[quote user="Charlie Jefferson"]Please do, but in the meantime can I just revel in a Proustian moment triggered by that 12inch sleeve pictured above.
All those years vanished and forgotten. Until now. It's German lager night round at mine right now, so please forgive my obtuse exuberance.
More sleeves please, Sir.[/quote]
Sigh - tempus fugitting like crazy, innit?
Anyway, there's me and Malcolm Steward, formerly reviewer of this parish (and others), and now best known as founder/editor of trade magazine
The BAJ, on a press trip to Pioneer Japan.
We're shown into the listening room, which is about big enough to hold small chamber orchestra concerts, complete with sloped ceiling, adjustable diffusers, the lot. On the 'stage' is a pair of these huge hornloaded Pioneer speakers about 6ft tall, standing about 20ft apart, driven by some monstrous Japan-only monoblocs and fed from one of those battleship Stable Platter Pioneer CD players.
In the seats behind us are about 20-30 earnest-looking engineers, notebooks and propelling pencils poised to take down our every utterance.
We start with some solo piano music, and MS and I smile wryly at the 20ft wide keyboard the system conjures up, and then we move on to some jazz from Holly Cole and her Trio, at that time a prerequisite of any hi-fi demonstration.
The music stops, and we make the usual 'very impressive' comments which satisfy politeness after any endless factory tour or demonstration.
Then our hosts ask 'Is there anything else you'd like to hear?'
I look at Malcolm, Malcolm looks at me, and I dive into my bag and surface with
America: What Time Is Love?
It's reverentially accepted, the disc placed on the Stable Platter, and the drawer glides shut.
'At what level?' asks our host, to which the estimable Steward replies:
'What's the Japanese for "Crank the sucker"?'
Some severe crankage occurs, and as the opening notes and sound effects fill the room, and the narration begins, we feel 20 or 30 people crane forward in anticipation behind us.
Then the music explodes into life: all eight and a half minutes of total mayhem are unleashed at levels that have Steward and me - not exactly unaccustomed to a bit of volume - grinning from ear to ear.
Finally it's over. The dust settles, a metaphorical clock ticks.
We turn around and - all the seats behind us are deserted. We, and The KLF, have scared off the entire audio engineering staff of Pioneer.
As a postscript, we later learned that the Japanese engineers had bought themselves a copy of the disc, as they tend to when you produce something they don't know at such a session. Might explain why they're so good at making TVs these days...