About two years ago I had the opportunity, through a mutual friend, to meet Bob Smith and visit his SP Tech facility. This meeting turned out to be both a curse and blessing for me. I consider meeting Bob the blessing, he is one of those people who sincerely likes what he does and his products reflect this. A furniture designer/builder, who I respect very much, once said that "...the understanding eye sees the Makers fingerprints". On rare occasions throughout my life I run into individuals whos "fingerprint" I am able to recognize. Bob is, without a doubt, one of these individuals. For this I am blessed to have crossed his path.
Now, I must confess to the curse of our meeting. At our first meeting, Bob tried to hide nothing and threw his trump. I sat and listened to a pair of Revelations powered by a little Belles amp in his makeshift listening area for about an hour. During this time I experienced music in a way that I did not know was possible outside of playing it myself or hearing it performed right in front of me. As a side note, I must confess that I am a relatively green audiophile. My knowledge of why this speaker does this and that speaker does that because of first order this and 4th order that is nill. I am a bit curious but I am not going to make a career of it. I operate woodworking equipment on a daily basis and certainly do not have a "golden ear". I judge the quality of sound by the level or feeling of intimacy it creates between myself and the musician(s). In Bob's listening area I heard music reproduced in such a way that I was able to feel or hear the musicians "finger print", this was the most intimate experience that I've ever had with music pumped through audio equipment. This is an extrememly difficult feeling to put into words and must be experienced first hand. I closed my eyes, the speakers disappeared and Edgar Meyer was standing right in front of me playing Chello. David Grisman was seated playing mandolin there, IN the room with us. The sound quality was hair raising. So there lies the curse, I learned at that moment that a speaker CAN reproduce that "fingerprint" of emotion which I only felt would be avaliable through a live performance, at least Bob Smith's speakers can. I will now forever look for this quality when I listen to speakers and likely be let down. This experience was not unlike tasting a wonderful wine for the first time, nothing else will be the same. It's been 2 years of waiting and soon the wait will be over.
Pictures and details to follow in the next few weeks.
