Sakuma-san

Sadly, this charming gentleman passed away nearly a year ago. Has anyone here heard some of his designs?

S.

https://www10.big.or.jp/~dh/

Sadly I have never heard of him. Seems he had some interesting ideas, that were not universally shared.

A pioneer in the revival of mono. As a devotee of mono myself I totally understand why industry luminaries like Walter Legge considered stereo a mere gimmic, mono can have a width, depth and musical coherence that at times makes stereo feel very artificial. The concert experience is overwhelmingly mono no matter what music you go and listen to, with music coming from a mix of front and reflected, but rarely panned widely left and right.

Having said that, Sakuma's insistence on one amplifier, one speaker mono (as opposed to two-speaker mono) flies in the face of my experience at least. Two-speaker mono provides a much larger canvas for the mind to work its magic, sorting out sound into a wide, deep, 3D picture.

Nevertheless Sakuma was great at provoking people into thinking differently about sound and reproduction and I think for that reason much more influential than his oddball position might indicate.

He also seems to have been something of an innovator as far as circuit design was concerned as well as excavating old forgotten ideas, including being at the forefront of the DHT revival (and associated flea power/ultra high efficiency approach) which also made him quite influential even for people who didn't subscribe to his mono philosophy.

RIP Sakuma-san!

I visited the town where he lived but I had no idea he is there. Furthermore he run a small cafe with all of his gear there so it was practically open for everyone. One of these things you discover too late.

I saw once or maybe twice his older amps on Japanese auction site, but it's a massive pain in the ass to ship these heavy things from there. It's very pricey plus I doubt it would survive a intercontinental trip, even if I persuade seller to ship outside of Japan (99.99% mission impossible for this kind of parcels). I do have someone in Tokyo to get a parcel on my behalf but still what then with like 40-50kg heavy device prone to damage.

And no, I have never heard anything from his stuff but it is not too difficult to imagine some things. Actually any iron oversized amp nowadays is more or less inspired by Sakuma San.

A friend built one that is, with 13 pieces of iron (chokes, transformers) a real tribute to his genius.