Interview with Eddie Howe
Eddie Howe loves the simplicity, design, small footprint and performance of his Devialet playing MQA files.
This interview by Tom Waters was originally published in Sound Travels (reprinted with permission of nextmedia Pty Ltd).
Tom Waters: Do you have a first memory, a first unforgettable musical experience that left an impression?
Eddie Howe: My father had a Grundig tape player on which he played Chinese opera, whilst my eldest brother had a Kriesler record player on which he played musicals. I ended up loathing Chinese opera but loving musicals. Chinese opera has a totally different intonation than Western opera; most people would think it sounds like a high pitched, piercing sound. My father was fanatical about these operas.
TW: I read in a magazine, probably The Absolute Sound, that there are many golden-eared people in Asia and that that could possibly be because of the somewhat melodic sounding languages. Their ears are attuned to hearing pitch more acutely than a Westerner….
EH: Well, I don’t know if that is a valid conclusion, but Mandarin is very melodic, and some of the best Chinese music is written in Mandarin because of that sweet sound. It’s a bit like hearing opera in Italian – Italian sounds so much sweeter.
TW: And did that start you on the hi-fi journey or did something else start you on the audio equipment quest?
EH: One of my brothers played musicals such as the Sound of Music, and I think that is what initially germinated my interest in music. But I think it was when another one of my brothers built a set of speakers from a magazine blueprint using Magnavox drivers that I noticed for the first time that better components could make the music sound better. It was a lot better than what I’d heard before from a Grundig tape recorder and a Kriesler all-in-one automatic record player. I started on my own road when I left home and purchased a pair of Altec Lansing speakers and Denon integrated amplifier. I think I was one of the first to own a CD player; it was a Philips. Since then I have progressed through Rogers, Mordaunt-Short, PSB and now Vienna Acoustic speakers – I still have all my speakers and haven’t the heart to sell them; besides they make excellent home theatre speakers.
TW: Where do you think your system is going, or has it arrived?
EH: I think it’s pretty much arrived in general. I use a computer and NAS drive with a MQA DAC and an all-in-one streamer/music player/integrated amplifier with quality speakers. If I changed anything it would only be to upgrade the same unit to one with higher specs. Or perhaps upgrade to a better MQA capable DAC. And I’d like to buy a Devialet “companion” - I’d use my current Devialet as my master and the new companion as a “slave box”, effectively giving me monoblocks. That would give me 440W per channel. I just had my Devialet upgraded in France (to a Devialet Expert Pro 220) – so it now has more power, better DAC processing and improved hybrid A and D amplification.
TW: What’s your favourite piece of equipment at the moment, something that you wouldn’t sell?
EH: I wouldn’t sell my Devialet Expert amplifier. I was impressed by its design, performance, functionality and uniqueness the moment I first saw and listened to it. It is elegant, sounds great, is well engineered and constantly being developed. It is extensively configurable via downloads from their website and by SD card. My speakers were actively matched to the amplifier to gain maximum performance. Their mobile Speaker Active Matching unit was in Sydney in September, where they profiled my Vienna Acoustic speakers; the outcome of which is now available on their website.
TW: What do you see as your next hi-fi purchase or upgrade?
EH: I can’t afford any more upgrades unless I sell my children into slavery. The first-born would be for an upgraded Meridian DAC; second-born would be for the Vienna Acoustic flagship ‘Music’ speakers; and my youngest, an audio engineer who can be useful at times, would be sacrificed to purchase that second Devialet Expert, so that I can run each unit as a monobloc. Not only would I have the advantage of superior sound but I’ll also have a quiet, empty household – sorry, kids if you’re reading this. All jokes aside, I’d like to compare my Meridian Explorer 2 to the Meridian reference, just to see how much better it is – I don’t think that the Meridian Prime would “do it” for me.
TW: What’s the most memorable pair of speakers (or system as a whole) you’ve ever heard?
