Pascal Ravach, Présence Audio, Lys, Oxford Acoustics... and Mutine

1981, Switzerland, "Independent"

After a few weeks of hard thinking, and noting that I had an impressive stock of components at home (because I was paying them out of my own pocket to do extensive tests quietly), I made a decision that would lean to everything else: I became an independent reseller!

I start with the brands that I had approved (from memory: AKG, Electro-companiet, ESS, Goldring, JMR, Linn, MacIntosh, NAD, Naim, Nakamichi, Rega, SME, Thorens, Vecteur... and others). The success comes instantly!

I import Magnepan for French-speaking Switzerland.
I add Vecteur, then - because the distributor, Philippe, refused to "take the risk" -, I become the exclusive reseller in Switzerland for the Vecteur turntable, this lead me to meet Maurice Yetta's Vecteur Group. First unipivot arm.

Sale of Famco electronics (Nuance preamp and Plénitude amp, based on a licence granted to Peter Hansko by no less than Stan Curtis of Cambridge Audio fame!); they later become Vecteur... then YBA models 3; each time I remain the reseller (then later distributor) for their new "incarnation".

Moving from Lausanne to a centuries-old farm... at last had such good acoustics :)

A typical personal system from that era: Linn LP12/Ittok/Karma, MacIntosh C504 (their "slim" series, I regret selling my tuner from that time!) & MC2255 (the only Mac amp I've ever loved, more even than the tube MC275...), ESS Transar 1, GBH cables (the first truly "audio" cables commercially available, made in Italy).

Purchase of a second pair of ESS Transar 1 (to compare the modifications), first significant improvements of the tweeter (felt, damping, rewiring...), which later earned me a meeting with Oskar Heil, inventor of the AMT at a trade show; he then suggested that I join him at his laboratory in California; unfortunately, I did not have time to do so before his passing in 1994.

Then, by joining the "Vecteur group" and their listening in Paris, discovery of the first spikes (well, first... nails... and yes, we were the pioneers of the use of spikes in Hi-Fi), first cones (I still have my original box of Vecteur cones), first Vecteur coaxial audio cables... great times!

Acquisition by Philippe of the binaural archives of André Charlin; production by him of the first six LPs, played on my Vecteur turntable (with the Vecteur-Lurné arm), transferred to Nagra T at 76 cm/s, purged of the clicks by him (before digital... he had to do up to 400 "cuts" per reel!), edited. "Le boeuf sur le toit" by Darius Milhaud and "Les Vêpres monastiques russes" are still interesting musically... in addition to the superb binaural experience. It's hard for me to listen to the LPs of the time or the CDs produced afterwards without feeling a hint of nostalgia...

1984, Switzerland, Presence Audio

October 10: launch of "Présence Audio", a high-fidelity auditorium, in an apartment in Lausanne.

For the same investment, I could have chosen a "traditional" store... but two years of experience "at home" convinced me: it's the best way to share a listening experience, even if it's much less obvious commercially!

Despite this, it is incredibly successful from the start, with 311 systems installed in 18 months, solely by word of mouth from 4 customers!

I add a lot of English products: Creek, Crimson, DNM, Logic.

I am the Linn/Naim dealer for French-speaking Switzerland, which earned me the visit of the two factories, and some anecdotes with their founders... for another day :)

I've been selling a lot of Naim Nait since 1983, but then I quit Naim because I don't like the NAC 42 and NAP 110.

I also sell a lot of Linn LP12 turntables, up to the Ittok/Karma combination, quite a few loudspeakers (Kan, Sara and Isobarik), but I reject the LK1 and LK2 electronics.

From Linn, I learned - and kept, unlike some people - the importance of the "Single speaker demo room"... and their famous "garbage in, garbage out"... it was their great contribution :)

And I took the idea of the "spikes" from Vecteur to Ivor, who laughed at me on the balcony, before... declaring a few months later that he discovered the spikes himself for his speaker stands... such is the small world of hi-fi.
But that was nothing compared to the coming rivalry between Ivor and Julian...which went all the way to cars...Ivor had chosen a 'Group A' style Peugeot, Julian...a 'boosted' Jaguar. . the ballad at largely illegal speed on the small roads had shaken me to the bones :)

I am not a "marketing guy", it's just out of a passion for photography and cinema that I created for Magnepan - with Crimson and Logic - the first Hi-Fi advertisement in a local cinema, starting from a professional shot (made with a Sinar camera, Schneider lens, 50 kW of lighting... no sparing!), and screened in an little movie theater; the first time, the film was "Hail Mary" by Godard :)

I still have the proofing print...

