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This is York Du of Original, which makes "CD players and only CD players."
York is holding his 1959 Tecsun Hi-Fi Sound tube radio, having seen in the blog that I was interested in classic radios.
York got an EE, wrote software in the Army, and, from 1984–1992, developed software for IBM. In 1993, he began writing software code for DVD players, then a few years later, moved on to VCD software. In 1999, hw started writing CD code. "From DVD to VCD to CD, each step meant fewer unit sales," Du said. "We sold 60,000 DVD players per year, but in Original's entire lifetime, we've…
Du calls this conference room, "the battleground, because we argue about designs all the time. It gets pretty heated."
Original's listening room is extraordinary. The reference system when I was there was Thiel CS 2.2s, a pair of Mark Levinson No. 29s, an XLH preamp, and an Original A9.2 CD player.
The soundfield was vast, with depth out the wazoo. I asked Du how much time he actually got to use the room, "Oh several hours a day. We use measurements, but the final proof is the sound."
Across the hall from the listening room was a test bench and construction station for those spur of the moment parts changes.
"Essentially, we build everything by hand. Some Chinese companies think almost think this approach is primitive, but it gives us a lot of quality control."