WEBVTT - The Rise and Fall of Sansui 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.040 Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.400 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.720 and how the tech are you? So? I alluded to 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:27.680 this in the prologue to last week's rerun. Listener Ron 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:31.319 McCallie reached out to the show on Twitter. Remember the 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.560 handle for the show is tech Stuff h s W 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.320 and asked that I do an episode about San Sui, 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:40.000 which is great because it's time for me to make 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:45.360 a confession. I don't believe I had ever heard of 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:50.560 this company. Now. I just felt all the audio files 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.800 out there switching off this show immediately, although who am 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.240 I kidding? Most of them probably can't stand the low 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:01.720 fidelity of the podcast medium. So I'm having a little 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.800 fun at the expense of audio files here. I'll have 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.120 more to say about audio files throughout this and it's 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:12.920 not it's not like um all sligging off on audio files. 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:17.240 I think that they take it very seriously, this idea 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:23.119 of creating as perfect a sound playback system as they 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.679 possibly can. But there's a lot that goes into that, 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:28.679 and I might touch on that a little bit in 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:34.720 this podcast anyway. San Sui was past tense and electronics 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:38.640 company that has become particularly well known for audio and 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.600 to a lesser extent, video system components. Now, if you 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.800 do a search for san Sui, by the way, that's 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.320 spelled s A N s u I, you will find 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.400 numerous articles and videos that mentioned San Sui in the 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:59.440 company of other big name companies like Pioneer and Sony. 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.960 You all so be on the precipice of a huge 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:07.280 drop into the sometimes crazy world of hi fi or 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.600 high fidelity, and just know that if you do slip 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.000 over the edge, there's a chance that you will never 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.440 come back. Hi fi is one of those pursuits that 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.600 can consume you and more to the point your bank account. 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.160 We'll talk about that today too. And just know I'm 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:27.639 being a little flip in about all this, But what 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:29.239 I mean is that there are a lot of people 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.680 out there who they are obsessed with finding that perfect 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:37.160 high fidelity experience, to the point that some of them 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:41.240 are are spending tens of thousands of dollars in the 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.720 pursuit of it. Uh and they may never achieve it. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:50.040 So our story begins in the nineteen forties in Japan. 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.480 They're a man named Kosaku Kikuchi was employed in a 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.359 company that was a radio parts distributor. And you know, 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.720 the word district reader is one that I think isn't 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.359 clear for everyone. So let's get ready for our first 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.040 little buddy trail. Uh. And first let's start with the 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.680 idea of a supply chain. And let's say it's the 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.360 nineteen seventies and you want a new sound system so 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.040 you can listen to the transgressive glam rock sounds of 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.640 artists like David Bowie, Lou Reid and the New York Dolls. 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.600 Or heck, maybe it's you know, just a year or 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.920 two later in the decade, and you want a rocking 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.760 system so that you can listen to punk bands like 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:34.240 the Ramons, the void Oid's and the Heartbreakers. Or maybe 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:36.360 it's the late seventies and disco is king, so you 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:38.680 want to groove out to the b Gs or Casey 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.320 in the Sunshine Band or earth Wind and Fire. I'm 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.360 getting a bit of a nostalgic kick here, can you tell? Anyway? 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:47.640 You want to buy a stereo system, So you go 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.320 to your local electronics store and you take a look 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:54.440 at what's on display. Every single product you're looking at 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.000 can trace its history back through a chain of production. 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.600 So there are certain companies that mine the raw materials 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.640 that ultimately find their way into our tech. Some of 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.920 them might also process those raw materials and refine them, 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:14.000 or maybe they send the raw materials onto refineries that 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.440 are dedicated just to doing that. And then you've got 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:21.919 fabricators that take raw or processed materials and then build 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.680 components with them. And then you've got factories that take 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.120 these components that are made by the various fabricators out 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.520 there and assemble them into larger products. And then you've 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:38.680 got distributors that take these finished products, which could be 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.280 just a component for an even more complicated product down 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:45.080 the line, and the distributors are in charge of getting 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:50.320 that finished thing, typically to a wholesaler, and wholesalers then 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:55.120 sell large lots of finished things to retailers, and then 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.479 the retailer sells it to you, the final customer, who 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.320 wants to buy the best stereos them. This, by the way, 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.839 is one of the reasons we see such challenges in 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:08.120 supply these days, because COVID really messed up the links 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:12.000 in the supply chain, and if just one link falls, well, 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:16.840 then everything that goes behind that that link has a delay, 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:19.560 and things get worse and worse as it goes along. 