Not An Audiophile – The Podcast featuring Air Tight with “Jack” Miura. A feature interview from the Stereonet HiFi & AV Show 2025. Jack discusses the past, present and future projects for Airtight and how “orchestration” is the secret to success.
Podcast transcripts below – Episode 042
TRANSCRIPT
S2 EP042 – Air Tight: Tube Amplifiers by design. The Legacy, Engineering & Sound Ethos.
Andrew Hutchison: So
Andrew Hutchison: So more the actual circuit design, circuit.
Yutaka Miura: Design and also all our airtight amplifier, try to utilize the micro resonance generated by the vacuum tubes.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: And I think many other manufacturers are trying to kill those micro vibration.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: But we are trying to utilize.
Andrew Hutchison: To work with them.
Yutaka Miura: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: And welcome back to not an Audiophile File. This is episode 42, season 2. Hey. Ah, today we have a very. I always say this but it is an interesting interview with Yutaka “Jack” Miura from Airtight in Japan. The the owner or founder’s son. And he’s taken over the company and is running it in a very particular way. Which brings me to a thought if you like. It’s not a hi Fi rant as sometimes we have. it’s more of a just it’s, it’s perhaps something that people who buy equipment and listen to equipment don’t think about very much, which is who makes this and why and how. Now to some people it really doesn’t matter. It sounds great, I’m enjoying it, I hope it lasts forever, blah, blah, blah. But there’s different kinds of companies and it’s pretty obvious. I mean there’s enormous corporations, you know, who go around buying up large hi fi companies and I guess that’s a, that’s a very particular way to make something. I think we know how that works and why. But then there’s other companies, there’s smaller businesses and there’s really, there’s micro businesses I guess. But then there’s different kinds of those smaller manufacturers and there’s ones with enormous history, ones with research and development that goes back decades, maybe back, goes back 50 years, who knows. And and they’d go about things in a very particular way and, and their motivation is enjoyment of music and making a living more than making a fortune. So without any further ado, let’s have a listen to “Jack”
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I would like to, I guess request or ask everyone who enjoys this podcast, to to not just like and subscribe as everyone says these days. And there are reasons for that. It’s because simply that’s how the Internet works. And if we don’t ask you and you don’t do it, basically our podcast disappears into oblivion and that’s why everyone asks you to do it. And the other thing that’s even better than that is that you tell a friend who loves hi Fi equipment or listening to people talking about hi Fi equipment about the podcast, that’s even better. And that’s what we’d really love you to do. Of course you can comment at YouTube. You can watch videos at YouTube. In fact, there’s a YouTube of the Melbourne show, this year 2025, which includes some. “Jack” is in the. Is in the video and the room that he has some amplifiers in. And there’s also episode 37 of the podcast, where myself and David Corazza wrap up the show that would that was, you know, an incredibly great show this year. So
Airtight history – Luxman
enjoy. Like I say, “Jack” explaining how he runs the wonderful airtight tube amplifier manufacturing business in Japan today. Not an audiophile. At the Melbourne hi Fi show, we are with to some degree a legend of tube amplifiers from Japan, Yutaka “Jack” Miura. it is an absolute pleasure to have you on the show, “Jack”
Yutaka Miura: It’s my pleasure. Oh, thank you for having me.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh, don’t worry. I think we’re going to find out some interesting things about what you do. Airtight as a brand I think is extremely well known worldwide. I feel like I’ve I’ve kind of grown up with it knowing it’s around, but a. You don’t look old enough.
Yutaka Miura: Yes. Actually it was founded by my father.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: Back in 1986.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Okay.
Yutaka Miura: and you know, and I joined Airtight only eight years ago.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh, is that right? Okay. So.
Yutaka Miura: And it’s. There’s a little bit of family history.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah, sure.
Yutaka Miura: my grandfather.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: Kinji Yoshikawa is a co founder of Luxman
Andrew Hutchison: Okay, that’s some interesting history. Okay.
Yutaka Miura: And my father was the first college graduate.
Andrew Hutchison: Ah.
Yutaka Miura: Enter into Luxman.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Okay. And your father?
Yutaka Miura: My father, yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: And married M. With a founder’s daughter. That’s my mother. And here I am.
Andrew Hutchison: Wow. Okay. That’s amazing. So Luxman, 1925. When did Luxman start? It was a really long.
Yutaka Miura: I think they are celebrating 100 years, I’m gonna say.
