Words and photos courtesy of Roberto Marzi. Photo above: Gabriele Maggi in his listeing space, a converted storage room behind his small pharmacy in Voghera.
The term 'Listening Space' conjurs up different images for every individual, if you're a high-fidelity proponent it would imprint your mind's eye with speakers, turntables, CD players, amplifiers, etc. But never two of the same configuration would float to the surface of consciousness. Despite these differences, the common thread which ties these disparate ideas together is the happiness that music heard through a hi-fi brings. And so, Listening Space is back with an eigth instalment (Read the first HERE, the second HERE, the third HERE, the fourth HERE, the fifth HERE the sixth HERE and the seventh HERE). In this article we connect with Gabriele Maggi of Voghera, Italy.
This escape into hi-fi journalism is supported by Hi-fi Centre.
Listening to Miles Davis as if he were there in your home, being certain – almost certain – that you are listening as close to reality as the moment they recorded the piece, then, you need some more money. You have to assemble a time machine.”
–Roberto Marzi:
Resistor Mag is grateful to Roberto Marzi for his time and efforts in bringing this interview to life. Marzi is a military jet-fighter mechanic and also restores old racing Maserati, Bugatti, and Porsche. These ventures he describes as “only a job,” with his real passions encompassing art, music, guitars and books.
Music is a religion. It has followers, disciples. There are believers, true believers and fundamentalists. Each of us when asked why we listen to music, responds in their own way, based on how much music fills our thoughts, moments.
I love to quote an article from several years ago, written by an American journalist, which tried to justify the apparent exhaustively unreasonable cost of some music playback systems, it went something like. “… if you are washing dishes, cleaning, or reading a magazine on your couch, then probably a cheap radio costing little money, bought in any super market will be more than good, it will be great. You want unobtrusive company then that little stereo will suit you…but, on the other hand, if you want to have a deeper experience, things change. Listening to Miles Davis as if he were there in your home, being certain – almost certain – that you are listening as close to reality as the moment they recorded the piece, then, you need some more money. You have to assemble a time machine…”
High fidelity reproduction systems aspire to do this, to make us travel through decades, to that exact time imprinted within the grooves of a vinyl record, stopped there for eternity, a quantum theory if we want to be contemporary. Miles Davis is constantly stationary there along with his formidable quintet in the same studio and it's still 1955, he's there for eternity. But do you have the means to achieve it? You can choose whether to focus on the purity of the sound, its absoluteness and the truth in your research, or simply let your experience guide you when the music reaches you, beyond the system that reproduces it.
One speaks to the brain, the other to the senses.
On this plane of reality where everything counts for the success of the journey, there are those who engage with the recovery of the old pieces of the time machines, of the original pieces so that nothing is lost, so that in the future we can even imagine where it all started. Gabriele Maggi is one of the silent custodians of these amazing time machine installations. Beyond his obsession with the hi-fi equipment he seeks out and collects, the peculiarity is where it intersects with. his desire for realistic playback. Let us ask him some questions to dig deeper into his mindset.
Photo below: Detail of field coil power supplies.
Roberto Marzi: Give us a profile, who are you, where do you live and what are your interests?
Gabriele Maggi: “My name is Gabriele Maggi, in everyday life I am a pharmacist. My main interests are listening to music, its reproduction and recently became interested in motorcycles again. I live in a small town (Voghera) in the province of Pavia, North West Italy.”
Roberto Marzi: Where does your interest in music and in particular in High Fidelity come from?
Gabriele Maggi: “It all connected in the late ‘90s, I was taught by friends a few years older than me (the same ones who instructed me musically, I played the sax for a while), I began to get interested in the reproduction of vinyl and talking about turntables, I discovered two names that stuck: Thorens and later EMT. The next step was vintage McIntosh amps, which I bought on eBay. My first higher-level piece was a McIntosh C22 preamplifier from 1964.”
Roberto Marzi: Do you have a precise memory of the first moment you were struck by the sound? I mean the quality of what you were listening to.
Gabriele Maggi: “Absolutely, yes! Three different moments, the first was listening with my friend and guru Marco Musazzi,and three different speakers; the first was a pair of JBL Olympus C 50SBR, the second, the most dazzling, a pair of Western Electric 555 drivers mounted on two 6A horns left in Vigevano, Italy by American soldiers; and finally, the last fantastic sound came from a pair of JBL 4343 which were playing a piece of classical music."
Roberto Marzi: As far as I know, you are the world's largest collector of CinemeMeccanica equipment. Can you tell us how this adventure started?
Gabriele Maggi: “I correct you, the greatest collector in the world is for all intents and purposes my friend and research partner Lorenzo Sironi, let's say that I'm the one who applies mostly from the point of view of bibliography and historical research, also on individuals catalogues, of what were once companies such as Cinemeccanica. The interest in the brand was born by chance, when I came into contact with the aforementioned Musazzi in 2004, who bought from me a Cinemeccanica Ts biphonic box (1960s) recovered in the theater out in the country near my parents’ home, and then reading on the Internet about Altec clones. From there on the interest turned into a mission.”
Photo right: Cinemeccanica open-baffle configuration of dual-concentric drivers.
Roberto Marzi: Tell me something about Cinemeccanica. When we talk about sound systems from pre-war film reproduction, there are usually two names: Western Electric and Klangfilm. Where does Cinemeccanica fit in?
