NAGRA is a company-institution. Both figuratively and literally. As I shall try to show you, it's a unique example of combining the elements of professional and home audio as well as music. The fact that the company was founded by Stefan Kudelski, a man from Poland, only emphasizes its uniqueness in my eyes. Here's the story for today: a few words about today's NAGRA, its history, participation in music projects, and a handful of observations regarding the founder of the Montreux Jazz Festival. Enjoy.
Have you ever wondered what happened to sparrows? This once popular in Poland bird, the hero of poems and songs, which I learned in kindergarten, almost completely vanished, replaced by larger birds, mainly corvidae. It is said that one of the reasons for this species exodus was the air pollution building up in Polish cities. Even if it is not the only reason for their absence, it is one of the most important ones.
It occurred to me when, with coffee in hand, waiting for René Laflamme, who during my and Bartek's (my son), who runs the news section, stay in Switzerland was our guide and guardian, I was sitting in front of the Prealpina Hotel. A view from this hotel, located between Lausanne and Montreux, is breathtaking. Situated on a hill, among vineyards, overlooking the French Alps, it gives the impression of being created along with this landscape. And besides, it is a sanctuary for sparrows.
I wanted to justify somehow myself from the sparrows of absence and also to score some points with René, so with a smile on my face and joy in my heart I told him that we already had electric buses in Kraków. For about 1.75 seconds I was a hero. Until my friend, without any subtext, just out of curiosity asked, where the electricity that runs those buses comes from. The pride of the "electric buses" disappeared quickly because the answer is as dirty, as the fuel we use: coal. For comparison, let's say that the whole city of Montreal, where René lives, is powered by hydroelectric power plants, and power surpluses are sold to the USA.
But to the point - the place where we were is filled with music and technology related to it. Looking at, which I was doing, the other side of Lake Geneva, one can not forget the history and the casino fire of December 4th 1971, which started during the Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention concert at the Casino Barrière. This fire was observed from the shores of the lake by members of the Deep Purple. The title of their song Smoke on the Water talks of the smoke form that fire blowing over the lake.
It was at the time the group came to Montreux to record their next album. As a result of these events, they could not use the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, so they recorded instead in the empty Montreux Grand Hotel. The band played on corridors and stairwell padded with mattresses taken from hotel beds. That's how one of their best albums was created, the Machine Head released in 1973. Interestingly, most of the material for the Smoke on the Water was recorded elsewhere.
NAGRA
But Montreux is like that—this city is the quintessence of music at its best. It is there, where every year in July the most important jazz music festival takes place, the Montreux Jazz Festival, and it was also there, that Queen recorded the JAZZ and Made in Heaven albums. It isn’t surprise than that on the promenade on the shore of Lake Geneva one can find the Freddie Mercury monument—very popular, we can add. What's more, not far from there the company which in turn is the quintessence of sound, both from the recording studio and from the audiophile point of view, has its headquarter—NAGRA.
Yesterday
Its history goes back to the 1950s when Stefan Kudelski, a Polish emigrant who together with his parents just before the Second World War escaped from our country first to France and then to Switzerland, presented his first tape recorder, still as a student at the Federal Polytechnic in Lausanne (French. École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne). In 1952 he received the first prize for the tape recorder in the The First International Amateur Recording Contest. Mechanically—with electric drive, not a crank—and electrically refined it went into production in 1957 under the name NAGRA III.
The name of the company was to be both, international and Polish—Mr. Kudelski never gave up the characteristic accent he was known for—'NAGRA' sounds great in every language and means 'this device will record something'. It is not often mentioned, but the tape recorder was created because Mr Kudelski needed one for himself. Stefan Kudelski had two passions: sailing and engineering—the tape recorder was to be used to record instructions for a CNC machine he wanted to build.
Suffice it to say that many tapes with his voice have been preserved. One of his tape recorders reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench on board of a bathyscaphe, and for the needs of an oceanographic research a special version of the NAGRA IV-S tape recorder was created with an ultra-wide bandwidth. A visit of the FBI envoys to the NAGRA headquarters, who placed an order for a special miniature tape recorder, is also legendary.
Known from many films, for example from the last part of Tom Cruise Mission Impossible, Fallout (directed by Christopher McQuarrie, 2018), exhibited in the Spy Museum on the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, the machine was created as part of the so-called "Black Series", i.e. devices used to record and monitor sound in security and protection systems. There were several variants, including a kind of cassette tape, created ahead of Philips Compact Cassette times. Dozens of copies of the SNS tape recorder went to the White House, where they were used to record sound in all public offices.
