OJAS Listening Room @ USM in SoHo NYC

I never imagined 30 years after the late Don Garber closed his Fi audio gallery at 30 Watts Street, that there would be a similar gallery in SoHo NYC again.

In the summer of 2022, I visited Devon Turnbull's OJAS exhibit at the NYC Lisson gallery. Click here to read about it. This past summer, a similar exhibit was presented at the London Lisson gallery. 

As soon as the London exhibit concluded, Ken Micallef, whom I follow on YouTube, uploaded this video featuring OJAS hifi systems inside a posh SoHo boutique. This was the main motivation to add it to my list of must-see places on my next NYC trip! 

Without further ado, here's what Tish and I experienced when we visited in mid November 2023.

OJAS @ Lisson Gallery NYC

Our dear friends Charito and Joey, whom we haven't seen for over five years, were in NYC visiting for a couple of days. On short notice, Tish was able to take a day off so we were able to meet up with them. Joey is an avid audio DIYer and was a frequent collaborator especially during the annual November Hifi Show when I was still based in Manila. He represents G.I.P. Laboratory in the Philippines. 

It was also timely that Devon (OJAS) Turnbull's HiFi Dream Listening Room No. 1 exhibit at the Lisson Gallery NYC was on its penultimate week. So Joey and I agreed that this was going to be our meeting place! 

The OJAS loudspeaker system utilizes Great Plains Audio drivers, which are currently produced using original Altec tooling - GPA 416B 16" woofers + GPA 288H 1.4" compression drivers. The latter compression drivers are coupled to bespoke OJAS 1505 horns, which are remastered versions of the classic Altec 1505B multi-cells, while Pioneer PTR9 ribbon super tweeters fill-in the top-end octave harmonic overtones. At the center is a Fostex FW800HS super woofer. Devon starts with Werner Jagusch crossovers but driver loading and alignment are all developed in-house and then fine tuned by ear!

Having spent almost a decade studying at The Juilliard School twenty years before the Diller Scofido + Renfro reboot, I developed an immediate affinity for the brutalist vibe of the speakers!

The OJAS gestalt brought back cherished memories of the late Don Garber's Fi audio gallery from the early 90s, which was along 30 Watts Street in SoHo NYC. I wasn't able to ask Devon if he got the chance to meet Don. I bet they would have gotten along really well!

A pair of Altec/Peerless 4722 SUTs are mounted directly on a FET-based phono preamp using vacuum tubes as constant current sources. This was designed by jazz guitarist Steve Berger, who's also the man behind Aprilsound NYC. The adjacent chassis with two large knobs houses a transformer volume control wound by Dave Slagle of Intact Audio.

Being a devoted Garrard 301 listener for many years, Devon is cognizant of the finite supply of these idler driven classics. So for this project, he chose the platter + motor from a Technics SL1200G and mounted them in a custom layered plywood plinth. To assure absolute speed stability and smoothness in operation, a 3-speed linear power supply was specially designed by Linear Tube Audio. Having done DJ work during his younger years, he admits that his choice was partially in reverence to the marque.

Mounted at the back is an Ortofon RMA309 tonearm + a restored vintage SPU-A for stereo LPs and a Dynavector DV505 tonearm + SPU mono CG 65 Di for 78 rpm shellac discs.

Devon's pair of SE300B mono-blocks (fitted with Tango XE20S output transformers) is an homage - not a slavish copy but his own interpretation - to Herb Reichert's Flesh and Blood amplifier published in Sound Practices Issue 8. 

Unlike a typical hi-fi show swarming with silver-haired or balding guys, it was refreshing to be surrounded by a twenty-to-forty something crowd. Devon is attracting and developing a niche market uncharted by mainstream high-end audio publications such as Stereophile and The Absolute Sound. Due to his background in design and interaction with the upper echelons of the fashion and music industries, the whole Sound Practices ethos of music reproduction spearheaded in the early 1990s by Joe Roberts will hopefully reach a larger audience. 

Joey and I spent a couple of hours listening to Blue Note jazz, contemporary classical music, and talking shop with Devon. He was a very gracious host, who candidly gave credit to his collaborators as well as to those people who've influenced and inspired him.

