Page 109 - Hi-Fi_News_-_December_2020 video

OPINION

Paul Miller
Jim Lesurf
Editor
Science Journalist
Jim Lesurf has spent a lifetime in audio, both as an engineer at UK hi-fi company
Technician and writer on all things audio for some 30 years, Paul Miller took over
the editor’s chair in 2006. He invented the QC Suite, used across the audio industry
Armstrong and reader in Physics and Electronics at St Andrew’s University
Beecham’s pills

Jim Lesurf spots a familiar Armstrong amp duo going for more than a song, and recounts his
personal Golden Age for music, difficulties with modernism and making fresh new discoveries

saac Asimov, the writer of many
volumes of both Science Fiction and
science fact, was once asked, ‘When
Iwas the Golden Age of SF?’. His
reply was ‘14’! By which he meant it was
whenever someone had been aged 14.
For them, that was the ‘Golden Age’.
This recollection was prompted
by my seeing a pair of old Armstrong

730/732 amplifiers sold via the Internet
for over £1000, which was more than
the price about 40 years ago when new.
As suggested by feedback in response to
HFN’s monthly Vintage Review features, ABOVE: Armstrong’s 730 preamp (top) and 730 power amp, of which only 40 sets were made.
interest in ‘classic kit’ is growing. The power amplifier was said to deliver 200W/8ohm and was reviewed in HFN Jul ’82

A TURNOFF and Mozart when at secondary school The first was during a Prom that took

The choice between new and old, and during music lessons. This then place a few years ago which featured the
though, seems to be largely a matter inevitably extended to more modern music of Eric Whitacre. I found this both
of taste. For example, if someone loves composers and also earlier ones. My fascinating and very enjoyable, although
the old Quad ESL57 electrostatics then interests eventually ranged from pre-Bach until then I’d not even heard of him.
nothing else will hit the spot for them. to works by composers such as Vaughan
For me the 1970s was the centre of Williams, Shostakovich, et al. A NEW DAWN
my personal ‘Golden Age’ of hi-fi . But However, I ran into diffi culties with The second was also from a Prom
when it comes to music the situation other ‘contemporary’ works composed programme, this time from one of the
is more complicated, because music in the ’60s and ’70s. I think it was Sir few live ones of 2020, with music by
tends to range over so many different Thomas Beecham who described some Anoushka Shankar and Jules Buckley. OK, I
categories and types. Hence for pop of the modern works he’d encountered have enjoyed traditional Indian music for
music I remain a child of the ’60s and as ‘bursts of wind, orchestrated’ – only many years. But this struck me as being a
perhaps a little into the ’70s. his words were more sign of a new and different
But when it comes to Classical and earthy. I would often vigour making it way into
other non-pop music my preferences say to myself ‘First – and ‘I used to say ‘Western’ classical music.
have continued to expand and develop. Last – Performance’ when Just as African music has

My intro into this was hearing works by hearing the introductory to myself “First influenced and shaped pop
composers such as Beethoven, Brahms, announcements given on – and Last – and jazz over the decades,
Radio 3 when some of so I think we can now
these ‘new’ items were Performance”’ expect a new future for
performed. I found them ‘Classical’ music as other
lacking in a musical sense, forms and traditions from
seeming just to be technical exercises... around the world are absorbed into the
or even, possibly, a matter of simply mix, from which then are created works
seeing what the composer could get that build on, but differ from, their roots.
away with while keeping a straight face. To me this seems like a welcome
However, more recently modern refreshment of music and an end to the
‘classical’ music has emerged from that ‘slide rule’ approach of the past. It also
phase and I am discovering more new may serve well how we are now, at long
compositions that are for me, at least, last, recognising many Black composers
ABOVE: American Grammy Award-winning genuinely musical. Two quite different and musicians of the past ignored or
composer and conductor Eric Whitacre examples may indicate what I mean. neglected for no good reason.

DECEMBER 2020 | www.hifi news.co.uk | 109