Jordan O'BrienHideaki Nishikawa may not the be a household name in Western Europe or the United States, but his more than 30 years in the hi-fi industry have given him a unique insight into what to look for when it comes to high-end audio. One thing he noticed was the growing interest in traditional, analog audio formats; with sales for record players and vinyl consistently up in recent years. That led him to focus his experience on designing a record player for the 21st Century, and no man could have been better for the job.
Having begun his career at a machine engineering company, Nishikawa quickly moved up the ranks before landing a role as Sound Business Director at Micro Seiki Co. For those unaware of the Micro Seiki brand, it was legendary amongst hi-fi fans who appreciated the very best in audio quality, and developed cutting-edge record players before it fell on hard times in the 1990s. Before the company ceased production, Nishikawa had already moved onto his next venture, founding Stellavox Japan Inc., a company dedicated to the import and distribution of high-end audio equipment. This company has since been renamed Stella Inc, and Nishikawa remains its CEO until this day.
Rather than relying on solely distributing products from other brands, Nishikawa decided to use his knowledge of record players to bring them up-to-date for the 21st Century. He did this by creating a brand-new high-end record player, named TechDAS. These record players aren’t just designed to give a faithful reproduction of the audio recorded onto the vinyl, but it’s also been crafted as a statement piece; a work of art.
Love Affair With Trinnov
While Nishikawa may be reinventing the record player, the Japanese icon is also an avid fan of Trinnov Audio. In an interview with the man himself, Trinnov Audio discovered his thoughts regarding room correction, why he’s a fan of Trinnov Audio, and much more. Read below for interview highlights or read the full interview over at Trinnov Audio’s website.
What was your first interpretation of room correction and speaker optimisation, when you first discovered it? What did you think of it?
I actually use a Trinnov in my home, and all audio I listened to is corrected via its microphone; that includes optimisation and time alignment. When I first heard how the soundstage was I thought finally I could reproduce audio without any trouble at all : I think that is fantastic !
What would you say to people who think that room correction and speaker optimization is like “over processing”?
People who do high-end audio always hold such opinions, well, they may hold old-fashioned views, we on the other hand would explain it differently, we’d use the example of recording studios, they do an incredible amount of processing, So from a recording engineer’s point of view they use products like Trinnov’s a lot, they would also use it for playback because using it improves performance and sound stage.
It also does phase management well and I’m sure they’d agree after I let them hear the sound coming out of my speakers! I was won over when I listened to the sound coming from that processor. If analog users tried out Trinnov, they wouldn’t go back to analog.
Taking into account cultural and technological differences between Japan’s audio industry and Trinnov’s French technology can you give us your thoughts on Trinnov?
Japan is pretty much a leader in the Audio-Video industry, However, the great thing about Trinnov is its software, this company knows the professional and high-end user scene inside-out. A lot of planning goes into creating and maintaining it. Because of that: their software is excellent and to me, no one else in the world makes such superb software, not even in developed countries like America and Japan or in other European countries. Therefore, I think that Trinnov have created outstanding software.