Andrew Hutchison: I’m sure the old, the old logos. I sold Luxman years ago, in the, you know, the old luxman days, the 80s and the 90s and that was.
Yutaka Miura: It was called Kinsuido when, When my grandfather started the company.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. Yes.
Yutaka Miura: And basically it was a. They had a family business of making picture frames.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: And he, My grandfather and his eldest brother.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: Started this company importing radio or components and start making ah, textbook for making ladies and stuff.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Okay.
Yutaka Miura: And that’s And later they start making a. Components by themselves. And that’s how Luxmans or the Lux Corporation started.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. So Lux Corporation. And so in. Really. So your grandfather was involved, you know, prior to 1925 in fact. Yes. Doing the components.
Yutaka Miura: Right.
Andrew Hutchison: Wow. Okay. Well that’s. I mean we could. I mean Luxman is. Of course, everyone loves Luxman, for all sorts of reasons. I mean as much for its beautiful ah, aesthetic and appearance and the way it’s made as. As the beautiful sound. your brand is not dissimilar. It’s I mean it’s clearly very, very well made.
Airtight
And I suppose I’m going to jump to the obvious question. Question straight away.
Yutaka Miura: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: Do you still make it in Japan?
Yutaka Miura: Yes sir.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes sir. Yes.
Yutaka Miura: Every comp, Every product.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: We have as airtight. Is all made at a factory in Takatsuki, Osaka.
Andrew Hutchison: Wow. Okay.
Yutaka Miura: And you are welcome to come to factory anytime and see all, Everything.
Andrew Hutchison: See it all being made. Do you, do you make a lot of the amplifiers there in the sense of the casework or transformers?
Yutaka Miura: Of course. We’re buying a chassis from a subcontractor we’ve been dealing for past 38 years.
Andrew Hutchison: Is that right?
Yutaka Miura: Yes. Buying output transform from Tamuru and Hashimoto and you know, so. Well, we buy main components but all assemblies including let’s say making power amplifier, circuitry board.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: We are getting the couple boards with a drill hole drilled from a supplier.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: And we do put the pins in and do all the assembly.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. So you make the circuit board. You don’t make the fiberglass board, but you assemble the circuit board in house. Yes. In other words, you, you make really as much as you can. I mean you would, you would never. It’s a very specialized job making transformers as an example. You would best leave that to the experts.
Yutaka Miura: That’s our idea.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: of course, you know, we can definitely try.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: but it’s not economic.
Andrew Hutchison: No, it doesn’t make sense.
Yutaka Miura: It doesn’t make sense hiring a new people for transformer design and transformer manufacturing. And you know, it’s. And we have a reliable supplier that we can trust.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: And so we will leave it.
Andrew Hutchison: To them to make that so airtight has been going. Did you say 1986?
Yutaka Miura: So we are at 39th year.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: And we’ll be celebrating our 40th year next year.
Andrew Hutchison: Next year, yeah. Which is a. It’s a pretty good birthday. That’s a, that’s a, that’s a long time.
Yutaka Miura: Yes, sir.
Andrew Hutchison: And I mean the app. We’re at the show. I think I mentioned that at the start. The room that you have here, you’re sharing with a great Australian product in the form of Mark Dohmann’s turntable, which tends to sound very good. And you’ve got the and I just call them the slate speakers that Geoff, Haynes sells which you know, can sound surprisingly fantastic. But the sound. When I walked into your room yesterday, the first time you were very happily putting on a record. And I’m going to forget the name of it, but it’s in our video that’s up on YouTube as we speak and it’s got the music and it just, it’s, it sounded so alive.
Yutaka Miura: Oh.
Andrew Hutchison: So dynamic and just exciting. I, I was, I was genuinely impressed. how would you describe the balance or the kind of sound that an airtight amplifier produces, maybe compared with other tube amplifiers? Because it seems to have a very lively sound. I mean it’s still beautifully clean and sweet. But is
00:10:00
Andrew Hutchison: that something. Is there a philosophy at airtight about how the amplifiers should sound?
Yutaka Miura: Well, first of all, our product have to be made for make your listening experience fun.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes. Okay. So it’s about fun. Good start.
Yutaka Miura: And ah, I cannot really compare my product with others. But of course when we design a product, of course we have a concept for each product.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: And then from the concept we decide what type of tubes to use and what the power rating need to be and so on and so on and but and we follow this, the original principle. A ah, product concept design. And of course you know we don’t. We trust our ear but we, we also trust measurements. So we do a lot of measurement making sure that our product meets the industry’s standard and only after that our work as amp builder starts.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: That’s when you have to test a lot of components, different components, lots of mechanical constructions and so on.