EH: It was about 10 years ago at the Melbourne Hi-Fi show. I was stunned by a pair of electrostatic speakers that reached the ceiling of the function room, with a subwoofer the size of a toilet. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of it. An orchestral track was playing and it was the only time I could feel a full symphony orchestra was playing live in the very same room. My visits to the opera house haven’t sounded this good. Since then, all the electrostatics that I have heard including the Martin Logan Neoliths, haven’t matched up.
TW: Could it might have been the electrostatic Wisdom LS4 speakers..? They were huge, but that show was probably only 4-5 years ago, at a guess.
EH: It would have been them. It wasn’t the huge SGR speakers - they were my pick for second best (even though they weren’t electrostatic!).
TW: Is there any component you’ve owned and sold that you now regret selling?
EH: Yes, I remember it well because I regretted it the moment I was handed the cash: my NAD M51 DAC. It was such a versatile DAC – lots of inputs/outputs and good sound quality. I found I needed it on several occasions since it departed. I still weep at nights. Other than that there hasn’t been much else I’ve sold. I don’t tend to sell my old gear – my older speakers for instance have been pushed into service in our home theatre system. Some other gear has been given to my children.
TW: And are your children (the ones you haven’t sold!) into music..?
EH: One of my sons started off as a musician. He studied percussion and went to London to train in stage theatre musicals. He then got jobs in that but realized he couldn’t make a living! He wanted to marry, so he came back to Australia (with his partner) to work as an audio engineer for a while.
TW: Do you use the same music for comparing components as you do for listening pleasure?
EH: Yes, there are a few tracks that I know well that I more commonly use. They are all MQA Studio files: ‘Baltimore’ by Travelogue with Coco Rouzier; ‘Playful Pizzicato’, from Britten’s Simple Symphony 2L recording; ‘Mozart Violin Concerto’ Marianne Thorsen, 2L recording; ‘Return to the Fire’ Tim Garland.
TW: What genre of music do you listen to mostly and who are some of your favourite artists?
EH: I mainly listen to jazz nowadays because it generally has better recording quality. After a visit to your home, I realized I loved jazz! I prefer female vocal and swing. Nevertheless, I listen to all genres – pop, classical, opera, musicals. My favourites include Diana Krall, James Taylor, Count Basie, Glenn Gould, Joyce DiDonato and a little known vocalist, Ilonka. I listen to Tidal a lot, but due to drop-outs I tend to listen offline – the trouble is that you’ve got have an Android or Apple tablet with enough memory space so you can temporarily store it. You can then listen uninterrupted.
TW: What would be your ‘desert island’ music albums if you could only choose, say, three works?
EH: I am embarrassed to state this publicly for fear of derision: Bee Gees: ‘One Night Only’; Beach Boys: ‘50th Anniversary Live Concert’ and for something completely different: Wagner – Ring Cycle, any version (at least I’ll get 15 hours of music from that one).
TW: How would you describe the sound you’re getting from your current system?
EH: I am extremely pleased with my current system – it has an ideal warm quality with excellent accuracy and clarity. I feel the dulcet tone is due to Devialet’s unique method of hybridising class A and D amplification running in parallel; the voltage is set by class A and current delivered by class D. The result comes close to pure class A valve amplifiers. The other characteristics I believe are due to the superb Vienna Acoustic speakers and the Meridian Explorer 2 MQA DAC. Though debatable, I think MQA sound quality is better and more realistic. ‘Ringing’ in digital recordings is always a bugbear that is considerably alleviated by MQA.
TW: Are there any other qualities about MQA that you’d like to mention?
EH: Instruments and voice just sounds more realistic and purer to me. From a commercial point of view, you can play any MQA file on any system which I think is a boon. It’s basically just packaged as a FLAC file, so anything that can play FLAC can play MQA. But of course you need a MQA decoder to take advantage of the “folded” data. It is proprietary but MQA (the company) is happy to partner with anyone that wishes to use the format, for example, Tidal. And if the DAC doesn’t decode MQA, it still plays at slightly better than CD quality (because it is 24 bit not 16 bit - TW).
