Finding your groove: getting into vinyl with Audio-Technica
I’d like to think that I could’ve been friends with the late Hideo Matsushita, founder of Japanese Hi-Fi powerhouse Audio-Technica. If I could, I’d travel back in time to 1960’s Tokyo, where a young Matsushita curated “vinyl listening sessions” at the Bridgestone Museum of Arts, exposing visitors to the sounds and possibilities of high end audio and the warmth of vinyl records. I imagine sitting with him in a mod coffee shop, listening to the stories of what he witnessed in those sessions, the conversations he had with visitors, and what ultimately motivated him to head back to his small apartment above a ramen restaurant and start an audio company of his own. In the histories I’ve read regarding AT’s humble beginnings, Matsushita’s motives seem clear. Produce high end audio at affordable prices, bringing audio excellence into spaces and to customers that simply didn’t have access to it before. His first two products, the AT-1 and AT-3 phono cartridges did exactly that, and...
Dec 6, 2023
I was used to the "portable cassette player/record your favorite radio song tapes" scene and had convinced my parents to buy me a switch up for Christmas. At first I didn't notice the difference, but hey, it was the future and I was cool enough to have one. One day I figured out that I could plug in my headphones all the way. That was the moment! I had been cross connecting both sides on the stereo output and getting some muffled horrible mono experience because there was a gasket of some sort around the 3.5mm connector that made plugging in the headphones hard.
Getting the connection right opened my eyes to how good music could sound and I've been chasing another moment like that one ever since. It's taken me in many directions since then but I'm still chasing the same buzz.