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.400 So a distributor, like I said, is a link between 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:29.320 manufacturers who might fabricate or simply a symbol stuff and 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.719 then the rest of the supply chain. And distributors sometimes 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.640 act as vendors as well, or they might supply products 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:41.159 to wholesalers and directly to retailers. Anyway, just in case 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.600 you ever want to know what a distributor was in 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.080 the sense of the supply chain, there you go. Uh. 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.440 It also means something totally different, and we're talking about 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.880 car engines. Those are different distributors, but that's another podcast. 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.200 So it's the nineteen forties and Kikuchi is working for 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.960 this company, which obviously became a critical entity during World 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.240 War Two. Radio parts were, if you pardon the pun, 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:09.120 instrumental in the war effort. Cakuchie founded a radio part 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:13.720 manufacturing plant that he named the san Sui Electrical Plant 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:17.720 in nineteen four And a quick word about that name. 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.520 From what I can tell, san Sui is not a 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:24.800 Japanese term. Rather, it actually comes from China, and it's 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.960 a style of painting, and in China it's called shan 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.360 Shui and it has the style has two key components 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:35.600 to it. Artists use brushes and ink instead of brushes 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:39.719 and paint, and they paint landscapes that those are the 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:45.920 two things that that identify Shanshui paintings. Shanshui translated literally 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.640 means mountain water and a lot of the landscapes that 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.080 are painted feature images of waterfalls and mountain streams and such. 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:56.720 So San Sui the company its first products were transformers, 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.159 and again not the kind that are more than meets 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.600 the eye. We're talking about an electrical component that can 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.560 both transfer electric energy from one circuit to another, as 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:10.160 well as changed the voltage of the current running through 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:14.160 the second circuit or to increase it or decrease it. 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.679 So audio transformers also get a bit more complicated because 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.560 they could be designed to do other stuff like split 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:25.480 audio signals apart or join them together, as well as 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.760 to block radio frequency interference, among other things. But this 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.000 gets super technical, and if I dive into that, we 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.360 won't have a chance to talk about San Sue at all, 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.440 So we're gonna save all that for some other episode. 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:43.640 So in Kikuchi was ready to launch a company that 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:48.160 would go beyond just manufacturing transformers. This would be the 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:52.360 sen Sui Electric Company, and his initial starting capital, like 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.520 the amount of money that was in the company was 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:59.440 on eight thousand yen. Now, I wish I could tell 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:03.280 you what that was worth today, but the inflation calculators 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.880 I found only dated back to the nineteen fifties. Uh. 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:11.400 I do know that in nineteen forty six, the occupation 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.720 forces that were in Japan after World War Two had 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.200 set the yen to dollar exchange rate at fifty yen 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:23.800 to a dollar. So using that conversion rate, thousand yen 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.200 in nineteen forty seven would be equal to about three thousand, 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.840 six hundred bucks again in nineteen forty seven dollars. Now, 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.679 if we adjusted that in the US for US inflation, 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.480 you would get about forty five thousand dollars, which is 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:40.120 a pretty modest initial capital for a company. But I 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.640 also have to point out that you know, inflation and 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:48.440 exchange rates change so much over time that you can't 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.520 just say, like, oh, it had forty five thousand dollars 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.800 in capital back then, because that it's too simplistic of 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:59.280 you to be able to say that appreciation of one 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:05.320 currency against another changes things dramatically, and appreciation of currencies 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:10.080 doesn't necessarily reflect in let's say, inflation or deflation within 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.440 a country. So yeah, I just know that it was 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:18.560 a fairly modest starting capital for this company. Now, I 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.480 don't have very much information on what the company was 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:25.040 doing in its first few years. In fact, documentation about 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:29.800 San Suey in general is sparse. I looked at a 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:34.240 lot of different sites, many of them run by audio files, 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:37.200 and so a lot of the information I have is 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:41.360 second hand or third hand information, and I don't usually 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.280 like running with that, but I kind of didn't have 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:49.480 many other options for this particular episode. But the next 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:51.760 point of data that I could find on San Suey 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.360 actually comes in at nineteen fifty two, So this is 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:58.280 several years after the founding. The founding was in nine seven, 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.960 So in nineteen fifty two, and sue was producing voltage 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:07.360 stabilizers and a few dozen different kinds of transformers, and 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.760 at that point the company employed fifty two people. In 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.720 nine four, San Sui introduced the HPR one hundred and 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:20.679 electronic tube amplifier. Now, last week, again I reran an 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.880 