300b lovers

I was only 11 at the time, but I was dazzled by the private tour of Kurobe Dam. It’s size of Hoover Dam and freaking huge. The dam was nearly finished when we visited as guests of Kansai Electric, and we took this strange little Elves railway deep, deep into the mountain. We got out of our mini-train carriage into a brightly lit station with gleaming tiles, and directly opening into a modernist office area, with desks and office furniture.

Rather than office windows looking outside, there was a massive expanse of glass overlooking the turbine hall, from three stories up. I assume the control room was in the floor underneath us ... didn’t get to see that, but we did go to the main turbine hall. Two were up and running, the third Hitachi-made unit was on a crane, and there was a vast and deep concrete pit for #4, yet to arrive. All new and the walls all done in gleaming white tile, not bare concrete. Basically, an office and power station deep in a mountain, with a very quiet thrum as enormous quantities of water flowed through the penstocks into the turbines. You could just barely feel it.

We left by another route and saw the ultra high tension power lines coming out of the mountain, There was a faint glow around the wires from corona discharge and a sound like crickets from overhead.

Dad drew our attention, as we left on the micro train out of the very deep valley, that all this was being built 15 years after the most overwhelming defeat in history, with nearly every Japanese city in smoking ruins, and tens of millions on the verge of starvation. A scant 15 years later, a Japanese-made technological wonder that put Hoover Dam in the shade. It left quite an impression.

I have to give Dad credit. As Economic Attaché, he wangled some spectacular tours while we were overseas. Kurobe Dam. A Japanese steelworks at full blast. A visit to the 8-reactor carrier Enterprise. A visit to a factory assembling magnetic-core memory. An aerial tour of Hong Kong on a four-engine Super Constellation as the FAA aligned Kai Tak’s landing systems.

Although he was a diplomat with a Masters in Economics, he was a big fan of technology, the more spectacular, the better. If you want Big Tech, Asia’s the place.

As Whitestix mentions above, the Japanese have a "purist" esthetic that applies to audio. But it goes much deeper than that. The CEOs and top engineers of Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, or Chinese companies are not going to be impressed by the latest mass-produced gadget. Hardly. That’s the stuff they make every day, and they make it to very high reliability standards.

What they appreciate is artisan audio made to the highest standards, by artisans of superb taste. Not 1" thick anodized-aluminum front panels with a giant meter in the middle. That only impresses naive Americans who have never worked in manufacturing,

What impresses them is genuine American aerospace-grade quality, if circuit boards are involved, or artisan hand-tuned point-to-point circuitry. And they are not impressed by magazine reviewers, since they have an insider’s view of the publishing industry, and are very aware of how American marketing works.

@lynn_olson 

What they appreciate is artisan audio made to the highest standards, by artisans of superb taste. Not 1" thick anodized-aluminum front panels with a giant meter in the middle. That only impresses naive Americans who have never worked in manufacturing

I wonder how these Japanese engineers/designers view the products manufactured by Robert Koch (Robert Koda Audio). His approach seems to be a blend of Japanese aesthetic/philosophy and heirloom visual appeal for the North American and European markets. I don’t know how well received his components are in Japan.

Charles

Don, myself, and the team at Spatial intend to be on the straight and narrow when it comes to regulations ... we are not Tesla, Apple, or Microsoft, with armies of lawyers to smooth the path into new markets.

To gain the CE mark (which says that the product meets EU Directives) you can self-certify and no lawyers needed. Its not intended as a trade barrier.

If there are no digital or switching circuits involved, you have exemption from a good number of directives. Beyond that, if good practice for the AC wiring is observed (with a proper AC ground if a metal chassis is employed) and there are no exposed voltages, then you are 95% of the way there. It isn't required that you have a tube cage but if its not shipped with the equipment it must be available as an option. Finally the CE mark must appear somewhere: either on the shipping box, the associated owner's manual or the equipment itself.

Its a good idea to test the equipment for RFI generation, even if there are no RF sources such as switching technology. If you paid attention to Ps and Qs regarding layout and grid stoppers this is likely not an issue. 

RoHS must also be observed. For the most part this means lead free solder, but there's a percentage involved so it is possible to use leaded solder. You'll have to review the regulations on that.

a fascinating discussion… and remarkable in that blind American exceptionalism has yet to …intervene…much.

I spent much of my career working globally…for the largest exporter in the USA. 

Aerospace grade….. ;-)

Enjoy the music and i wish all well