This way NAGRA, quite accidentally, entered the world of great politics - it was the tape recorder that registered the conversation of President Richard M. Nixon, which became the basis of the so-called Watergate, which force Nixon out of the office. There is another interesting audiophile fact in this. I do not know if you remember, but when discussing the first digital recordings, I mentioned the two most important companies for this process: Denon and Soundstream (more in the Digital technology in the world of analogue
Trojan horse or a necessity?, HF No. 155).
The latter was founded and led by Thomas G. Stockham. In 1974, he joined the commission examining the famous eighteen and a half minutes of "silence" on the said tape - a tape recorded in the White House on the NAGRA SNS tape recorder. After the examination it turned out that this is not just silence, and the silence was created after five-time deliberate erasure of the recorded material. Do I have to add that the NAGRA tape recorder went also to the Moon, hidden in the astronaut's spacesuit? Probably not…
Today
It was Pascal Mauroux, the current director of the company, told me about it all, and about the Stefan Kudelski accent. Driving an electric Tesla, charged from the "wall outlet" at the company's entrance, he was hired to help the company to use its potential on the audiophile market. And he had all the knowledge and experience to successfully do this job. Previously he worked in the Nestle group as "a man who's job was to put out fires", he was responsible for the success of Nespresso. That's why in every NAGRA room, really every one of them, there's a Nespresso coffee machine with capsules, and Mr. Pascal drinks up to ten cups of that beverage a day. Only because he decided to limited that number... From the NAGRA's point of view, it was equally important that he belonged to the family. And the fact that it was a good decision has been confirmed by an incredible development of the company in the last few years.
A few simple words…
PASCAL MAUROUX
Chief Executive Officer
My passion for nice car and airplane led me to the Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL), where I did my degree in mechanical engineering, with the idea to work for Porsche... Finally, I was in a hurry to find a job before leaving the school, and I was proposed a very interesting job with responsibilities, so I started to build heat treatment furnace. Quite different from what I wanted initially.
As I wanted also to be teacher for some time. So I resigned after 3 years to go be able to go to a school for teacher. Unfortunately, in Switzerland, if you didn't make the University, it was impossible to be a teacher... engineer is not enough... so I changed and did an MBA at the HEC School of Lausanne.
After my MBA, I started to work for Nestlé. The initial plan was to go to build factories in China. But during my training in Nestlé, I changed to the Nestec Productivity Team (NPT), as team member up to project leader and coordinator. The NPT is an internal consultancy group that is send abroad in all factories of Nestlé in order to correct / improve whatever is possible in all areas. I did it for 6 years, going to many countries like France, Spain, Portugal, Brasil, Mexico, Korea, Hong Kong, Sweden, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippine, Australia and Peru. There I could learn all processes for all departments of a company, and what is needed in order to achieve the best efficiency to the lowest possible cost.
After being so much time abroad, I moved to a Swiss German Company, called Feintool, making among others fine Blanking equipment and plastic injection molding parts. As Vice President of the group, I implemented there a new quality system for the group and organized a turn around in one of the division of the group. After 2 years, my previous boss in Nestlé called me to propose a new challenge in a start up company of the Nestlé Group.
So I accepted the new challenge and moved to... Nespresso. Nespresso was quite small at the time, and I could take over the head of the technical department, to manage the coffee machine business of Nespresso from the technical side. So I could develop my skills in R&D, manufacturing and customer services during this time.
After 7 years, Nestlé wanted to take back Nespresso under its control, and the time of the start up was over. So I decided to acquire a small company nearly close to bankruptcy, making the repair of Nespresso machines for the Swiss market. I reorganized it and after 2 years, it was done, and I was looking for the next challenge.
I was hesitating to come back to Nestlé, as I was proposed to be part of the direction of a research center, but suddenly a new challenge has been proposed by Marguerite Kudelski and André Kudelski. The spin off of the NAGRA Audio business. The challenge this time was enormous for me. I had no idea of the audio business, and no education in electronic design. On the top of that, the Audio business alone was far from financially viable.
So, to start again this challenge I got my whole family together during one dinner. I explained to my wife and daughters that this new job would be very difficult « again », and that it would last for at least 5 years where I would not be really available for the family. The summary of the discussion can be made in one sentence that my eldest daughter told me at the end : « Father, if you can save the company of Grandfather, please do it ».