TW: In what way does music affect your life, your emotions and the way you feel?
EH: I always listen to my hi-fi before bedtime, along with a generous nightcap (Cointreau and Aperol, my own concoction – I call it an “Aperol Schiitz”). I find it most relaxing – better than hypnotic medication. On weekends, I am exhilarated by pumping the music very loud. The family receives statutory prior notice … and they usually go out :).
TW: Where do you see the high-end audio industry going in the future?
EH: I see already that many manufacturers are moving to compact all-in-one setups incorporating streamer, music player and integrated amplifier. Naim has an excellent unit. Linn and Avantgarde have speaker based integrated units that are also appealing. (The Avantgarde Zero 1 XD system sounds fantastic.) These systems make for simpler set-up, lower space requirements and are high on Wife Acceptance Factor. And for the most part, they sound great. I think this trend may become ubiquitous.
TW: Where would you like the audio industry to go or to evolve to?
EH: I think there will always be the high-end multi-box mega-bucks systems. What I look forward to is genuine Hi-Resolution music streaming. The MQA and Tidal partnership has achieved it in testing and demo. I think it would be a boon for audiophiles. I like Tidal a lot; the choice of tens of millions of tracks in CD quality is invaluable - any music any time. Australia’s bandwidth streaming problem with Tidal is a constant annoyance that I currently rectify by downloading onto an Android device and playing offline; this situation could be improved.
Main system
Home Theatre
(Interview by Tom Waters, President, Sydney Audio Club www.sydneyaudioclub.org)
This interview by Tom Waters was originally published in Sound Travels (reprinted with permission of nextmedia Pty Ltd).
Tom Waters: Do you have a first memory, a first unforgettable musical experience that left an impression?
Eddie Howe: My father had a Grundig tape player on which he played Chinese opera, whilst my eldest brother had a Kriesler record player on which he played musicals. I ended up loathing Chinese opera but loving musicals. Chinese opera has a totally different intonation than Western opera; most people would think it sounds like a high pitched, piercing sound. My father was fanatical about these operas.
TW: I read in a magazine, probably The Absolute Sound, that there are many golden-eared people in Asia and that that could possibly be because of the somewhat melodic sounding languages. Their ears are attuned to hearing pitch more acutely than a Westerner….
EH: Well, I don’t know if that is a valid conclusion, but Mandarin is very melodic, and some of the best Chinese music is written in Mandarin because of that sweet sound. It’s a bit like hearing opera in Italian – Italian sounds so much sweeter.
TW: And did that start you on the hi-fi journey or did something else start you on the audio equipment quest?
EH: One of my brothers played musicals such as the Sound of Music, and I think that is what initially germinated my interest in music. But I think it was when another one of my brothers built a set of speakers from a magazine blueprint using Magnavox drivers that I noticed for the first time that better components could make the music sound better. It was a lot better than what I’d heard before from a Grundig tape recorder and a Kriesler all-in-one automatic record player. I started on my own road when I left home and purchased a pair of Altec Lansing speakers and Denon integrated amplifier. I think I was one of the first to own a CD player; it was a Philips. Since then I have progressed through Rogers, Mordaunt-Short, PSB and now Vienna Acoustic speakers – I still have all my speakers and haven’t the heart to sell them; besides they make excellent home theatre speakers.
TW: Where do you think your system is going, or has it arrived?
EH: I think it’s pretty much arrived in general. I use a computer and NAS drive with a MQA DAC and an all-in-one streamer/music player/integrated amplifier with quality speakers. If I changed anything it would only be to upgrade the same unit to one with higher specs. Or perhaps upgrade to a better MQA capable DAC. And I’d like to buy a Devialet “companion” - I’d use my current Devialet as my master and the new companion as a “slave box”, effectively giving me monoblocks. That would give me 440W per channel. I just had my Devialet upgraded in France (to a Devialet Expert Pro 220) – so it now has more power, better DAC processing and improved hybrid A and D amplification.
TW: What’s your favourite piece of equipment at the moment, something that you wouldn’t sell?