I push my product tests as far as ever: for each new component, after complete break-in, I plug it in with "everything" I have, including the "accessories", until I get the best out of it... to the point that my auditorium is becoming the preferred testing location for several distributors (Karlev for Creek, Crimson, DNM; Philippe for JMR, Vecteur, YBA; etc).

It took me 8 years (!) to agree to sell my first CD player (a small integrated Luxman), because even my affordable turntables (Thorens TD166 MkII Super, arm Linn Basik, Goldring or Denon DL103) made all players, even very expensive, unlistenable... a group was even created by my competitors, "SAC" (for Swiss Audio Control... aptly named) to boycott me, under official cover to regroup to have good purchasing conditions. .. they called me a "business destroyer" :)

One day, invited by Philippe Zumbrunn, Stefan Kudelski, the founder of Nagra, comes to Présence Audio to test his prototype CD player; CDs weren't on the market yet, even the disc was a prototype.

The sound engineer, Marcel Cellier, comes too, with his recording "Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares" both on LP and pre-burned on the test CD.

Listening to the Vecteur turntable (with the Vecteur-Lurné arm and an AKG1000) so dramatically crushes CD playback, to Stefan's amazement - and disgust - that Nagra postpones the release of its player to better days (Kudelski will finally release it in 2007). In addition, the much vaunted dynamics of the CD turned out to be pathetic...

But the baroque revival (especially with Erato) only happened on compact disc... to appreciate Christopher Hogwood or Nikolaus Harnoncourt, you needed a CD... my clients harassed me a lot :)

1986, Switzerland, Lys SA

I sell "Presence Audio" to a friend, Philippe, with the intention to spend 5 years alone at sea; this store still exists in 2023, he first moved it from Lausanne to Nyon, then to Geneva.

I start looking at ads for sailboats... and first come across Askoy, Jacques Brel's boat, which I loved so much!

Becoming a distributor is not my goal, but something unexpected happens: during a trade show, Jean-Marie Reynaud, observing that I represent 70% of JMR's sales in Switzerland, asks me to become his distributor!

After a very big hesitation, I accept, saying to myself "well, for a year at most, then I'm leaving...".

I didn't leave afterwards... it's the end of my offshore sailing dreams, and the continuation of my long adventure in audio...

I launch Lys SA, distributor for Switzerland for JMR at the beginning, then later also for other brands, including BH (Bruno Henry), Ram, Vector, YBA.

I had made friends from Quebec during my university years in Brussels, and I had promised them to visit Quebec one day... hence the idea of choosing the "fleur-de-lys" as the logo for my company :)

1987, Switzerland and Germany, Lys GmbH

Very successful with JMR in Switzerland, the line really has a very special musicality for the time, from the small Duo to the Recital!

Also fascinated by omnidirectional speakers, he released the "Reference", omni for the medium and the tweeter, more traditional with the bass; a superb speaker, with the price to match (30,000 Sfr at the time).

While bringing my first pair from France to Switzerland, on the roof of his car, he is stopped by Swiss customs who imagine... a missile!

He ends up being allowed to cross the border, but doesn't arrive until dinner time... very angry with them.

The Opus was original, with its 24 dB/octave filters; a Sony representative friend saw an Opus disassembled in their laboratories! Nice involuntary compliment coming from a "big brand"...

(By the way, another model name that Audiomat shares for its amplifiers; confusing, but the reason is simple: they both like to use words from the musical lexicon...).

Given the sales in Switzerland, Jean-Marie pushes me to open an additional distribution; I'd rather wait a few years, but he's persuasive :)

After hesitating with Italy, I launch the German branch, Lys GmbH, in Heidelberg.

Beginning of tube amplifiers with BBAP (British Build Audiophiles Products, an irony of Bill Beard who had been dispossessed of his company...).

Lots of failures (Bill was pushing his pairs of EL34s to 50W max, they were "glowing red" all the time...)

Enormous success with the small Vecteur Première mini-monitor speaker, still highly sought after...

Release of the only bad series from JMR (the XO range)...
The rise of Triangle had worried Jean-Marie, who wanted to try a more contemporary design; sides in synthetic material, top and bottom in methacrylate; disaster for me, the tops, fixed with some kind of sticking paste, come off during my exhibition! Spent half a year trying to repair the damages, cancellation of a contract for 110 resellers with the Expert group (which had, like me, fallen in love with the previous range), last minute break, I'm doing the next show with the Vecteur Premiere.
Jean-Marie will then release a revamped range, but it's too late for me.

Always passionate about analog/digital comparisons (I still do, because I don't like "religious wars"), I assemble my first serious CD player set: a 700.00 (!) Pioneer transport. , with the reversed disc... and a 28,000,- (!!) DAC, the Stax DAC-XT1 with tubes, of which I am the only owner in Switzerland... even the distributor did not want to take the risk to store one!