So in 2012, we started Audio Technology Switzerland! And I was not wrong, this has been and still is quite a huge challenge! PM
However, one must know that a whole group of people worked for the success, because besides the CEO, the following are equally important members of the management: Matthieu Latour – Audio Division Director, Thierry Frank - R & D head, Philippe Chambon - R & D manager and our friend René, officially representing the company in North America, and unofficially, along with Philippe, involved in the final "tuning" of the sound of new products. And there is still a whole group of talented, dedicated employees, that me and Bartek had a chance to chat with and watch them work.
A few simple words…
MATTHIEU LATOUR
Audio Division Director
My interest in music comes from my very young years. At age 2 I was using a plate and a knife as a mock-up turntable! My father, a telecommunication executive, had a Sony ¼ inch tape he brought back from Japan and I was mesmerized by its capacity to record and playback sound. Later on I learn to play drums and started doing some sound technician jobs and buying hi-fi and recording equipment.
I went to university to do a Bachelor in electronics, a topic I love dearly, and later on had the privilege to join Louis Lumière School in Paris to complete a Master degree in sound engineering. My dream was to join NAGRA, Studer or Neumann, companies I loved from their outstanding products. I was lucky enough to be hired at NAGRA to handle technical sales for recorders in 2001, I then moved to Switzerland.
As a long-time Hi-Fi enthusiast I was glad to be involved as sales manager for the Hi-Fi sector in 2003. In 2012 I became Hi-Fi Director when NAGRA Audio division span-off as Audio Technology Switzerland. Since January 2018 I am in charge of the Hi-Fi and Recorder divisions as a director.
When I started in 2001 we were still selling brand new SN, NAGRA E, NAGRA 4-2 and NAGRA IV-S recorders! I wish we have kept them, they will be much more valuable today! One of my first assignments was to be in charge of NAGRA recordings at the Montreux Jazz Festival that was a fantastic opportunity.
One evening I met Herbie Hancock to show him our NAGRA D, digital recorder, he was quite impressed but I was even more impressed by his humility and kindness! The Jazz Giants are very often Gentlemen.
It is very humbling to work for NAGRA since the company has reached so many outstanding achievements. We feel we are the guardians of a unique legacy, every products we do today has to be exceptional to bear NAGRA name on it. ML
Matthieu was my guide in the company and I must say that I was impressed by his in-depth knowledge of every aspect of the designs of all devices. Soldering and testing PCBs provided by the subcontractor? He knows the procedure exactly. Winding transformers? - He freely discusses the complexities of technology, for both old machines and the latest machines. The "secret projects" department? It is he, who is the in and out window for all information related to them. In a word: he probably knows everything about the production process.
Equally interesting, however, is the fact that he perfectly understands both sides of the "glass": the recording and playback ones. By profession, he is a sound engineer. Mentioning Hancock, while maintaining his typical modesty, Matthieu did not mention the fact that NAGRA has been technically involved in recording the music at the Montreux Jazz Festival (another name: Festival de Jazz de Montreux), and that he personally signed off many of them. The brand is a technological partner of the event, as well as one of the favorite companies of one of the founders and long-time director of the festival, Mr. Claude Nobs.
Montreux Jazz Festival
The festival took place for the first time in 1967 and actually "built up" a tiny town, which Montreux was back then. Today, jazz concerts have an audience of 4500 people. It should not be a surprise though—already the first editions saw such musicians as: Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Bill Evans, Soft Machine, Weather Report, Nina Simone, Jan Garbarek, Ella Fitzgerald, and later the biggest starts kept coming, also to the rock scene, including Led Zeppelin, to name just one. The list of artists performing there is a real Who is who? of contemporary jazz, pop and rock music.
The festival owes its success to several elements, but among them the most important one was Mr. Nobs. It was him that many biggest stars came to, almost privately, performing at half the normal rate, just to have a chance to hang out with him. The house of the festival founder became a “safe house” for the greatest musicians who lived, partied, played and sang there.
Today, the festival is a real well-working machine and it includes many additional events, such as the Jazz Piano Competition (in 2012 the juror was Leszek Możdżer), the Jazz Voice Competition and others. The event takes place annually in July.
