I ain’t sure about the title but this is the story of an old Fidelity Research moving coil cartridge, a Sumiko high output Talisman S and an old Sumiko tonearm.
It could also be a small recap of Boulder Amplifiers history, a company that made a transition from professional audio to the echelons of high end, building some of the most cherished, well finished and best sounding pieces of gear in recent years. In fact the company evolved so much over the last 30 years that the old factory was not big enough to host the production and new equipment, they had to move to a new space of some 23.000sqf, always in the premises of Boulder, in Louisville Colorado. During translocation they bumped upon a couple of carts and other small bits of gear used for testing their legendary phono stages. The FR in particular was used as an extreme test for the now legendary 2008 phono stage, since it outputs only .14mV; a phono amp capable of making music with no noise out of an air core coil cartridge will have no issues playing with just about everything else in the market.
Translocation must have been a nightmare for Boulder’s staff but Rich Maez found some time to post these items on Facebook. He was offering these as a gift to anyone interested and I, as a huge admirer of Isamu Ikeda and his air core coil designs, asked him, if possible, to send the lot to my place in Athens, Greece. He said that shipping is not an issue but he wanted something for the boys taking care of translocation, a few pizzas sounded like a great idea. As long as he was willing to send me a few pics of them eating those pizzas. We had a deal.
Here is the tricky part, I’ve never been to Boulder and I sure don’t know who makes a good pizza in Colorado. I can barely point out Colorado on the map. So I had to ask Rich, and he got back saying that three colleagues from the factory floor all said “Lucky Pie Pizza” is the best around Louisville. I messaged them on Facebook, saying, hey pizza guys, do you accept paypal from a Greek guy who wants to buy a dozen pizzas for some friends in Boulder?
Got no answer. They probably get pranks like this all the time.
Rang them again. Guys, this ain’t a hoax or something, I want to buy pizza for some friends. Yes, calling from Athens… Greece…
Nope, nothing to do.
I sent the money for the order to Rich via paypal, the rest is history. Got a box full of goodies a few weeks later. Sounds like an audiophile fairy-tale? Check the pics below 😉
