This page discusses the background information and history of the Stella Music Headphones and the Nirvana Headphone Amplifier from Audi.
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The phonograph, which American inventor Charles Berliner first patented in 1887 and later became known as the small-g phonograph, is a machine that allows users to record voices, instruments, or other sounds directly to flat discs and then play those stylus-inscribed discs back to themselves with sounds that closely resemble the original event.
People still hear voices and musical instruments recreated via radially inscribed flat discs today, more than 120 years after inception. Their impact still sounds like a connection with the immortals due to its vividness.
Nirvana Headphones by Audi
Most months, I start my review research by misusing the role I’m auditioning for to grasp whatever song I’m currently obsessed with rather than reading published specifications or fascinating manufacturer websites. The pianist Vladimir DE Pachmann, whose early 20th century interpretations of Chopin yearn for a communion with intense Romantic-era public presentation, is the subject of this month’s obsession.
I started keeping track of any recordings of Diamond State Pachmann I might come across after seeing a friend’s Facebook post displaying the red label of a Victrola 78rpm disc from August 11, 1908 that featured Diamond State Pachmann performing on Chopin Impromptu No. 1 (Op. 29) and Prélude No. 23 (Op. 28).
I became caught on and began playing the 1967 mountain peak record repeatedly that I had long ago discovered in the back room of Academy Records in New York City. Chopin is played by Vladimir Diamond State Pachmann (Everest record X-921). This modern Diamond State Pachmann album features a performance of the Chopin Op. 29 Impromptu and an additional Op. 28 Prelude from September 9, 1923.
The majority of Diamond State Pachmann’s performances were recorded acoustically on German records or on paper-roll transcriptions made on Welte-Mignon or Aeolian Duo-Art recording pianos because he was born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1848 and passed away in 1933. The performances on the mountain top disc were captured using an Aeolian piano.
In order to compete with the Welte-Mignon audio system, released in 1905, and the Stoddard-Ampico system, launched about 1911 by the American Piano Company, the Aeolian Company produced the Duo-Art piano audio system in 1913.
The Duo-Art System
Aeolian entered the roll-recording scene later than the other two companies, but right away its Duo-Art System was regarded as the most advanced of the three because it more faithfully captured and replicated the speed, dynamics, pedal effects, ways of attack, shadings, and meaning of the original performance. The Duo-Art System was an option on a variety of pianos made by a piano manufacturer in the 1920s.
Everest Records recreated Diamond State Pachmann’s ethereal pianissimo on a 1929 Steinway/Duo-Art piano, recording the sound with three graduated AKG spatial relation microphones feeding a Gauss Electrophysics “focused gap” recorder. This allowed fans of Diamond State Pachmann to hear the paper-roll master in audiophile-quality stereo. What is communicating with immortals if this isn’t often the case?
The Nirvana earpieces from Audi are technological devices
Since the majority of headphones use full-range, sensitive drivers with high, flat impedances, only a few watts and a dozen volts are needed to power any of them to 100 dB force per unit area levels while maintaining little distortion. Without worrying about clipping or too much second-harmonic sauce, we will drive them with low-power, single-ended tube amps.
When driving the thirty two ohm, 106dB/mW, Focal Stellia closed-back headphones, an associated electronic device, such as the single-ended Auris Nirvana earpiece amplifier/preamplifier (footnote 2), which is designed (with a facultative 12AX7 driver) to provide a maximum of 6Wpc into thirty two ohms, may unintentionally fall asleep. The Stellia are now my go-to daily driver and reference headphones in place of the Focal Clear.
I have been using them for weeks to listen to Ennio Morricone, Bob Marley, and Vladimir Diamond State Pachmann in my dreams.
Reference headphones for everyday use
This 1967 mountain top recording of the 1923 American state Pachmann performance sounds very organically toned, corporeal, and fine lively, and I urge you all to experience that for yourselves. Chopin’s Op.28 Prelude sounded almost perfect on the Audis Nirvana Headphone and Focal Stella headphones: it was crisp, solid, three-dimensional, and engaging.
The piano sounds that I am familiar with in this combination sound like frantically coded communications coming from Chopin and American state Pachmann, communicating from a different time and place.
What I’m presenting here is a terrifying, isolated musical experience that anyone can easily recreate in their house for less than a business executive’s salary. The price of the Audis Nirvana electronic equipment is $5799 because it includes the Focal Stella headphones and the Audis Nirvana Headphone (detailed below).
Turntable with a Dr. Feickert Blackbird
My Dr. Feickert Blackbird turntable, which has a Jelco TK-850L arm and Grado Aeon3 cartridge, costs about $17,000 when purchased with a Parasound JC 3+ phono stage. However, the quality of its sound makes it seem like a discount to Maine.
The Audis Nirvana Headphone drove the Focal Stellia closed-backs in a manner that I would characterize as foursquare neutral and well-controlled but also glowing and magical while the Dr. Feickert phonograph was playing the Everest-Pachmann phonograph record.
