search

York Du

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…

Design Is Key

Original employs four full-time design engineers.

The Battleground

Du calls this conference room, "the battleground, because we argue about designs all the time. It gets pretty heated."

Listening Lab

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.

Original's Assembly Line

"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."

Board Stuffing

'Nuff said.

Burn-In Bench

Everything gets cooked before packing, as a final quality assurance measure.

The Usual Suspects

Some tools are universal.

When He Says "Hand-Made," He Means It

This is not the fastest way to heatshrink trannie leads, but this guy obviously takes his job seriously.

Naughty Fund

I spotted this box of money by the door. "What's that?" I asked, "The tea fund?"

"No," Linda Ling said. "It's the naughty fund. When someone breaks a rule like coming to work late, they have to pay in some small cash. When the box is full, we take everybody out for a celebration."