episode that talked about how speakers and amplifiers work, so 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.560 we're not gonna go into deep detail again here, but 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.040 you should know an amplifier's job is to take a 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.600 weak incoming signal as an input and then send out 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:42.199 a much stronger, but otherwise identical outgoing signal to other components, 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.960 typically things like speakers, and reproducing the quality of the 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.600 input signal is absolutely key with an amplifier. It's not 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.320 just enough to boost the signal. You want to make 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:57.040 sure that you are as true to that incoming signal 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:01.760 as you possibly can be. Otherwise the amplifier can become 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:06.520 an element that decreases the quality of that signal, and 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.200 it can introduce noise into the output, and that's a 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:14.280 big problem. So with audio gear, we're talking about actual noise, right, 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.720 like stuff that's coming out of the speakers that was 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:22.120 not part of the original recording. You do not want that. 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:26.280 In general, audio files absolutely do not want that. They 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:31.680 want to create a listening experience that is as faithful 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:35.760 to the original recording experience as is possible, So you 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:39.280 do not want to introduce noise. However, I should say 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:44.080 that noise also just means like unwanted signal, and it 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.920 applies across all of technology, not just in the audio world. 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.959 But you know, you don't want to introduce unwanted signal 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.760 because that means you're gonna get errors in whatever it 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.240 is you're doing. So amplifiers in general, you want to 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.440 be able to of good output, a strong outgoing signal 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:09.360 without introducing unwanted components, unwanted noise, and that is a 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:13.640 real challenge. Like that's why San Sui ended up getting 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:18.319 such a great reputation in the sixties and early seventies 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:23.559 because their products were known to produce a pretty powerful 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:27.920 output without introducing noise. So that was a great thing 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:33.320 for audio files. Uh Now, I might also add that 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.280 when I'm talking about noise, I am not making a 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.640 commentary on the quality of the music that someone might 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.400 be listening to. I mean, I personally think a lot 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:44.920 of so called music is noise, but that's because I'm 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:49.120 an rapidly aging glam punk rock new wave music lover. 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.720 So that's just you know, my prejudice and biases in 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.719 that regard. But another quick note about amplifiers. When we're 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.840 talking about boosting an electrical signal that represents sound, we 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.760 have to remember that sound ranges across a pretty broad 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:10.360 range of frequencies. Sound when you boil it down is vibration, 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.400 and we can measure it in one way we can 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.920 measure it is how frequently is the stuff vibrating. The 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:21.400 faster it vibrates, the higher the pitch that we experience 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:26.680 in listening to it. Human hearing typically ranges from twenty 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:31.520 hurts or twenty vibrations or cycles per second on the 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:34.680 low end, those are the deepest pitches that we can 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:40.720 perceive with our with hearing, like you can feel lower frequencies, 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.160 but you can't hear them, and then it goes up 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.360 to twenty thousand hurts or twenty killer hurts on the 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:51.880 high end, so vibrating twenty thousand cycles per second. Those 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.160 are the highest pitches we can typically perceive, and that 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:59.640 that range decreases as we get older. Typically we we 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:05.079 start to lose those higher pitches first, So as an adult, 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.000 you may not be able to hear stuff that's up 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.720 in that twenty thousand hurts range. It may be much lower. 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:16.800 This is also played into when various places like convenience 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.320 stores will play out sounds at higher pitches that young 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.320 people can hear, but older people can't. In order to 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:29.560 uh discourage young people from loitering fun times anyway, amplifiers 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.040 typically have a sweet spot and uh in a range 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:36.920 of frequencies that they can really boost effectively. So this 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.040 would be a range of electrical signals at which the 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:43.520 amplifier is most effective. That is the amplifiers bandwidth. That's 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.160 one of the things that affects an amplifiers quality. If 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.160 the bandwidth is really narrow, well, the amplifier might be 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.480 work great for a certain range of frequencies, but anything 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.200 outside that, you're not gonna get the same umph, which 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:01.560 means that you're listening experience is going to be ideal, right, 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:05.440 because those those signals aren't going to be amplified, You're 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.000 going to lose out on some of the range of 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:14.280 the sound as it's being played back. Okay, we're gonna 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:16.440 have some other stuff to chat about in a minute, 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:19.120 but before we get to that, I need to take 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:29.320 a quick break. Okay, before the break, I was talking 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.800 about the kind of sound that most people are capable 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:38.960 of hearing um and how that plays into amplifiers, and 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:43.000 that certain amplifiers might have a particular range that they're 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.640 very good at reproducing and others that they aren't. Often 