The Pioneer sounded better than the more expensive US and Japanese transports; and the Stax, with its 7 power supplies, its Golden Lion tubes, its superb chassis, was the first DAC to be so musical!

For the comparison, having done sound recording, I knew that many CDs were re-mastered; I needed absolutely similar sources.

I have to purchase more than 300 (!) CDs and LPs to find ONE album that sounds the same on both sources; it is the "Chicago Pro Musica – Weill - Varèse - Bowles - Martinů" RR-29 from Reference Recording. I still have those discs!

I discover - late on the party - the work of "Professor Keith O. Johnson"... his calibrated microphones, and very early in his career his choice to record as naturally as possible.

My Vecteur turntable (still a reference to this day...) against the Pioneer/Stax: many more similarities than differences!

Since that day, I have always pushed analog and digital in parallel, never opposing them, but taking the best of each as a reference for the other!

1988, Switzerland, Germany and England, Oxford Acoustics

My Vecteur turntable remains the reference, I still sell Linn, other English brands (Logic, Pink Triangle, ...), and I import Oracle (Delphi) from Quebec; but I'm still looking for an "English" reference turntable...

I import an amplifier (Inca Tech Claymore); Colin Wonfor, the designer, tells me that the two best turntables at the moment are the Nottingham Analog Studio and the Oxford Acoustics.

I purchase both: a Nottingham Analog Mentor Carbon (youtube link) and a Oxford Acoustics Crystal Reference.
When listening, the Mentor has a slightly deeper bass, but the Crystal Reference is more airy and dynamic. I make this one my favorite... to the point of finally meeting Fraser Shaw, its creator, and first buying the majority of the shares in their English distribution, Oxford Distribution, and later in their manufacturing unit, Oxford Acoustics; the new entity is called Acoustics Limited and is based in Abingdon near Oxford.

The success is enormous... we end up manufacturing 300 units per month, all products included (phono preamplifier, preamplifier, amplifier, three turntable models)

For example, a German retailer in Bamberg buys the small turntable model (the Crystalette) from us in monthly batches of 25 units!

We create innovative products of such beauty that a journalist visiting one of our shows afterwards will call us "the B&O of the audiophile".

Another journalist from the United States even told us that she would like to propose them to the MoMa!

We are developing a unique technique for our "black lacquer" finish, with a paint booth isolated by ultra-thin water curtains; in two passes we obtain the same result as a real Chinese lacquer with its seven layers and its seven sanding...

1991, CEC

Convinced by belt-driven turntables, I discovered a belt-driven... CD player!

I immediately fall in love with this first CEC, the TL-1.

Learning that Audiomat is developing a prototype based on a Teac VRDS mechanism (very good, by the way), I offer to compare them.

Travel from Switzerland to Provence, and almost immediate result: the CEC is so fluid, analogue, that Audiomat stops developing their own transport!

It will take a very long time for them to do so, with their D1 Drive.

I then represent CEC for French-speaking Switzerland, and adopt these transports (TL-2, TL-3, TL-1X,) which, married to Audiomat converters, offered me an analog sound that I could not find anywhere else.

Even today, the association of these two brands is famous among many audiophiles.

1991-1993, an involuntary break

We are on the rise.

But two serious family events, which affected Fraser and then myself, added to my second burn-out (one cannot work up to 18 hours a day without paying for it with one's health), finally push me to stop all the operations of the four companies; I decide that I will never work so much again, and that if one day I return to High-Fidelity, it will be with a small company!

From this adventure, I kept a few Oxford Acoustics devices and my Crystal Reference turntable; every time a visitor wants to buy it from me, I jokingly answer that I am ready to let it go for the amount it cost me... they are excited until I announce the amount.. 1.1 million English pounds from 1990!

The amount of my abandoned English investment...

We had developed a tangential arm prototype based on the Air Tangent, I left it to my partner...

I mounted on this turntable the single arm (prototype, too, it looks a bit like a cross between a Linn Basik and a Rega) that Ernst Benz had made; he agreed to sell it to me because we were buying the MC2s from him in quantity :)

1993-1995, studies

2 years of study at the University of Geneva; musicology, linguistics, sinology. Wonderful years... if I could spend my life studying, I would!
Friendship with Étienne Darbellay, professor and Director of the Department of Art, History and Musicology; just before my departure for Canada, he, to whom everyone presents products all the time, purchases a system with actinote, Audiomat and éQuation! He writes "This amalgam between Equation and Audiomat is undoubtedly a more seductive drug for a music lover than the best of wines for an informed gourmet (and I speak as a connoisseur!)."

1996: move to Montreal

1997-1998: founding of Mutine Inc. in Canada then of Mutine Corp. in the USA.

