YGA Factory Tour
My phone rang and it was Dick Diamond, sales manager for YG Acoustics. "We'd like you to visit our factory and see what we're all about," Diamond said.
Wes Phillips
Pratchett and Gaiman: Together Again
At Waterstone's website, Neil">http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/navigate.do?pPageID=1575">Neil Gaiman interviews Terry Pratchett. If that isn't enough to whet your interest, the interview is accompanied by excellent Paul Kidby illustrations.
Louis Armstrong's Mix-Tape Art
When I visited The Louis Armstrong Archives a few years ago to visit archivist Michael Cogswell, Cogswell escorted me back into the stacks to show me Armstrong's collection of 650 open-reel tapes, almost all of which sported collages assembled by the great trumpeter. More than touching his trumpet, I felt a direct connection to Armstrong viewing (and hearing) his mix tapes—Satchmo was one of us!
The Specter Haunting Pop Music
Sasha Frere-Jones has a fascinating articlehttp://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2008/06/09/080609crmu_mus…; in the June 9 The New Yorker about Antares's Auto-Tune software. In case you aren't familiar with it, Auto-Tune is pitch correction software that is used almost universally in contemporary pop recordings—sometimes just to "fix" an off note, increasingly frequently as an effect in its own right.
This You Must Read
Having visited China and witnessed the building boom firsthand, I must admit that I suspected corners were being cut in construction—so I wasn't surprised by how many buildings came down. Considering all the construction accidents happening in NYC this year, who am I to look askance at China?
Simple Is Better
As a sometime wood-butcher myself, I assumed that the multifaceted Focal cabinets would require some pretty fancy clamps. Not so, Jean-Paul Guy explained. Modern materials technology has given us a stretchy, incredibly strong, adhesive film that's quick to apply, infinitely versatile, and also cheap.
Buffing It Out
Here's another example of how Guy.HF combines hand processes with modern technology. The finish room is state-of-the-art, combining heat with super-sophisticated polymer finish formulations. "Yet," Jean-Paul Guy told me, "there is always some orange peel. Machines can't detect it and they can't correct what they can't sense, so a human being carefully checks each piece and makes it perfect."
Utopia!
Of Focal's 200 employees, only 15 are "allowed" to build the Utopia line of loudspeakers. "Utopia, to Jacques Mahul's way of thinking, represents the finest expression of Focal—so only the most experienced employees can build Utopia products. They are also the most critical employees and we do not push them to produce mass numbers—we push them to produce perfect products," said Gérard Chrétien, Focal's managing director (and former editor of L'Audiophile.
More From the Floor
It seems as though there's a QC employee for every assembly employee at Guy.HF. Not exactly, Jean-Paul Guy explained. Every G.HF employee is responsible for the work that comes to him or her—so after each employee signs off on a product as good to go, the next, um, guy inspects it before accepting it. "Mistakes get made," M. Guy told me, "but we try not to perpetuate them."
Tourist Photo 6
This carved detail from a house in Bourbon-Lancy sort of snuck up on me. I walked past it, got about five steps down the street and did a classic double take.