matthewb on Farcaster

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https://warpcast.com/~/channel/hifi

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a few notes from @brileigh and I's visit to the Ojas listening room in NYC * Ojas and Devon Turnbull before founding Ojas, Devon Turnbull studied at Parsons and adopted the tag "Ojas" for mixtapes, graffiti, flyers, etc. in 2003 he founded the streetwear label Nom de Guerre with some friends and over the next few years travelled frequently to Japan as he developed an interest in high-efficiency drivers, horns, and tube amplifiers. in his spare time, he built Altec-inspired horn speakers for himself and friends which later became DIY flat-pack kits sold through Virgil Abloh's Canary Yellow platform. Nom de Guerre closed in 2013 and Turnbull turned his attention to Ojas full-time as an audio practice. by 2018 his custom systems found their way into stores like Supreme, venues like Public Records, and producer Mark Ronson's studio. in 2022 he produced Hi-Fi Listening Room Dream No. 1, an immersive installation that was first presented in Lisson Gallery (NYC, London) before touring to many other institutions.

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* Pewter grey and single-ended triodes if there is a spectrum between traditional hi-fi companies and lifestyle brands, Ojas is firmly on the latter extreme. drawing inspiration from DIY culture and 1960s Altec build manuals, Ojas' speakers are simple and plain with baltic birch panels, visible screw heads, and pewter grey paint with sprayed grain. this peppered grey, as though the speakers were hewn from a dusty boulder, has become Ojas' signature that they apply to all of their products. although Ojas designs their own horns, they are modelled after Altec 1505/329 multi-cell horns which were very popular in the 60s and 70s. many listeners prefer this type of compression driver + horn topology vs. traditional metal/silk tweeters because they are so efficient and have a certain immediacy as a result. they demand less power from the partnering amplifier which opens the door to low-power tube amplification rather than beefy solid-state designs. the rest of the design is quite simple with paper cone woofers.

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* The discomfort of sitting still and listening the Ojas NYC listening room feels like a living space, museum, and tea room all at once. there is stuff scattered everywhere: crates of records, audio gear, hi-fi magazines, incense, knick knacks and trinkets. the room is also covered floor to ceiling in Kvadrat textiles, both for acoustic treatment purposes as well as cozy seating. you are required to take off your shoes before entering and phones are not allowed inside. why, you might ask? according to the attendant, an influencer posted a viral TikTok video which made the listening room unmanageable as crowds descended on the venue to take selfies, record videos, etc. the room is meant to encourage a deep engagement with the listening experience and this is fundamentally at odds with being distracted by your phone.

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* Broke, woke, bespoke Ojas components are bespoke and built-to-order so there's no official catalogue with model numbers. here is my best guess at identifying what we listened to in this particular system: - stand-mounted speaker (far left/right) this appears to be the Petit Ojas W which is a scaled-down homage to the well-known Onken W cabinet. it uses two 12-inch woofers (Altec/GPA 414), an Ojas 1505 multi-cell horn (based on Altec 1505B), a GPA 288 compression driver, and side-mounted Pioneer PT-R9 beryllium ribbon super-tweeters. the enclosure is baltic birch ply. - floor-standing speaking (inner left/right) this appears to be the Ojas MBH1/519B which consists of a GPA 416 15-inch woofer, an Ojas 529B bi-radial horn (based on Altec 329A), and a 1" compression driver. the enclosure is baltic birch ply with a front port, see the slot near the bottom.

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- large subwoofer (middle) this appears to be the Ojas Super Sub which consists of a huge Fostex FW800HS 31.5" (!!) paper cone woofer and baltic birch ply enclosure. this is unusual for three reasons: 1) enormous driver, typical subwoofer driver is 8-12" or maybe 15" max 2) passive subwoofer, so requires its own amplification 3) 96 dB efficient = very high, likely to match the high efficiency of the other two speakers.

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* Listening impressions so, what does this imposing pewter grey system sound like? not what I expected, frankly. the physicality of that 31.5" subwoofer gave me certain expectations but the sonic characteristics of this system were actually quite tame for the most part. the only source used during our demo was vinyl, mostly instrumental jazz that tended towards intimate in scale. there was a nice sense of space around the instruments and overall the balance was quite pleasant. you could sit here and listen for hours without thinking about the time or your grocery list. both frequency extremes were quite rolled off and polite rather than brutish. there was also an issue with the right channel that gave it a certain "tizzy" quality (bright/ragged treble), but I suspect this was an anomaly.

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even though dynamics were immediate and convincing, I did find the system a bit drab overall and without much authority. timbre was natural enough, but I could also sense a certain degree of colouration from both the speakers and tubes present in the chain. the added second order harmonics of tubes are, in my opinion, a very pleasing distortion. while less technically "correct" than solid-state components that measure perfectly, tubes sound more like real music to me even if they are less clean or perfect. that said, when it comes to speakers I am unusually sensitive to enclosure resonances and tuning that deviates too far from neutral. to make an analogy to photography, this can often come across as a "filter" that has been applied to everything you listen to. this can be enjoyable at first but over time becomes an audible artifact which can become distracting.

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the Petit Ojas W and MBH1's tuning feels scooped in the mids which smooths out the delivery and feels less "hi-fi" than some audiophile speakers. this gives the system a very listenable quality but also veers toward unengaging. by itself this isn't a cardinal sin, in fact it's a very common design choice if we look back at the history of BBC-designed speakers in the 60s through 80s that attenuated output between 1-4kHz ("the BBC dip"). however, when combined with the slightly nasal quality of the cabinetry—it's just plywood, after all—the overall output feels less natural than real instruments. instruments sound a bit more plastic and less wooden, not in an offensive "bright" way but rather slightly desaturated and grey. overall, @brileigh and I greatly enjoyed the experience despite it not being exactly our sonic cup of tea. it's very clear to me that the future of hi-fi will lean further into lifestyle and culture, and Ojas/Devon Turnbull's work is a perfect example of this.

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raihan pfp

fucking love this thread <3 Ndg mentioned too (for the real ones!)

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Lee pfp

Is it normal to have a demo sesh listening to vinyl only?

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Naiya.eth pfp

Very cool. Ive always wanted to build a speaker, like the wooden box part. I appreciate the aesthetic details of the space as well as the attention to the culture and vibe. I feel more at peace after reading your write up

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Garrett pfp

@supertaste would dig this

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