Andrew Hutchison: As far as, as part of the general quality control processes, as a, as.
Yutaka Miura: A part of designing the sound.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: You know, sonic performance have to be great.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh, so you’re meaning you try if you need a particular, say a 12ax7 or something. You will try a lot of 12ax7s and see which one you want to use. Is that part of it or is it a bit more subtle than that?
Yutaka Miura: That’s. That’s more easier things that one.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, it’s easy to hear because you.
Yutaka Miura: Know changing the parameter for negative feedback or the
Andrew Hutchison: So more the actual circuit design.
Yutaka Miura: Circuit design. And also all our airtight amplifier try to utilize the micro resonance generated by the vacuum tubes.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: Yeah, well and I think many other other manufacturers are trying to kill those micro vibration.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: But we are trying to utilize.
Andrew Hutchison: To work with them, so to speak. Yes.
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Yutaka Miura: By Good engineering and good ah engineering. And if you can deal with really utilize this micro vibration in a good way that will give you big open up the sound stage.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: Give you dynamics and sound seems to.
Andrew Hutchison: Work because that’s how it sounds.
Yutaka Miura: Yes. So all our amplifier utilize monocoque chassis meanings one piece of metal a fully welded well with it as one box.
Andrew Hutchison: And is that from aluminum or from.
Yutaka Miura: From. Only from carbon steel. 1.6 millimeter thickness.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Pretty heavy. Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: It could be. Well it cannot be 2 millimeters or it cannot be 1.2 millimeters or cannot be aluminum because they all change this.
Andrew Hutchison: Micro resonance I was going to say. So the thickness of the material, the, the carbon steel steel that you fold up to create your monocoque. yeah. So you’ve tried different thicknesses and, and 1.6 is the, is the magic number.
Yutaka Miura: Magic number for us.
Andrew Hutchison: Wow. Okay.
Yutaka Miura: And also if you have any bracing.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: In this. The box of the chassis. That will also change the.
Andrew Hutchison: Will change the resonant nature of the chassis obviously which is you know, obviously assisting with your.
Yutaka Miura: That’s correct.
Andrew Hutchison: The way the tubes are functioning.
Yutaka Miura: I think this is very interesting things and I think in the beginning when my father and Mr. Ishiguro co founder designed the first ATM1amplifier.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: They didn’t realize it but we, it was like 10 years ago when we really realize what’s happening and how, why Our amplifier sounds
00:15:00
Yutaka Miura: different.
Andrew Hutchison: So. Yeah, so they, they, your father and his partner got it, got it right to some degree by accident all those years.
Yutaka Miura: So we were a lucky one.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, I mean it’s one of those things where you, you build a piece of audio equipment and it sounds you build. When you’re developing something, you try different ideas and then you try something and it just sings. It just, you go, well, that’s special. But sometimes you don’t know why. And these are things that. So you, in later years when you became involved, did you start doing a certain amount of research and development to try to understand what your secret sauce was, so to speak. And that was part of it, obviously. Would you care to tell us what some of the other secret sauces are? I mean, there must be other aspects of your design that you feel are very, very important as far as creating the sonic signature that your amps produce.
Yutaka Miura: Well, be honest with you. There’s no secret.
Andrew Hutchison: There’s no secret.
Yutaka Miura: Many people ask me what is your secret for making airtight sounds like an airtight.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: I said nothing. We do not use any special components. No, of course some of the big, big volume pot is custom made by Alps for airtight. But we do not use any special capacitor. It’s so available for m market. And it’s orchestration. How do you orchestrate and coordinate and balance out? And not the most expensive component sounds the best.
Andrew Hutchison: No, it’s the overall design and the combination of benefits of just really good design and obviously very good quality components. But not, but not. I hesitate to use the expression, but I will anyhow, you know, hi fi. Jewelry type, brands which you say you just don’t have. So you would still use, you’d use a very good quality capacitor.
Yutaka Miura: Some capacitors are from Mundorf Some capacitors are from audience which considers, you know, audio quality very expensive. And some digits are very expensive.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. but you use them just where you need them though. just in the very critical.
Yutaka Miura: Yes, yes, ah, spot where was spending the money.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: And again, you know, you know, when we built the prototype, we do a measurement and we do, we tweak until all the measurements are good.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: Then our work starts.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. And.
