May 18, 2011

  • Cardas Cross, Part 1

    My high school friend, Julian, turned me on to Joe Satriani.  Back then (the mid-to-late 80s), Julian lived on Hyde between Turk and Golden Gate.  If you go one block up, to 245 Hyde Street (between Eddy and Turk), you'll find Hyde Street Studios.  It's an unmarked building, hidden behind a couple of trees.  You'd never know it was there.  But this is where Satriani recorded his landmark album, Not Of This Earth.

    The CD would not come out until 1988.  Because the original artwork was lost or misplaced, Relativity used the infamous cover pictured above.  There, Satriani is shown with an Ibanez 540P, which Satriani did NOT use to record the album.  Anyway, the CD includes includes this message from Satriani, which I love and agree with: "Not Of This Earth on CD can be an amazing audio experience, so turn it up!"

    In the 80s, Satriani had relocated from New York's Long Island to Berkeley, California.  In the early 90s, it was Berkeley's dB Audio, which turned me on to Cardas Audio.  Furthermore, in the mid-90s, I would meet an audiophile who lived in the East Bay hills.  He used Cardas cables, and recommended them for my B&K Pro10 MC preamp.  But anyway, if you go to Berkeley, and keep going up the hill, you'll enter Tilden Park.  Here is a view of the Bay, taken from Tilden.

    When I went to dB Audio, I brought Satriani CDs.  But I think I brought Flying In A Blue Dream and The Extremist, not Not Of This Earth.  That golden afternoon sun shining through dB Audio's window reminded me of The Extremist's album cover...and Cardas Audio.  Indeed, those trees in the Berkeley hills make me think of Cardas.  Funny that Cardas color the paperwork included with the Cross speaker cable in woody or parchment-like shades.

    Taking photos of the Cardas Cross internal bi-wire speaker cable is tricky.  In the photo above, I turned off the flash.  That doesn't look right, at all. 

    And here is the Cross bi-wire, with flash.  Yikes, that is more turquoise than it should be!  Anyway, when Satriani released Not Of This Earth in 1986, maybe George Cardas was still in California, launching Cardas Audio.