First show in January 1998 in Las Vegas (not a good memory, but I met Wes there, my future dealer in Alberta).

Exclusive distributor for Audiomat, Equation, Vecteur.

Attempt to start slowly, but the North American market is rather "dynamic"... success comes fast.

2000, the US "takeoff"

Audiomat France cannot deliver enough for my markets, and still refuses to grow; authentic artisans!

Since I already have manufacturing experience with Oxford Acoustics, they offer me to manufacture the amplifiers and phono preamplifiers here in Canada.

The North American network grows, sometimes reaching over the next few years a hundred resellers, some of whom share my philosophy.

At the Festival Son & Image 2000 in Montreal, Mutine is exhibiting a system with a CEC TL-1X, Audiomat converter and amplifier, and the ÉQuation Gaya, a real "binaural" loudspeaker that fascinates all visitors and the press!

2001, the Canadian manufacturing

We manufacture Audiomat products, under license, in our premises, first in Laval, then in a superb building in Blainville, QC.

A manufacturing workshop, an after-sales service section, an office with a cafeteria corner for employees, huge storage with loading ramps... everything we need :)

2004, CEC second time

As soon as I arrived in Canada, I recommended CEC to my resellers, while not being the distributor.

This earned me a nice "thank you" from their Vancouver rep, who said I had never seen this :)

And personally, I continued to use the brand for my system (the TL1X).

But their distributor only sold very few of them. I end up taking over the distribution for Canada and the USA.

I convince several customers about the flagship of the brand, the TL-0X, until the release of the Audiomat D1 Drive.

But above all, we sell a lot of TL51 (the X,R,XR and XZ versions).
Two reports on Mutine: Son & Image and UHF Magazine.

2005-2007, transfer of manufacturing for éQuation

2005: Christian, the founder of éQuation moves from Belgium to France, far from his acoustics workshop and his cabinet makers, and suddenly asks me to take over the manufacture of his loudspeakers. We are starting the development of the next generation, and Mutine is investing a lot: prototypes, components (just the internal/external wiring of the Gaya is worth 11,000 dollars, and our "custom" speakers from Thiel are also very expensive. ..).

My engineer, Sylvain, devotes hundreds of hours to mechanical development (in CAD).

2007, Duevel

2006: Christian loses all interest in Equation...his own brand!
He has discovered Duevel and considers that they "got it right" regarding the basic principles of a loudspeaker, nothing less!

My first reaction is frustration; to get to the bottom of it, I go to Paris where a first listen to the Duevel Jupiter does not convince me.

2007: I share many things with Christian regarding our expectations in audio, and this disappointment disconcerts me; I return to Paris, and this time, I discover the Venus, in bad conditions (a wall of speakers, at a retailer).

Despite this, I perceive that “something” out of the ordinary is happening; on the way back I order the Planets and the Venus, and I start listening.

With real omnis, it takes an adapting time to leave behind the "over-focused" sound of traditional speakers, this pleasant and fascinating spatial precision (which is also one of the many strong points of éQuation), and realize that listening to them is simply closer to listening to a "live" event!

It takes me several months to convince myself, but for me, as for almost all of my customers who have since adopted Duevel, it is now very difficult to re-adapt to the "other" image once we get used to this one...

2007-2008, the last shows

At the 2007 Montreal Son & Image Festival, Mutine exhibits the éQuation 35 in one room... and the Duevel Planets in another; a page is dedicated to that exhibition.

Gérard Rejskind, of UHF magazin, writes:
"In both cases, the rooms were an oasis of musical pleasure which contrasted with the hideous noises emerging from a number of surrounding rooms, some sounding more like chains saws than music."

At the 2008 Montreal Festival Son & Image (my 22nd and  last exhibition in 22 years, in Germany, England, Ireland, Switzerland and the US), Mutine exhibits the Duevel Bella Luna; another page is dedicated to that exhibition.

2008, back to basics

I discover that I fall back into the trap of burn-out...

It is impossible to reconcile unlimited passion and management of a company with its employees and its infrastructure.

In June 2008, after thirty years in the business, I decide to take a semi-retirement... the idea of completely abandoning audio crossed my mind, but the reaction of my partners, and especially that of my clients , convince me to continue... more quietly!

Above all, my semi-retirement allows me to fulfill my long-time dream: a bio-energetic, solar-powered, low-carbon-footprint home, with dedicated auditoriums, a lab, storage, a suite for guest clients, a photo studio and office spaces... to be able to warmly welcome my customers there, as when Présence Audio started in 1984.

Two years and 2500 hours for the plans, and in 2023 already 30,000 hours devoted to this project!

The first auditorium, the workshop and a suite were launched in 2015. The construction of the third auditorium began in 2018... the suite can be found on the page"Mutine today".