Q: How did you come to arrive at this time with this company?
A: Life is a long road, with many signposts along the way. I often point to a picture in my office of myself on my third Christmas, now 45 years ago, holding a record and standing next to my new record player. I suppose that is how far back my journey of involvement with recordings and their playback goes.
Hearing Miles Davis and Oscar Peterson on my uncle's stereo, back in the late 1950s, which had a separate speaker which could be placed on the other side of the room, was a big moment in my development as an audiophile. That sound never left my head. I remember being fascinated with the sound. Being moved emotionally by the sound. In the way that previously only music being performed on instruments had been as emotionally satisfying or moving.
In 1978 I attended
a seminar at which Mark Levinson spoke at considerable length, about how the various
Mark Levinson Audio Systems (MLAS) products were conceived and realized. I heard
the full HQD system that night and was never quite the same again.Meeting Stewart Hegeman, and visiting him in his home, where he also had a small staff of assemblers and built HAPI (Hegeman Audio Products, Inc.) components, including the HAPI 2 preamp which I still own and listen to. On my first visit to Mr. Hegeman's home, I spent the better part of the day listening to various records, and wildly different types of music, all of which sounded more lifelike than anything I had heard until then. Mr. Hegeman explained many of his notions about what made listening to recordings a pleasurable experience and how the design of the components involved in playback impacted upon the degree of pleasure achieved. I returned a few more times to similarly entertaining and informative afternoons with Mr. Hegeman, under the pretext of wanting my preamp tuned up or some performance parameter I wanted to have checked. He was always a gracious and interesting host.
Working alongside Sandy Berlin, Mike Wesley and Mark Glazier at Madrigal Audio Labs (1985-1990) was a wonderfully fulfilling experience where I learned many of the concepts of what it meant to design and manufacture high end audio products. The importance of service and the development of a competent domestic and international distribution network. All of which resulted in a successful company which produced products that represented real value to those who purchased them, irrespective of the fact that they were quite expensive.
At Wadia Digital
Corp. (1990-1995) I had the opportunity to put many of the notions learned at
Madrigal into effect in a completely different environment and company. Wadia
demonstrated that a company need not have 150 employees to be successful, but
that only a small group that was dedicated to achieving a positive result could
do so.All of these experiences, along with the 5 years I spent at Cello, Ltd. have brought me to this place where my own company, Matthew James now designs and manufactures products bearing the Cello brand, as well as services all of the products previously manufactured under that brand by Cello, Ltd. Plus the hundreds of dealers, scores of distributors, and thousands of end users who I have spoken with, listened with.
It has been a long trip, but I would not trade a moment of it for anything else, nor could I imagine having had a better time.
Q: Is there a single influence that stands out from this wide range of associates?
A: Oh, absolutely. I want to be certain that you understand the significance of Stewart Hegeman. It is his concept of what good sound, the best possible sound is, that is the driving sonic spirit of the Matthew James company and the Cello brand. The best Cello products (Suite (1985), Palette (1985), Performance (1986) exhibit more of the reference sound of the updated
and
tweaked versions of the Lowther Hegeman horn speaker (1951), Citation II amplifiers
(1961), Dynaco FM-1 tuner (1963) and HAPI (Hegeman Audio Products Inc.1978) preamp
that I heard at Mr. Hegeman's home. Even when I was at Madrigal, the reference
system in my home included a HAPI II preamp and an Audio Palette. Nothing at Madrigal
at that time, the ML-6B, ML-7A, and ultimately the No. 26 had the power to resolve
the information that the HAPI/Suite revealed effortlessly. And it is our intention
to bring Cello products ever closer to that ideal than previously achieved.Products designed specifically to sound like music, by paying attention to all things that effect the sound of music when reproduced from a recording. That is Stewart Hegeman's spirit. That is the key to what we are trying to achieve.
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Matthew James
84 Long Hill Road Middlefield, Connecticut 06455 USA 860 349-5999 Fax 860 349-0579 Email - jimm@matthew-james.net |