Visiting Montreux one must go to a concert - we managed to see the sensational performance of Van Morrison. Pure fire, crazy pace! The Stravinski Auditorium is a place where one has to stand—there are seats but only on the balcony—and while everybody had to stand up, they actually danced. The atmosphere of the concert—which Steve Winwood and his band warmed the audience up for - was excellent and resembled a picnic. An average age - high, joy of watching and singing with an idol—huge. Let me add that the sound quality was really very good and although I stood almost in front of the stage, a few meters from the artist, I left the concert unscathed; those willing could use free ear plugs with the logo of the festival's main sponsor, UBS bank.
With time, Claude Nob's house turned into something of a living museum, which eventually became official some time after the death of the festival's director - Mr. Nobs passed away in January 2013. The Claude Nob’s Foundation takes care of his legacy. One needs a special invitation to go there, but we had NAGRA's support, and René was with us, right?
If you look at the road that you have to walk, what comes to mind is the long intestine - a twisted, long road leads up a steep hill. Driving with the car's nose up, we crossed the cog railway line several times. This is one of the most interesting railways of this type, leading to the top of the Rochers de Naye (1968 m). The journey takes around 55 minutes. The inclination of the slope, and hence the wagons, amounts to several dozen degrees.
The house-museum in question is located high enough for one to feel like at the top of the mountain, and yet low enough that one still has a beautiful view of the Riviera. Entering there, one is momentarily overwhelmed by the multitude of various objects. The Foundation decided to "stop the time" and everything looks exactly the same as on the day of the owner's death. And he was a sybarite, music lover, collector, technophile, admirer of wine and art. Despite such a huge number of objects, we felt there amazingly well. I do not know what caused it, but inside there was harmony. There was peace. There was also energy that stimulated us for action.
His house, or rather two separate buildings, is a dream come true for every boy. Each room has a separate audio system, with a dozen or so Bowers & Wilkins Matrix speakers, EMT turntables, etc., shelves full of Accuphase amplifiers, tape recorders. Some of the rooms also have vision systems, and in the second building, where there is a recording archive, there is a large projection room with aircraft-like seats of SWISSAIR First Class and the same loudspeakers that are used to during festival concerts—namely Mat Meyer Sound. As René said, the idea was that watching video would be as close as possible to what was happening in front of cameras and microphones.
When I came to my senses after the "initial shock", what I noticed were the boxing gloves that were randomly hung there. They were quite a big dissonance in this otherwise artistic environment. Their secret cleared up when I came closer and saw a dedication written on them with a marker from Sylvester Stallone. Yeah... Almost every object has its own history there.
In addition to the amazing collection of small-scale train models that occupy wall after wall, room after room, the greatest passion of the house owner was music. He did not limit himself to sound, recording performances with both, sound and vision. Due to his special status, he had access to the cutting edge solutions. For example, with the help of Sony, he was able to record the picture in high definition several years before this solution became commercially available. His collection includes master tapes in almost every known format. This also applies to the audio part.
In addition to the incredible collection of LP records and CDs, which occupy several rooms, the most important part of this collection, its heart, is the archive. I have never seen anything like that in my life, apart from, maybe, at the biggest record labels. The cataloged collection includes over 15,000 master tapes with artists from Aretha Franklin or Ray Charles to David Bowie and Prince. There are multi-track and stereo tapes, ¼, ½ and 1". On the desk, just on top I saw a master tape with performance of Led Zeppelin—from 1970 a concert in Montreux at the “Rose d’Or” festival that Matthieu—the lucky guy!—had the chance to transfer to digital! Most of them have never been released before. The whole of the archives are now part of the UNESCO world heritage more HERE).
And next to it there was a NAGRA tape-recorder. It was a unique version of one of the lesser known models, made especially for Claude, who considered people from this company to be his soul mates. Recorders and other NAGRA devices can be found in different places of the house. And no wonder—tape recorders of this company served and still do many great sound engineers, such as René (analogue NAGRA-T) and Dirk Sommer (Sommelier du Son, analogue NAGRA IV-S and digital NAGRA VI). They were also used to make a large part of the recordings made during the festival.
A few simple words…
RENÉ LAFLAMME
Sales director for North America
I started at NAGRA in Dec 2015.
I first heard a NAGRA IV-S at the home of my electronics’ teacher Richard Leblond when I was 20 years old. I put the headphones on and I was shocked by the energy and texture, It sounded so direct ?
