Studio City, California. Just as in a cowboy movie when a stranger walks into a small-town bar, the four people in the small room went silent and I got the dirtiest looks from the two 'salesmen.' I felt as though I'd walked into the middle of a drug transaction!
When I asked if they carried a certain piece of equipment the mouthpiece of the group left me in no doubt that not only did they not carry that particular brand but that they were in no mood to entertain any more questions. I can't remember the name of that particular store but I'd be surprised if they're still in business.
Andy
Yes, I have to agree that most of the stores in Akihabara, the nexus of all things electronic in Japan, are about the worst places to listen to high-end audio. Poorly set up, crowded, and standoffish staff, yes. To be fair, though, not ALL stores in Akihabara are this way. I bought my Sony SCD-1 (when it was pretty new on the market) at the Tere-On near the station after extensive comparison with other players of its day, and the service was as good as conditions could possibly allow. The staff in Dynamic Audio was pretty cold and that was a turn-off: I did feel like I was "imposing" on them and wouldn't buy there. I think that these big stores get huge traffic of gawkers with no intention to buy in a million years, and foreign visitors are the absolute least likely of them all. I suppose that if I did this work for 20 years, it would wear on me, too. The most fun stores are a little off the beaten path. I can't remember the name now, but a dealer of Sun amplifiers is on the left side of the main street (Showa Dori) after you cross the river. They have all kinds of low-power stuff and one-off, custom speakers. There's another store in the same block that sells speaker parts that's full of custom-built stuff, too. The sound is not necessarily great, but it is a memorable experience. Going the other direction down Showa Dori and a block to the east, there's a store called "Sound Create" that is more mainstream, and very gracious, and despite cramped quarters, does a good job in setting up systems for audition. One of the best-stocked, and quietest stores, Yamagiwa Denki, is gone, alas. They had consistently higher prices than their neighbors for years and that seems to have scared away customers. The store was always empty. It was great to "audition" massage chairs there and take a break from a tough day of shopping.
Nyman,
I don't know what happened to your post, but to answer your question:
I think it is customary for manufacturers to pay Japanese reviewers to review their products in Japanese audio magazines. It's an odd arrangement, especially since most Japanese magazines depend heavily on so-called "objective" measurements to make their assessments, but I've been told that's the way they do it. However, as I understand it the annual awards these magazines hand out are not part of this "pay-for-play" process; they're decided upon by the magazine editors after careful consultation.
JV
I last lived in Japan 40+ years ago, and some things have certainly changed since. Akihabara was the center of the electronics world then, as now, but I did not find lots of "listening rooms" in those days. The Sony building up the street (and over a block) had a room on about the 4th or 5th floor that showcased their top-line audio products, and it was a great place to relax for a few minutes (as long as I could, actually) after a long day of walking around the town. They were producing a line of electronics with separate amps, pre-amps and active cross-overs (each as an individual unit) that was set to power a series of speakers (tri-amp'd) with those separate amps (120 wpc, as I recall) into each of the the woofers, tweeters, mid-ranges. Great sound. I was a Sgt in the AF at the time, and it was all financially out of my reach. Good memories. Never saw any of those pieces marketed in the US.
On the subject of the gracious nature of the Japanese, I am in full agreement. Most of my (few) dollars in those days went to photo stores of one sort or another, but the electronics did come later, though on a decidedly modest scale. The decorum of the photo shop keeppers was about equal to what has been described here (the good end of the spectrum), but there was usually no space in the shops to allow product testing in the sense of listening. You did not need much space to check out a camera or a lense.
One last comment was the quality of the advertising flyers that described each product: they were printed on paper that approached parchment, the photo quality was superb and the descriptions complete (there was always the issue of what kind of "units" were being used to describe "power". These were the days of some pretty optimistic claims to WPC: the reality of RMS power was begining to creep into the scene there in the late 60's, but it was coming.
Thanks for the article and bringing back some good memories.
Lovely article - I have always wanted to visit Japan - great work!