Matt The Funk Firm and Houdini the latest offering from Funk.

[matodono1]

Hi Adrian,

Yes I just this minute accepted your request.

Houdini is not officially available till end of Sept but if you email Arthur at info@thefunkfirm.co.uk and say you are on both groups and have spoken to me he may be able to arrange something pre-release.

Many thanks for the welcome.

Matt.

[matodono1]

Hi Matt,
I am already a member of the Funk FB group. I joined after seeing a picture of my Funkified SL1200 on there.

Hi Kevin,

Good show!

Regards Matt.

[matodono1]

To all A of S members,

Arthur has decided that in support of A of S and also to thank Marco for his support thus far he wishes to make Houdini available early to members of this group.

Simply send Arthur a mail info@thefunkfirm.co.uk and say that you would like a pre-release press model and he will make the arrangements from there.
We are still putting together parts of the kits, packaging and graphics to complete the release. When those are available we will send them to you so you eventually get what everyone else gets.

But for now it's all about performance and the sound which they do indeed deliver.

All we ask is that you tell your friends about them.

Good luck and happy listening.

Matt.

[matodono1]

Interesting, a new take on the cartridge isolator/decoupler/enabler etc.

"Suspension and a "torsion tether" - isolation and anti-twisting?

Two things to bear in mind with these devices is that they also change arm geometry between bearing and stylus and also effective mass - both can, potentially, alter the sound.

There was an interesting interview with Pierre Lurné on TNT Audio a number of years ago that discusses the cartridge/headshell interface.
http://www.tnt-audio.com/intervis/lurne_arms_e.html

Hi Will,

Arthur has compiled a response to your question but may be having trouble logging on.

I have it but want you to get a reply from the man himself in person.

So please come back and check periodically, your question has not been forgotten.

Thanks. Matt.

[willbewill]

Thanks Matt

[FunkArt]

Interesting, a new take on the cartridge isolator/decoupler/enabler etc.

"Suspension and a "torsion tether" - isolation and anti-twisting?

Two things to bear in mind with these devices is that they also change arm geometry between bearing and stylus and also effective mass - both can, potentially, alter the sound.

There was an interesting interview with Pierre Lurné on TNT Audio a number of years ago that discusses the cartridge/headshell interface.
http://www.tnt-audio.com/intervis/lurne_arms_e.html

Hello Willbewill

Matt has brought your question to my attention and I wish I could say that there was a short answer. But alas no. So here goes...

“Houdini...Magic, or The art of making the seemingly impossible, plausible.
This decoupler has been the most difficult product to name of any product I’ve been involved with in 40 years. Normally, naming a product is to me really easy. I can’t explain it, it just is – Little Pink Thing. Little Super Deck. DaCapo. Even Preference (P.ink-Reference)
But Houdini? It started out life as Layla. The intention was correct. The product was too good to need over-playing, so aim for: understated and enhance it with a soft and friendly overtone – a female connection. It seemed a good match. The problem came with “What to do with that name?” It went no-where. So began a new trawl. Nothing settled happily. Akorn? (Big oak trees from little acorns)? Akhora? - A totally meaningless word. Name after name...
The problem came just by listening to it, and it wasn’t just me who was being blown away with this new device.
My search, to reflect the product’s somewhat extraordinary capabilities, continued
Kameleon? Sonic rainbow colours but even that, somehow missed the mark.
Play another record. I was achieving what I set out to do 40 years ago:
To better create the illusion and get closer to the master tape. I’ve been banging on about the “Master Tape” for 40 years. Why? Another quick digression.
I’m in a fortunate position...I know what a master tape is.
In fact, it’s a curse...I know what a master tape is!
At school, I was trained (hastily actively avoiding using the term “groomed!”) by my math master John Shuttleworth. He was a pro reviewer. (In fact he reviewed the original Spendor BC1).
He was also a pro recording engineer and owned Meridian Records and I went on recording sessions where I learned what good recorded sound was. Once pressed, he replayed them on what he somewhat disparagingly termed his “Groove Grinder”. The trouble was, he was right!
That’s how it began. I wanted to figure out what went wrong, from master tape (which sounded “Wunderful”) to, well, we all know what records sound like. Even if you’ve not heard a master tape, records are never quite right. Strangely that can also apply to digital, perfect as it is, and Pink Triangle have made the world’s best DAC, but that’s for another day.
I’d actually developed the theory for the decoupler some 18 years ago but then along with one or two other little gems that may or may not see the light of day – well, I am 66 now...I popped in in a drawer. There it languished till earlier this year when I started actually playing with it, productionising and refining it. The stylus hit the groove and there it really was. I likened it to having a disc version of the master tape. The same balance, the same “feel”, the same sense of scale – And I defy anyone who hears it to disagree.
One day, I realised I had the holy grail that overturned the disquiet I’ve experienced all these years.
It was “magical”. The “illusion” was there. “Houdini”. As a name it is as honest to this product as I can muster. It is left it to others to agree or not...but I’m happy.
It ticks all the boxes, the goals I set myself, oh, so many years ago: Affordable, music for the masses.
Houdini delivers and does so in spades. For 40 years, I’ve had to navigate a wretched, bitchy malicious, self-serving industry of greed that cynically brain-washes the public to feather its own nest, feeding on people’s insecurities, creating in them doubt and fear.

Along the way I have achieved it all. A turntable with the “Lowest wow, flutter and rumble of all time”. Arm technology that offers the lowest self-resonance. The best Dac in the world. The best pre-amp in the world and more...A list as staggering as it is ridiculous for one person to lay claim to.
Yet, all the while, and unbeknown to everyone, there was this one sonic element that I knew was missing. The bitch of all itches that had to be scratched, and it had been driving me nuts.