EH: I wouldn’t sell my Devialet Expert amplifier. I was impressed by its design, performance, functionality and uniqueness the moment I first saw and listened to it. It is elegant, sounds great, is well engineered and constantly being developed. It is extensively configurable via downloads from their website and by SD card. My speakers were actively matched to the amplifier to gain maximum performance. Their mobile Speaker Active Matching unit was in Sydney in September, where they profiled my Vienna Acoustic speakers; the outcome of which is now available on their website.
TW: What do you see as your next hi-fi purchase or upgrade?
EH: I can’t afford any more upgrades unless I sell my children into slavery. The first-born would be for an upgraded Meridian DAC; second-born would be for the Vienna Acoustic flagship ‘Music’ speakers; and my youngest, an audio engineer who can be useful at times, would be sacrificed to purchase that second Devialet Expert, so that I can run each unit as a monobloc. Not only would I have the advantage of superior sound but I’ll also have a quiet, empty household – sorry, kids if you’re reading this. All jokes aside, I’d like to compare my Meridian Explorer 2 to the Meridian reference, just to see how much better it is – I don’t think that the Meridian Prime would “do it” for me.
TW: What’s the most memorable pair of speakers (or system as a whole) you’ve ever heard?
EH: It was about 10 years ago at the Melbourne Hi-Fi show. I was stunned by a pair of electrostatic speakers that reached the ceiling of the function room, with a subwoofer the size of a toilet. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of it. An orchestral track was playing and it was the only time I could feel a full symphony orchestra was playing live in the very same room. My visits to the opera house haven’t sounded this good. Since then, all the electrostatics that I have heard including the Martin Logan Neoliths, haven’t matched up.
TW: Could it might have been the electrostatic Wisdom LS4 speakers..? They were huge, but that show was probably only 4-5 years ago, at a guess.
EH: It would have been them. It wasn’t the huge SGR speakers - they were my pick for second best (even though they weren’t electrostatic!).
TW: Is there any component you’ve owned and sold that you now regret selling?
EH: Yes, I remember it well because I regretted it the moment I was handed the cash: my NAD M51 DAC. It was such a versatile DAC – lots of inputs/outputs and good sound quality. I found I needed it on several occasions since it departed. I still weep at nights. Other than that there hasn’t been much else I’ve sold. I don’t tend to sell my old gear – my older speakers for instance have been pushed into service in our home theatre system. Some other gear has been given to my children.
TW: And are your children (the ones you haven’t sold!) into music..?
EH: One of my sons started off as a musician. He studied percussion and went to London to train in stage theatre musicals. He then got jobs in that but realized he couldn’t make a living! He wanted to marry, so he came back to Australia (with his partner) to work as an audio engineer for a while.
TW: Do you use the same music for comparing components as you do for listening pleasure?
EH: Yes, there are a few tracks that I know well that I more commonly use. They are all MQA Studio files: ‘Baltimore’ by Travelogue with Coco Rouzier; ‘Playful Pizzicato’, from Britten’s Simple Symphony 2L recording; ‘Mozart Violin Concerto’ Marianne Thorsen, 2L recording; ‘Return to the Fire’ Tim Garland.
TW: What genre of music do you listen to mostly and who are some of your favourite artists?
EH: I mainly listen to jazz nowadays because it generally has better recording quality. After a visit to your home, I realized I loved jazz! I prefer female vocal and swing. Nevertheless, I listen to all genres – pop, classical, opera, musicals. My favourites include Diana Krall, James Taylor, Count Basie, Glenn Gould, Joyce DiDonato and a little known vocalist, Ilonka. I listen to Tidal a lot, but due to drop-outs I tend to listen offline – the trouble is that you’ve got have an Android or Apple tablet with enough memory space so you can temporarily store it. You can then listen uninterrupted.
TW: What would be your ‘desert island’ music albums if you could only choose, say, three works?
