30th anniversary LAOCAS awards banquet
Oliver Barrett | Published on 12/27/2023
I attended the 30th anniversary of the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society awards banquet on December 3rd, thanks to Leslie for posting the info on it. Several industry and music release awards were presented, which are described on the Society’s 2023 event webpage: https://www.laocas.com/events-2023/.
John Curl
Some personal memories of the event stood out for me, including the Counnas Innovation Award to our own John Curl. It was acknowledged at the event that recognition for John’s contributions to the audio industry has been long overdue. George Counnas recalled that John was respected in the industry early on for his “circuit sense” being an integral part of his audio design work, and John mentioned his physics education as playing a key role in his insight. He recounted how his career spanned several companies from Ampex to Parasound, along with development of solid-state amplifiers for the Grateful Dead that were designed to be much more reliable on the road than tube gear. A John Curl-designed Parasound JC-5 stereo power amplifier was one of many notable raffle prizes awarded at this event.
A wonderful live performance of three violin pieces (Partita No. 2 – Chaconne by. J. S. Bach, a Fritz Kreisler melody, and an encore melody) was given by Martin Chalifour, principal concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. I much enjoyed seeing and hearing his masterful control of the instrument, for which he used the Fritz Kreisler Stradivarius violin. Martin mentioned that this instrument is a bit temperamental in its old age and takes some skill to maintain its adjustments to sound right.
I enjoyed meeting Michael Fremer, editor of The Tracking Angle and senior editor of The Absolute Sound. I will be upgrading my old hearing aids soon, and I was pleased to hear more about his experience with the Widex Moment hearing aids that he reviewed in Stereophile (see https://www.analogplanet.com/content/two-months-widexs-moment-440-mric-r-d-hearing-aids). He mentioned that these aids were very phase-coherent and preserved 3D soundstage with good instrument placement, which I hope will help me better discern soundstage depth with my hearing loss. Michael donated two raffled copies of the new LP that he recently co-produced with Robin Wyatt, featuring bassist Rufus Reid and pianist Caelan Cardello.
A very nice lunch with a Stereophile CD for each attendee was provided, and Audiophile USA was on hand with a large selection of LPs for sale.