Mark Levinson, born December 11, 1946, celebrates an important anniversary in 2002. Exactly 30 years ago he jogged onto the playing field of high-end audio, so early in the game that fans, then few and far between, could count the players on their fingers.
The high-fidelity industry seems a logical home for a jazz musician like Levinson, who once envisioned a career playing flugelhorn and double bass, but his voyage into audio was a detour that could be said to have begun at age 22, when he took a job working on a film about Joan Baez. "It was a joy to find people willing to pay me to do something," quips the trim, youthful 55-year-old, who is quick to recall his "nonexistent income as a musician."
Jonathan Scull: How long have you been making cables, Ulrik?
Ulrik Poulsen: It's actually close to three years now...It's a spinoff from other products we make. Actually, Alpha-Core manufactures magnetic cores and various materials and components for transformers...And we have a daughter company called Tortran that manufactures toroidal transformers. Anyway, five years ago we introduced a new product called Laminax. It's a combination of copper and aluminum with various kinds of dielectrics. This is laminated together continuously in various fashions to produce a material that's used as shielding for EMI and RFI in the electronics industry.
Nothing at 41 E. 62nd Street in Manhattan offers any clue as to what sort of business that takes place inside. The waiting room feels vaguely monastic: straw mats on the floor, a row of shoes near the door. Like a day spa offering acupuncture and shiatsu. There's no corporate name, no logo, no mission statement.
A clock running six and a half hours late hangs above a receptionist's unoccupied desk. An enormous white dog is asleep under framed pictures of old blues artists: Son Thomas, Etta Baker, Pernell King, Cora Fluker, Big Joe Williams.