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:53.000 with amplifiers, you'll have multiple amplification components, each with a 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.440 different sort of sweet spot range to try and reproduce 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:04.080 the whole of a recorded or broadcast audio signals quality, 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:06.440 because again, otherwise you would lose parts of it when 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.680 you were sending that signal along to the speakers. And 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:11.960 there's other stuff we could talk about. For example, the 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:16.200 way we contextualize how an amplifier can increase the amplitude 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:20.120 or volume of a signal. That's called gain. So if 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.640 you've ever heard people talk about needing to adjust the 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.880 gain on their microphones or their amplifiers, that's what they're 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.160 talking about. And I'll have to do a full episode 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.040 about gain and clipping and stuff like that in the 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.200 future because if I stick to it here, it will 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.640 take up the rest of this episode. But gain is 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.600 super important. Whether it's because you want to make sure 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.040 your voice sounds nice on a podcast well any clipping, 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.360 or maybe you want to purposefully introduce certain effects like 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.200 clipping or distortion in your output, like that's part of 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:56.480 your artistic expression. You might want to do that. Um, So, yeah, 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.560 it is important, but it goes beyond this episode. Well, 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.600 then we also have to talk about pre amplifiers, because 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.760 that's something that San Suey was getting into in this 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:12.320 time period. So pre amplifiers or pre amps are amplifiers 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.520 that take very weak signals, like say from a microphone, 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:20.720 which produces a very weak electrical signal, and then boosts 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:25.080 that into a stronger signal, but not super strong, like 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.719 not strong enough to drive speakers. So pre amps signal 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.480 would then feed into an actual amplifier, and that would 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.359 take the pre amps boosted signal and then boosted even further. 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:39.080 But then you might wonder, well, why would you use 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.520 a preamp at all? I mean, couldn't an amplifier just 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:45.080 do the whole thing by itself. Well, pre amplifiers are 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.040 necessary to cut back on that noise thing I was 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.399 just talking about, and to cut back on interference. The 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:57.640 pre amp typically boosts voltage gain, but not current gain. Remember, 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.000 voltage and current are two different things. Voltage is kind 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.199 of like the pressure in electrical system. Current is like 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:08.800 the amount of electricity that's passing through a system. So 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.680 you're increasing the pressure with a pre amp, but not 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:18.000 the current um and this will then boost the gain 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.679 to what is called line level. That is, a signal 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.160 that's strong enough to send onto a power amplifier, which 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.600 will then boost the signal further, ideally without introducing noise 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.879 into it. And a power amplifier will boost voltage and current, 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.040 not just one or the other, and it will send 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.520 this boosted signal out to power speakers and monitors and stuff. 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.679 And by monitors I mean a type of speaker, not 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:44.439 a display, you know, not a not a not a 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:48.680 computer monitor in other words, and amplifiers do this by 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:53.080 having power directed to them from outside sources. Now, I 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.159 say this because I do not want to give you 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:59.119 the impression that somehow amplifiers magically create energy, because we 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:03.080 know from the law of conservation you cannot do that. Instead, 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:06.959 amplifiers are taking an incoming signal and then boosting that 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.600 by taking advantage of electrical power from another source, like 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.720 say a wall outlet, and then pushes out this stronger 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:19.480 outgoing signal that's otherwise identical to the incoming one. Now, 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.720 the reason I even went into this is that preampts 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.800 and amplifier tubes would sort of open up the possibility 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.920 of a high fidelity industry, which is where San Sui 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.920 would have its biggest impact, So it's good to have 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.520 a basic understanding of that technology. Now. Nineteen fifty four 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.399 was also a year when a company called Harmon Cardon 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.360 became the first to introduce a receiver. So you need 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:44.879 to know what a receiver is and consider for a 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.359 moment the various components you might need. If you really 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.439 loved audio in the nineteen fifties, well, you would need 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.399 a radio typically that would consist of at least, you know, 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.560 one antenna and a tuner that lets you tune into 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:02.399 specific radio frequencies. You would also need an amplifier or 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.639 more likely a couple of amplifiers, that would take the 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.760 incoming electrical signal from the radio broadcast and boost it 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.880 so that it can drive the radio's speakers. And then 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.000 you would also need speakers. Uh. The radio's way back 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.520 in the day were pretty big. They were reliant on 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.560 vacuum tubes to serve as amplifiers, so the old radios 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.760 were essentially pieces of furniture. By the nineteen fifties, they 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.360 were slightly smaller than they had been in the thirties 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.520 and forties, but it wouldn't really be until the adoption 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.280 of the transistor that we would see them shrink down. 