EH: I am embarrassed to state this publicly for fear of derision: Bee Gees: ‘One Night Only’; Beach Boys: ‘50th Anniversary Live Concert’ and for something completely different: Wagner – Ring Cycle, any version (at least I’ll get 15 hours of music from that one).
TW: How would you describe the sound you’re getting from your current system?
EH: I am extremely pleased with my current system – it has an ideal warm quality with excellent accuracy and clarity. I feel the dulcet tone is due to Devialet’s unique method of hybridising class A and D amplification running in parallel; the voltage is set by class A and current delivered by class D. The result comes close to pure class A valve amplifiers. The other characteristics I believe are due to the superb Vienna Acoustic speakers and the Meridian Explorer 2 MQA DAC. Though debatable, I think MQA sound quality is better and more realistic. ‘Ringing’ in digital recordings is always a bugbear that is considerably alleviated by MQA.
TW: Are there any other qualities about MQA that you’d like to mention?
EH: Instruments and voice just sounds more realistic and purer to me. From a commercial point of view, you can play any MQA file on any system which I think is a boon. It’s basically just packaged as a FLAC file, so anything that can play FLAC can play MQA. But of course you need a MQA decoder to take advantage of the “folded” data. It is proprietary but MQA (the company) is happy to partner with anyone that wishes to use the format, for example, Tidal. And if the DAC doesn’t decode MQA, it still plays at slightly better than CD quality (because it is 24 bit not 16 bit - TW).
TW: In what way does music affect your life, your emotions and the way you feel?
EH: I always listen to my hi-fi before bedtime, along with a generous nightcap (Cointreau and Aperol, my own concoction – I call it an “Aperol Schiitz”). I find it most relaxing – better than hypnotic medication. On weekends, I am exhilarated by pumping the music very loud. The family receives statutory prior notice … and they usually go out :).
TW: Where do you see the high-end audio industry going in the future?
EH: I see already that many manufacturers are moving to compact all-in-one setups incorporating streamer, music player and integrated amplifier. Naim has an excellent unit. Linn and Avantgarde have speaker based integrated units that are also appealing. (The Avantgarde Zero 1 XD system sounds fantastic.) These systems make for simpler set-up, lower space requirements and are high on Wife Acceptance Factor. And for the most part, they sound great. I think this trend may become ubiquitous.
TW: Where would you like the audio industry to go or to evolve to?
EH: I think there will always be the high-end multi-box mega-bucks systems. What I look forward to is genuine Hi-Resolution music streaming. The MQA and Tidal partnership has achieved it in testing and demo. I think it would be a boon for audiophiles. I like Tidal a lot; the choice of tens of millions of tracks in CD quality is invaluable - any music any time. Australia’s bandwidth streaming problem with Tidal is a constant annoyance that I currently rectify by downloading onto an Android device and playing offline; this situation could be improved.
Main system
- HP Pavilion Combo tablet/PC running Foobar2000
- Wyred4Sound Recovery Reclocker (for USB port)
- Meridian Explorer 2 DAC
- Oppo BDP-103 Blu-ray player
- Devialet Expert Pro 220 streamer/DAC/phono/integrated amplifier
- Vienna Acoustics Liszt speakers
- Isotek Sirius power conditioner
- Isotek and Chord power cables
- Van den Hul Magnum speaker cables
- Wireworld Luna 7 digital cables
- Audioquest Forest analogue cable
- Fiio X7 Portable Digital Audio Player running Tidal Android app
- Sony NWZ-ZX1 running Devialet remote Android app
- Samsung Tab A running Foobar control Android app
- Vicoustic Wavewood acoustic panels
- Autex Quietspace Lattice ceiling acoustic baffle
Home Theatre
- Samsung 65” UHD TV
- Denon X3000 AV processor
- NAD T975 7-channel power amplifier
- PSB Synchrony-1 centre and surround speakers
- Rogers LS6a rear speakers
- PSB SubSeries HD10 subwoofer
- Dali Concept subwoofer
(Interview by Tom Waters, President, Sydney Audio Club www.sydneyaudioclub.org)