Houdini is in its very early days yet. Vanishingly few people have yet had the opportunity to see, hold and listen to it. Understandably, the claims seem Snake-oil. Smoke. Mirrors. Skills our industry excels at.
But time and again the following style of comments (this one an actual quote) are made:
“It’s now attached to a Hana ML. My word! To be fair, I was expecting an incremental change, but I seem to be getting more of everything while cutting out the “turntable” (Brand & model removed). I actually found myself turning the volume up – not because I couldn’t hear properly but because I could without fear of nasty little artefact becoming audible.”

Others are free to live their lives as they see fit but I am a theoretical and practical physicist. My life is defined by this. I have my personal line I don’t cross.
The author of the question is clearly intelligent and it is only from my misgivings about the industry, I understand when I hear people worry. The post “that they also change arm geometry between bearing and stylus” has, however, left me unhappy in its questioning. Why so?
Because I took great care in composing the text describing salient aspects of Houdini.
At this rather early stage to already start disseminating an intentionally concatenated word “torsion-tether” (and in quotes to boot), to focus on just one aspect, “torsion” attempting to draw a “potential” conclusion of “altering geometry”...How am I to answer it fairly?
Moreover, what does “Potentially” mean?
I could “Potentially” drop dead whilst writing this...
Potentially? 1 Reality: 0 (or is it the other way...hmm?)
Either the design allows geometry error, or it doesn’t.
The fact is I have gone to extraordinary lengths in the design, (then the costs to patent my ideas) to actually PREVENT such from occurring in the first instance! So to find myself defending what’s not there in ignorance of the facts is difficult.
Surely better the question: “Does it this or that?”

Another throw-away comment such as “effective mass can change the sound”.
Really?
Take the above Hana at 5g, vs a different design at, say, 13 g on the same arm. The effective mass having now been altered, do we now assign the change in sound down to this single factor? Of course not. But also there is no way we’ll really be able to dissect same, how would one ascertain this? Yet I don’t hear this of different arms or cartridges. Then, why me!
Nonetheless, I’ll attempt to answer that one as fairly as I can.
Houdini weighs in at some 2g, Increasing lump the arm sees of the Hana up to 7g from 5.
I would repeat with a standard setup add a dead 2g lump on the headshell.
Now compare to determine the sonic variation.
I put it to you that the illusion created by Houdini is somewhat different and somewhat larger than a mere 2g lump.

But what would I know? Others more talented (and certainly with far greater resources!) than me have spent the same length of time and determined, for example, that the microscopic clearances of ball races (which in fact in an arm act not as a race but a uni-pivot!) are the be-all and end-all of the sound of the turntable and arm. Or...
It is because of such “pronouncements from on high” that I despair for you the paying public.
You are utterly confused and with the prevalence of social media, Covid et al coming in thru 5G masts, does such pseudo-science find its fertile ground to germinate, with the ultimate goal of feeding the fat cats of the industry and the magazines chasing advertising revenue have been utterly complicit.
This has paralysed progress and development (Past tense. Gone.)
(What beneficial progress can you point to?)
What is left is a jaded, dissatisfied market.
That is not who I am nor what I want.

For now, how about we just forget the “potential” and simply just evaluate the “what is”, when hopefully, we might enjoy the “physical” itself? It is after all, as real as we can make the illusion.
Despite all the other achievements, believe it or not, if I only have Houdini to define my legacy, you won’t hear me complain.

Regards... A

[RobbieGong]

Interesting read Arthur.

My thoughts at that the Houdini has many curious and intrigued.

It is early days BUT, the testimonies will definitely start to come ......

[matodono1]

Interesting read Arthur.

My thoughts at that the Houdini has many curious and intrigued.

It is early days BUT, the testimonies will definitely start to come ......

Hi Robbie,

So far only about 25 Hifi trade and 10 or so public own Houdini’s

It is very early but here are three.

I don't have time to go into it right now, but feck me that isolator is unbelievable, biggest improvement I've ever heard with any upgrade.
It's better EVERYWHERE

Dr Sanjey Rai (Funk Safire Fxr)

Holy friggin Eck... The very best most worth it £300 I've ever spent.
Clean, separation, head room.. totally gob smacked... Best of all the Mrs can hear it too.

Kevin Lodge (Funk Gett F7 arm)

Thanks Matt,

I always dreamed of a system that would sound as good as yours.
This one little gadget has made it so damn close. Just wow!

Ray Cluer (Linn Sondek Ittok)

Not one person has said a bad word thus far.

This is the next big thing in Analog!

Houdini takes the “tone” out of “tonearm”!

Regards, Matt.

[RobbieGong]

Hi Robbie,

So far only about 25 Hifi trade and 10 or so public own Houdini’s

It is very early but here are three.

I don't have time to go into it right now, but feck me that isolator is unbelievable, biggest improvement I've ever heard with any upgrade.
It's better EVERYWHERE

Dr Sanjey Rai (Funk Safire Fxr)

Holy friggin Eck... The very best most worth it £300 I've ever spent.
Clean, separation, head room.. totally gob smacked... Best of all the Mrs can hear it too.

Kevin Lodge (Funk Gett F7 arm)

Thanks Matt,

I always dreamed of a system that would sound as good as yours.
This one little gadget has made it so damn close. Just wow!

Ray Cluer (Linn Sondek Ittok)

Not one person has said a bad word thus far.

This is the next big thing in Analog!

Houdini takes the “tone” out of “tonearm”!

Regards, Matt.

Excellent, more are gonna come........

[Marco]

What about you, Robbo - when will you be joining the party?

Trust me, you *NEED* one of these babies! I know how much you value the accurate reproduction of the music contained in those grooves, and in that respect the Houdini will significantly improve even the superb sound you're getting now, and truly 'unleash the beast' in your Cadenza Black!



Marco.