All I am and have ever been is a product of everyone I've known and studied. And I'm pretty old, so I have known and studied a lot of materials from a lot of people. I also look in odd places. I work in the engineering field, and have a background of running audio companies, although from that I am retired. (Engineering is more fun). Now engineers are, at the end of the day, little more than very sophisticated tradesmen - especially me. Over the course of my life I have been guilty of two patents, but never figured out how that made it any easier to do anything except sue people. The geniuses of the world invent and derive stuff wearing white lab coats, I imagine. They write papers and go to hard science trade shows, twaddle on in intellectual fiddlesticks to impress each other, and apply, innovate, and build nothing. The far East and the US academic community are full of these sorts of folks.
So back to what I've done and not done. Did I invent the vacuum tube, the transistor, the jitter, digital to analog convertor, etc., etc............. Hell, no. I have manged, over the years built some abortive messes. Stubbornly, I kept on - here is a list of some of the things I have tried that worked: Designed and built the first (as far as I know) applications of: a 6DJ8/6922 audio amp design – the first stem to stern no feedback audio amplifier – the first digital to analog converter for home audio - the first to apply low jitter in an audio design – I could go on.
The point is that I have made a career of building audio equipment which applies technology and available parts in a combination that makes them perform, and therefore, sound better. I believe that the human ear is sophisticated and is capable of discerning much that we do not yet understand. That said, I do not believe in freezing anything, suspending cables, listening upside down, etc, for better sound, except when to do so can improve some tangible measurement. Nor do I believe that the solution to all audio applications is a 5534 opamp, as do some prominent designers and authors. To do so would suck all of the purpose out of our hobby and leave no room for any our competitors, not to mention ourselves. If you believe that everything sounds the same, just listen to the cheapest stuff you can. Take up stamp collecting and tell your fellow hobbyists all about how much their collections suck.
So what I have to say to the chattering audio geniuses in the lab coats goes something like this: Make something happen; create something which is capable of sonically pleasuring human beings, that is if you are capable. Do something and stop listening with you mouth.
That's what we used to excel at in Europe and in particular, here – invent and build great applications of technology: The Model-T, steam engines, elevators, refrigerators, and so on. That's why Schiit does it right here, in the good old USA. It feels right!
By the way -- working on the Yggy USB section as we speak so next segment on Yggy back story next week!