I did my first recording on a NAGRA IV-S with the NAGRA master EQ on BASF sm468 tape in 1999 with the album Moon Bass (Fidelio) the set up was two custom Fidelio microphones with the Blumlein microphone technique that used the AKG C12 capsule but with OTL tube output electronic with battery power supply. That was great because both the recorder and microphones were on battery, nothing was plugged on AC. The results of that was a lot of texture and organic sound.
But the recording I played to you was the Seven last word of Christ by Dubois and it was recorded one month after 9-11 in 2001 again with the IV-S in NAGRA master but this time with B&K Omni microphones but with custom battery power supply. On that recording you can hear the strongest Casavan organ in Canada with the beautiful voice of Monique Page and Marc Hervieux. RL
Tomorrow
Before the visit in NAGRA, I did not have any special expectations, I was just curious about people and the place, I wanted to see how everything is "done". After the trip however, it turned out that the hierarchy has changed and although people were still most important part of it all, I experienced almost the same level of emotions while listening to the company's reference system, in the NAGRA's test room, where all components are auditioned, assessed and tuned (by ear).
It was a very special listening session. Namely because the key component was the latest and one of the most important products of this company, the digital-analog converter HDDAC X (price: USD 65,000) from the series that already includes the HDPREAMP preamplifier and HDAMP power amplifiers. It is still being developed, so one can call it: a working prototype, but its topology is almost ready with custom digital filters software and signal amplification performed only in transformers, with tubes acting as buffers and a complicated chassis, the same as one used for the preamplifier. Seeing a device of this class and listen to a man who is in the middle of the development process and ask him what he is looking for, what methods are most important to him, etc.—priceless!
The man in question, Mr. Philippe Chambon, is also an organist and he develops software that allow him to creates copies of the reverbs of famous churches. And he is as "crazy" and uncompromising in his search for the absolute as we—audiophiles—are. For the simulations he uses several hundred processors (he uses graphics cards for this purpose), water-cooled. He can talk for hours about the changes he introduces and what they do for sound.
He did it also during our joint listening session - joint, because he asked me to present my opinion on the sound of the DAC. It was a great honor, because probably never before anybody from outside the NAGRA had been allowed to participate in such work, that's why for the first time I agreed to share my comments about a product that was not yet introduced for sale, still at its prototype stage. And there was a lot to talk about - the sound was perfect. And that's why I was happy to discuss its aspects and point out things that, in my opinion, could be even better.
The source of the signal was a file player with the Roon core. We listened to CDs from NAGRA transport for a while, but it was a step back. Why? Because the transport used its own word clock, and the DAC featured its own. Solution? René says that they simply have to prepare a CD or SACD transport that will be clocked using DAC's oscillator. Ideally through the AT&T optical link.
In any case, we listened to files, including DSD256, and it sounded exceptionally well. I did not like all the tracks equally, I preferred analog recordings (although I learned about how the recording was made only after my assessment), but it was something special. And even the Thales turntable with the prototype of the Classic phono preamplifier they I listened to after that did not make such a huge impression on me as the files.
The Day after tomorrow
In the morning the last day of our visit we were woken up by a roar of an engine. It was six or seven in the morning. Looking out of the window, apart from the insane view of the lake and the mountains, I saw nothing that could caused that. After a while I got up again and this time I managed to see a small red point in the sky—as it turned out, a helicopter. What was it doing at this time flying back and forth? Well, it simply watered the vineyards, taking water from the lake and dropping it over the crops. That's Switzerland ladies and gentlemen.
And what about NAGRA? Stefan Kudelski passed away on January 26, 2013. The Claude Nob Foundation last year encoded two tracks—including Smoke on the Water in a DNA strand and believes that this registration will last for tens of thousands of years without any change. However, before we start testing DNA players, the best source of signal will be still an analog master tape and - it's finally coming—music files. In secret, René told us—but I do not think he will mind if I share this with the High Fidelity readers—that NAGRA and the Foundation discuss possibility of releasing several titles from the festival archive.
And in two years' time, on the seventieth anniversary of the company's foundation, company's monograph prepared by Ken Kessler is to be released. And probably the complete HD system, brand's opus magnum will be ready. And there is NAGRA, one of the most interesting audio companies in history.
AUDIO TECHNOLOGY SWITZERLAND
Tanguy Lemaire
SWITZERLAND
Text: Wojciech Pacuła
Images: Wojciech Pacuła
