edible zone:
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photos and story by Brian Kearns
Quote\...I visited Mr Shindo in
his workshop in Tokyo.
He lives in a district called Ochanomisu
(literally translates to "Tea’s water")
in Tokyo which is one
station away from Akihabara on the Chuo line, and which is
within
easy walking distance of the main shopping area of Akihabara.
His
workshop was on the second floor of his premises. A rather narrow stair
way
leading to an Aladdin’s cave of vintage audio equipment; his
collection of Altec
Lansing Speakers has to be seen to be
believed. The room was full of them! He
also had quite a few
classic turntables lying around too, including a Thorens
TD124, a
few Garrards 301s, a Technics SP10mkII, and a few other less well
known models.
One of the Garrards (shown in the picture), had
a 15 inch platter, too large to
accommodate the speed change
control, which had been removed, the idea behind
this platter
being to provide an extremely high moment of inertia. The
turntable also had a 12 inch Shindo tonearm fitted, this design being
based on
the Ortofon RM309. Mr Shindo, told me that the 15 inch
platter was a one-off
design, and is not in general production,
however the conventional 13 inch
platter (which I use on my own
turntable) is available and is selling well.
We had a brief
discussion about the availability of other Shindo products in
Europe, apparently the new RoHS regulation has cut off the supply of
Shindo
Tube amps to the European Market. I’m not sure how this
has had an affect on
Jonathan Halperns business.
http://www.toneimports.com/shindo/shindohome.html
Finally, we had a brief chat (in my very bad Japanese) about the
Garrard sound,
Mr Shindo quite simply attributed the power and
granite like bass of the
Garrard to the high torque motor – not
much disagreement there I guess.
Best regards, Brian
...../Unquote