Spirit and sound (in memoriam Susumu Sakuma, 1942-2018)

There is a specific spiritual aura surrounding audio that in my opinion the connoisseurs should better take into account while trying to educate themselves. It is my guess that it stems from audio being considered, from a certain point of view, as an endeavour to recreate past sounds. This awakens such deep feelings. I don't think anyone captured this better than the late Susumu Sakuma, who I consider the soul of the Japanese DIY audio movement and the so-called "ultra-fi" style in audio. He called his work, in a Proustian way, "Remembrance of sounds past." I don't think this means nostalgia of old-fashioned equipment or recording/reproduction style, I think it means this sentimental attachment to music and this strong desire to go back to the original event. I had the privilege to meet mr. Sakuma approx. 25 years ago in Milan, Italy. Such a humble and generous men! He loved to share his knowledge and most of all his pleasure in listening to recorded music reproduced with his equipment, for the sake of it. He was one of a kind, and the same can be said of his audio systems and his unique audio approach. Just think of this. In presenting his work to the American DIY audio community on the pages of Sound Practices, he wrote, among other things "There are two key matters in building amplifiers and audio systems. One is to recognize the value of family and one's many friendships. The other is inducing cooperation between human and machine." No one is forced to agree. But I don't think it would be good for a connoisseur to ignore this. Mr. Sakuma's work is documented on the DIRECT HEATING website. If you have never browsed it, please do. It's not as fascinating as the actual sound of Sakuma's "audio concerts" but it's well worth a visit.