FEATURE: Resolution A/V
AN AUDIOPHILE JOURNEY
I’m kind of fuzzy on memories before, say, ten years old, but not when it comes to music. The basement rec room in our Connecticut Salt Box home was all about music. That’s where you’d find my father’s treasured Slingerland drum kit along with his hi-fi (as it was then called) audio system consisting of Fisher tube amps, a Dual idler drive turntable, and a pair of huge Bozak speakers made in nearby Norwalk. It was there where my lifelong passion for music was birthed. Every weekend, I anxiously awaited the moment my dad would announce we were gonna “fire up the system and make some noise!” which translated to him playing drums along to Buddy Rich records with the amps at 11 & headphones on, too! Watching those glowing tubes flicker and the piston-like movement of the drivers in the speakers was mystical to me, but it was forever linked to the experience of hearing music played live in the room. Never did I see my father exude more joy than when he was playing the drums. At seven years old, he began to teach me, and that became our first and most lasting bond.
Ron Blomgren Sr. in 1951
Looking back, I realize this was my first “Audiophile” moment. Today, the label can be rather contentious, with some describing audiophiles as those who prioritize the gear, and the insatiable quest for better gear as the obsessive focus, while others (myself included) would stress the music comes first, and the gear is just the conduit to hearing it as it’s best. As my childhood experiences convey, these two camps of gear vs music were intertwined, each serving their purpose, and my journey in pursuing excellence in live performance, playing music myself and owning gear that faithfully reproduced recorded music, was solidified. So yeah, I’m an Audiophile.
Ron Blomgren Jr. in 1967
Budget audiophile is the label that suits me best, however, that hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for consuming all the information I can get on the “high end”, unobtainable equipment that pushes the industry forward. In the Information Age, there are numerous sources for great coverage of the high-end audio industry. Some of my favorite sources online for both information and entertainment are The Audiophiliac YouTube channel run by Steve Guttenburg, Jazz Vinyl Lovers Facebook group run by Stereophile magazine’s Ken Micallef, and Herb Reichert’s beautiful prose in Stereophile. Turns out all the above experts are friends and, like me, abide by the music first ethos. Through their tutelage, I started following the high-end audio shop in Red Hook, Brooklyn, by the name of Resolution A/V, run by Adam Wexler. His daily Instagram posts are super fun and showcase some of the finest gear available in the Northeast.
It was after a few of my comments on their posts followed by quick responses from Adam himself that I thought, “Hey, we gotta invite him out to a session in Connecticut”, and so I did just that. Adam politely declined, mostly due to the workload of running three distinct audio businesses under the Resolution A/V umbrella, not to mention having a family. So imagine my surprise when he so graciously offered to host our group session at his Brooklyn showroom! I pounced on the offer, and plans for our first EWS road trip began.
Adam connected me with Scott Haggart, who, along with Adam, runs the high-end retail arm of their business. After booking a date, in a follow-up call with Scott, he excitedly shared in great detail the system he put together for our listening session. Aside from the cool factor of being the first to hear this system as a whole, the gear itself made my jaw drop: Nagra Reference Monoblocks and pre-amplification, Brinkman turntable with EMT cartridge and Rockport Technologies loudspeakers, just to name a few. An analogy comes to mind. If you’re a car guy, you might know you’ll never afford a pricey McLaren, but that doesn’t mean you turn down an opportunity to test drive one and experience the gold standard. And so it was for us. We were about to hear a system that costs more than some homes and we’re gonna damn well soak in every moment!
After an informative, entertaining deep-dive description of every component from Scott, we were ready to begin. My first impressions were that I’ve never heard a more integrated, balanced, and highly resolving system in my life. The sound, even at a volume louder than I’m used to, was so tonally accurate, not wanting in any frequency range, so smooth and effortless in its presentation that the equipment itself seemed to vanish before us. We were left with just the music washing over us in the most organic of ways, compounded by the fact that we were hearing our chosen tracks, records we know in intimate detail. One of our group members summed it up after hearing his selection of a song by The Police by saying, “I heard things on the cut I’ve never heard before,” and that’s after playing it dozens of times on his radio show.
After nearly four hours, it was time to wind it down and let Scott go home. As we said our goodbyes and gave thanks to Scott & Adam, the experience left me feeling like these guys, this shop, are our brethren; we’re family now. Their dedication and commitment to excellence stand out in a crowd, and like us, they believe in the power of music to bring people together. Feel blessed for this rare and unique opportunity given to us, and hopefully, we’ll get another go at it.
— Ron Blomgren Jr.
