A Drive in the Black Forest
Ian G. Masters during his tour of European audio
companies in May, 1979.
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Starting out from a tiny village
across the border from Strasbourg, France, my colleague and I headed west into Germany's
Black Forest, prepared to spend a day worshiping at the altars of vinyl record playing, or
at least a couple of them.
It was a thoroughly analog era, the spring of 1979. Digital
recorders had been used to master a handful of audiophile recordings, but they were
novelties (and what you ended up with were conventional LPs). And although cassettes had
been around for a decade and a half, and most audio buffs did have cassette decks, the
explosion that would see that tape format eclipse the vinyl record had yet to happen.
(That was caused by the "Walkman Revolution," and as we headed through the
spruces of southern Germany, Sony had yet to show the Walkman to anybody outside its own
development labs.)
The LP record was king, and it was the only true
high-quality audio medium available. What the turntable companies were up to was
important, and so we found ourselves in Brothers Grimm territory, heading for the town of
St. Georgen. That was home of Dual, then one of the top couple of brands in the world.
At home in Canada, Dual had a very high profile because the
company that imported it also sold zillions of "compact stereos" -- receivers
with a turntable on top and a couple of cheap speakers -- and every one of them had a Dual
turntable included. But those were only cheapies, elsewhere the company was known for more
upscale tables, although it almost perished in the abrupt shift amongst North American
audiophiles away from changers and toward single-play tables. Just in time, Dual abandoned
changers and started marketing direct-drive models, rather like the model used by
Technics, which had already become number one in record players.
In St. Georgen, the Dual people gave us the usual tour of
the facilities, but they were much more interested in showing their technical school,
where local residents could be trained in the finer points of precision machining; the
better to crank out the audio gear. They were conscious that this was all part of a
regional tradition: The area concentrated on this kind of work as a result of its
centuries-old legacy of clock making. The switch to turntables was a natural one.
If that showed a fine sensitivity to the past, the future
was a little cloudier. One Dual executive declared with confidence that digital audio
would become a major factor -- sometime -- but the analog LP would never disappear.
Only a few hours down the road was Lahr, home of the
manufacturing arm of Thorens. Thorens was based in Switzerland, so we were surprised to be
given an address in Germany when we set up our visit. As it turned out, we should have got
more of an address; when we got to Lahr, we drove around its streets for hours, unable to
find anything that looked like an audio company.
At last, we had the brilliant idea of asking where it was!
This might not have been easy, given our meager command of German, but fortunately our
very own federal government had the consideration to set up a Canadian Forces base in the
town, so we figured we might find a Canuck who knew where the address was.
Eventually, with military guidance, we found the building
long after all its employees -- except our long-suffering host -- had left for the day. We
had a pleasant tour of an empty factory and an explanation as to why there was no sign
whatsoever on it. (We had driven by many times, it turned out.) Thorens was extremely
proud of its Swiss heritage, but felt it had to make its products across the border in
Germany because of the mechanical talent there, and because of access to other markets in
the European Community.
But while Thorens agreed with Dual on the historical
advantages of the area, it was definitely on the other side when it came to practically
any technical matter. It had always made single-play tables, and they were always
belt-driven. Thorens considered the direct-drive system a "marketing gag." Maybe
they were right, too -- today, practically all the remaining tables are belt driven.
As we prepared to leave Lahr, our man at Thorens insisted
that we head for Switzerland in convoy and meet at the company's offices there. We were
going to Zurich anyway, but were puzzled by his insistence that we meet in an empty office
after 8 p.m.
When we arrived, it turned out that the company had special
gifts for us but he had forgotten to bring them along to the German facility. With some
flourish he produced a couple of boxes that he said contained the latest version of the
company's original product. When we reached our hotel and opened the packages, they were
windup music boxes!
Two days later, after a short flight to the Netherlands, an
engineer at Philips gave us our first look at a strange, iridescent little disc....
...Ian G. Masters
ian@mastersonaudio.com
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