Me, Devon, and Joey

Bravo, Devon, very well done! 

After several years of PMs, it was great to finally meet you. I look forward to more shop talk when you visit my man cave.

Devon's HiFi Dream Listening Room No. 1 exhibit at the Lisson Gallery in Chelsea NYC is really worth hearing and seeing! 

Open Monday - Friday from 11am - 6pm until August 5, 2022.

This 'zine contains comprehensive information about the whole hifi installation + more! 

The poster + 'zine is available at Printed Matter Inc.

 

Marcel Breuer Designed House + Altec 604C + Infinite Baffle

  

This beautiful mid century modern home aka the Snower residence was designed by Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer and posted by midcenturyhome, whose finely curated photostream I follow on Instagram.

Aside from my interest in mid century modern architecture, the Altec 604C mounted prominently in the living room caught my eye.😄

I've also seen a Fisher 50C preamp (bottom) at FLW's Fallingwater. Unfortunately, interior photography was prohibited there when I last visited. 😞 

The Snower house + hifi installation was already brought to my attention in the comment section of architects, music and hifi  by a blog visitor many years ago. Thank you!

from Dwell.com

More Infinite Baffle Installations

I blogged about this installation before, but this picture offers another perspective of the 2-way horn speaker system installed in Case Study House #9 designed for John Entenza by Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen.

Scans from How to Build Speaker Enclosures

An office stereo hifi

John Hilliard's home hifi system

Hi-Fi system details

I'm pretty sure all these wall mounted speaker systems were formidable music reproducers! However, ever since soundstaging and imaging took precedence over sound quality, infinite baffle loading fell out of favor. 😔

Architects, Music and Hi-Fi

Music at home

Frank Lloyd Wright was known to have equipped his luxury home projects with a grand piano. When I visited Fallingwater some years ago I vaguely remember seeing a Fisher 50C preamp tucked inside a wall mounted console but no grand piano. Perhaps this was because it was designed as a weekend home for the Kaufmann family of Pittsburgh. 

The following are scans of how architects approached music reproduction in homes during the first half of the 20th century.

Charlotte Perriand's Modular Cabinet was part of a Bachelor Pad concept presented on behalf of Le Corbusier in Brussels, 1935 - looks like a  ~ 6" fullrange speaker, AM radio/phono amp + an early electric turntable? And it seems like acoustic feedback was not yet a major consideration in those days ;)

Walter Gropius living room in Lincoln, MA

Click on picture for a larger view of the hi-fi components right of center as well as the coaxial speaker further right (infinite baffle?).

Case Study House #9 by Charles and Ray Eames + Erno Saarinen for John Entenza, 2-way horn speaker system built into a wall, Stephens Trusonic drivers?

Living room of the (Julius) Shulman House,1950 by Ralph Soriano. Cool Jensen DU201 to the right ;)

Pierre Koenig's living room - lots of LPs and I see a Luxman CL35 preamp on the equipment rack + a pair of speakers housed in lowboy cabinets.

Eames Three Way

This is an interesting picture of a Charles Eames/Stephens Trusonic collaboration sent by SixCats! What's that other intriguing speaker in the background, buddy? 

Robert Stephens was part of the Shearer Horn project before starting his own company. I have seen a few Stephens drivers and the quality of construction is comparable to an Altec or JBL. But I never saw or heard this particular speaker system which according to a brochure in Hi-Fi Lit contained a 15" woofer in a folded horn chamber, compression driven 10 cell horn midrange + super tweeter. It is a rare piece and probably samples have been snapped up by mid-century modern collectors long before audio aficionados became aware of the sonic virtues of vintage equipment.

Keener eyes will notice that the Eames Trusonic E3 share the same wide baffle aspect as Pierre Koenig's lowboy enclosed speakers. I have a gut feel Koenig's speakers are actually E3s distorted slightly by a wide angle lens or that's just wishful thinking? ;)

The point is, after years of fiddling with speaker enclosures and open baffles I have come to a conclusion that the prevalent narrow and tall configuration of modern speaker designs does more harm than good to the sound. Gifted architects like Charles Eames and Pierre Koenig probably knew better then...