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.320 But as an audio file, you wouldn't just stop with 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:39.720 the radio. You would also need a record player, a 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.879 turntable or phonograph really in those days. Uh. This consists 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:47.239 of the turntable itself, and if the turntable is not 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.040 an all in one unit with its own speaker, you 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.640 would also need a separate amplifier and separate speakers so 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:56.960 that the weak electric signal that was coming from the 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:01.040 record player could be boosted enough to drive the speakers. 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.239 All in one units had all the components built into them. Uh. 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.280 But those components are still all right there, and it's 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:12.399 possible you might have some other audio sources as well. Uh, 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:14.840 and you would again need the amplifiers and speakers for 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:16.800 each of them. So your home is gonna get really 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:18.960 crammed with gear because you might want something that can 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.560 play back tape. For example, now in the nineteen fifties 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.840 we would be talking about real to real tape. A 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.120 lot of the tape players had their own speakers incorporated 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:33.679 into them in this form factor, but you would so 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.200 you could have a standalone player that would have everything, 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:40.080 But you could also have one that just have the 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:42.800 tape deck itself and would still need to go through 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:45.720 an amplifier and speakers before you could actually listen to it. 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:49.560 So you have all these independent components, each of their 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.000 own dedicated speaker systems and amplifiers, just so you can 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:57.520 enjoy your tunes. That ends up being way too much 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:00.440 for most people. So then enter the receiver, and a 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.119 receiver collects a lot of these components into a single 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:05.919 piece of equipment that you can then use to switch 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:12.600 between different incoming audio signals. Nearly all receivers have a 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:16.760 radio tuner built into them. Some might not, but we 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:21.520 typically would call those amplifiers rather than receivers, so they've 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:25.040 got the radio tuner. They also typically have a full 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.119 amplifier inside them. Some might just have a preamp that 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:29.800 you then have to send out to an amplifier, but 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.560 a lot of receivers have the amplifier built into them 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:38.000 as well, and they can accept multiple audio inputs. The 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.920 number and type depends upon the receiver, but it was 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:43.760 pretty common for them to accept incoming signals from a 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:48.640 phonograph typically labeled phono on most receivers, as well as 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:54.320 tape decks. So now you can connect multiple audio devices 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:58.879 like a turntable, a tape deck. You've got your radio 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:02.040 tuner built in right there, all through this one device 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:05.040 and use a switch to go between them to feed 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.560 out to your speakers, so you don't need speakers for everything. 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.120 You've got one says speakers, and these all get directed 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:15.720 through the receiver which then sends that signal onto the speakers, 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:19.600 and you use dials, buttons, or switches to switch between 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:22.640 the different inputs. You also typically have controls to set 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:26.639 things like ranges of frequencies that you would prefer to emphasize. So, 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:29.440 for example, you may want the base notes to come 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:32.359 through more clearly, so you use a little knob that's 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:36.560 labeled base. That essentially means that the base signals will 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:39.600 get a bit more ooth when sent to the speakers 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:44.440 than other frequencies are. Um, you have the balance, which 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:50.080 can affect which speakers get more signal than the others. 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:53.840 So maybe you have left and right speakers, but the 0:23:53.880 --> 0:23:57.160 left speakers are further away from you than the right speakers. 0:23:57.480 --> 0:23:59.320 You might want to tweak the balance a bit so 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:01.600 that the left beakers get a little more umph, so 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:05.200 that you get a balanced output based upon where you're 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:09.840 actually experiencing the music and so on, and of course volume, 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:13.399 right the amplitude, how loud do you want the stuff 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:17.040 to be. So the Harmon Cardon receiver in nineteen fifty 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:19.760 four cost a hundred eighty nine dollars and fifty cents, which, 0:24:19.800 --> 0:24:22.560 if we were to adjust for inflation, would be just 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:25.840 under two thousand dollars today, And it wouldn't be long 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:29.600 before other companies, including san Sui, would get involved in 0:24:29.680 --> 0:24:35.080 manufacturing receivers. But San sue wouldn't produce receivers right away. 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:38.920 In the late nineteen fifties it started producing tube pre 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:42.919 amplifier and amplifiers. Now I can't get too specific with 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:46.840 years here because the various sources I find have conflicting 0:24:46.880 --> 0:24:49.800 information about that, but certainly before the end of the 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:54.840 nineteen fifties, San Suey was producing tube receivers, pre amplifiers, 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:59.840 and amplifiers. So in some cases these amplifiers were full 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:02.720 units that you would buy, you would bring home, and 0:25:02.760 --> 0:25:05.040 you would connect to your sound system. They just wouldn't 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:07.480 have a radio built into them, but they had all 0:25:07.480 --> 0:25:14.720 the other amplification elements as part of them. And Kikuchi 0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:17.760 also began to explore the possibility of exporting his products 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:20.959