Gabriele Maggi: “Cinemeccanica is the most famous and appreciated brand among playback systems for cinema and theater in Italy. There were other firms like Prevost, Fedi, and Microtecnica (always Italian) who also produced gear starting from 1930. And they were designs of the highest quality, sometimes even superior to Cinemeccanica itself. I have never been able to compare performance between Western Electric and Cinemeccanica, but with Klangfilm yes, comparing field-coil drivers to each other and I have to say I haven't noted significant differences. Much depends on the state of the conservation of the coils, driver membranes, but also the validity, in the case of field-coil loudspeakers, of the dedicated power supply.”
Roberto Marzi: The peculiarity of your listening environment (the warehouse of the pharmacy), transforms your story into something even more interesting.
Gabriele Maggi: “I’m a big believer in having a correlation between the type of system and the music you are listening to. System and type of music for me, they are closely if not necessarily related. If we consider the warehouse composed of my working museum, cinematic components, we will feel it play acoustic jazz, classical, chamber music, ethnic, opera, in a warehouse which at the moment, is the only space available in the absence of an adequate pavilion.”
Photo left: Portrait of Gabriele Maggi.
Photo above: Part of the current compliment of loudspeakers and amplifiers in Maggi's collection.
Roberto Marzi: The fact is that the choice of using the back of a pharmacy is at least singular, for accumulation of such unique and particular objects, as if it were an atelier. So if I'm visiting you for an aspirin, I might risk listening to John Lee Hooker keeping time with his foot behind the counter?
Gabriele Maggi: “Let's say you could hear his foot stomping from the neighboring thin wall.”
Roberto Marzi: Tell us about the material in your possession and about your passion for monophonic playback.
Gabriele Maggi: “The material in my possession mainly sees two pairs of speaker in stereo configuration (one pair of mid-50s “TS biphonic ensemble” and one pair of 12-inch full range field coil panels, probably Cinemeccanica, but not branded. Three monophonic field coil loudspeakers follow, arranged according to the probables configurations of the timing, and a full range Safar brand speaker added with a driver for high frequencies, configured in waveguide.”
Roberto Marzi: The monophony...
Gabriele Maggi: “Of monophony I mainly love the correlation between aesthetic and the compactness of the system and the presence of the acoustic reproduction, provided that it is music suitable for monophonic reproduction.”
Roberto Marzi: Could you describe your monophonic system to me?
Gabriele Maggi: “It’s a bit difficult to explain ... it starts from a stereo tube pre-amplifier, which two sources are connected in stereo with stereo cables (even if the cartridge being a Denon DL102 already sums the channels). At the output of the stereo pre-amplifier there is a split cable, from one part the signal remains stereo and goes to a stereo final (feeding a pair of Cinemecanica biphonic); on the other the stereo cable goes to a handcrafted mono summing box, from which two different mono outputs start for two different systems in mono.”
Photos above: Vintage Cinemeccanica 12-inch dual-concentric driver and field coil power-supplies.
Roberto Marzi: Slightly complicated…
Gabriele Maggi: “You are right, but otherwise I would need two mono pre-amplifiers for two mono power amplifiers and other mono sources.”
Roberto Marzi: Denon DL102 cartridge. Why?
Gabriele Maggi: “The DL102 is a cartridge that renders medium frequencies well, it is a bit limited on the entire reproduction frequency spectrum, but with one characteristic: it softens the vinyls a little worn, making them less noisy and rounder, as well as having an acceptable price, without losing the vintage style of the old General Electric. There I use because at the start I had a mono system with which I could also listen to the stereo vinyls. Now I use the DL102 exclusively for monophonic vinyls (eg classical and jazz), and for 78s rpm I use the other model, the DL102SD.”
Photo below: Detail of vintage Cinemeccanica 12-inch driver.
Roberto Marzi: How is your listening space set up today?
Gabriele Maggi: “I mostly use handcrafted devices. I still have an Cinemeccanica P2A3 amplifier, two Marelli P1x, 1 juke box Microtecnica with 6L6s, and a Prevost with the 6L6, both mono. The Marelli’s are mono integrated amplifiers, which were coupled with portable projectors. I have owned several vintage McIntosh's in the past, a C22 pre-amplifier, an MC 30 power amp with its C8 preamp. My latest purchase is DecWare Zen Triode single ended amplifier.”
Roberto Marzi: What about turntables?
Gabriele Maggi: “I mainly use a Garrard 401 and a Lenco L70. I also have a Microseiki MB600 belt driven (which I use as a source in the film system), with various arms and heads that I alternate according to my mood. For the 78 rpm playback I use a Japanese clone of a Gray arm, with cartridge Denon already mentioned.”
Photo below: Cinemeccanica P2A3 monobloc amplifier.
Roberto Marzi: My last question: What is high fidelity for you?
Gabriele Maggi: “For me the listening experience consists of listening to a certain type of music reproduced by now ancient speakers. It's like taking them back a bit to the period when they had to work for more than 12 hours a day without respite, though treating them kindly.”
Roberto Marzi: “So, for you the absolute concept of high fidelity doesn't exist?
Gabriele Maggi: “Maybe I don't give a damn.”
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