Yutaka Miura: We change component here, there. We change design here, there. And then we came up with design a finished product.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: Well, I hope you can feel that from by listening to our product comparing to other tube amplifiers and we had, you know, for atm1 product ah, we have at the show this time, it took us about four years to complete.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh really? Wow. Okay.
Yutaka Miura: We made a prototype, we made several changes and.
Andrew Hutchison: And the ATM one, it’s not outrageously expensive though.
Yutaka Miura: Is, is our ATM one is our entry model, Consider an entry model and.
Andrew Hutchison: I honestly can’t remember that. We’ll edit this and just add the Australian price in.
Yutaka Miura: Okay.
Andrew Hutchison: Because I don’t think it’s very much money, is it?
Yutaka Miura: I believe so compared to, you know, modern audio.
Andrew Hutchison: What does it sell? Do you know the US dollar price?
Yutaka Miura: US dollar price should be about 13,000.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. So it’s about 20,000 in Australia. Yeah. So it’s not outrageously expensive for a.
Yutaka Miura: Of course it’s very expensive. We understand. Well, it’s not, it’s.
Andrew Hutchison: There was a time when a $20,000amplifier was an expensive like it was like wow. And now that you can add a zero to that and even there’s no wows at 200 000. There’s wows like it better sound amazing. Which sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
Yutaka Miura: But you can trust me, I’m not putting that money in my pocket. So I am m not in Honda fit to office.
Andrew Hutchison: Sorry, what do you draw? Honda. What?
Yutaka Miura: I’m not driving, you know, Amage or Mercedes Benz,
00:20:00
Yutaka Miura: Ferrari or anything. So you know our, be honest with you, our cost.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes. Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: And MSRP ratio, they are very similar, very economical.
Andrew Hutchison: And that’s what I was getting at. They’re quite good value for money because just to sum up the way they’re made, I mean there’s a fair bit of point to point wiring, I think. Have you got how much you’ve got circuit boards in them. But there’s a certain amount of point to point wiring as well Is there?
Yutaka Miura: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: So it’s very labour intensive.
Yutaka Miura: Right? Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: So you have, I mean who do you have? Do you have a team of people? I mean I have no idea of how many amplifiers a year you make. Make. I’m guessing it’s a quite a large amount for a small company.
Yutaka Miura: Well, we have a six people.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: On our production floor. and in average we are making about 350 to 400amps per year.
Andrew Hutchison: So it’s pretty, it’s a pretty exclusive product then as well then at that price. I mean that’s not a lot of amplifiers. Yeah. And so six people. And what sort of people do you have that do that? Such delicate work, assembling the things, soldering and bending wires and what have you.
Yutaka Miura: I’m not trying to be lazy for discriminator or anything, but all our, amp builders at near, Women.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: Married with kids.
Andrew Hutchison: With kids. They’re all 50.
Yutaka Miura: No, no, above 40. Yeah, okay.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: I mean and we had the men.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: We had the young men. We had the young ladies.
Andrew Hutchison: So you’ve tried a few of the single women. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: That mothers.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: They are, first of all, excellent in keeping your factory extremely clean. Neat and clean. That’s a good start.
Andrew Hutchison: See and it’s not because they do the cleaning. It’s because they don’t throw rubbish everywhere.
Yutaka Miura: Yes, yes.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: The accidents.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: In focusing on something.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: And they are excellent in.
Andrew Hutchison: Working hard.
Yutaka Miura: Working hard. Yes. Because in some women working for us need to leave at 3 to pick up.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yes.
Yutaka Miura: So, working hours limited.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: So she really focus on the server.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes, yes. And so do they come in at like 9:30 or something?
Yutaka Miura: They come in at 9.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: And some finish like 2:30 or leave at 3, some leave at 4.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: But our factory.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: Completely close at 5.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: No matter what.
Andrew Hutchison: No matter what. I can.
Yutaka Miura: No matter how much back order we have.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: Everything start from nine and close at five.
Andrew Hutchison: I like that. And that, that’s. It’s civilized for a start. And secondly, it allows you to really. You keep the quality up. Right?
Yutaka Miura: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: There’s no. You start, you’re organized, you concentrate and you go home at a sensible time.
Yutaka Miura: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: And that must mean that your, your reliability I would imagine would be extremely high because there is no time when people are not paying attention to what they’re doing.
Yutaka Miura: Yes. Out of six people at the factory, three are with us for over 17 years.
Andrew Hutchison: Wow. Okay.
Yutaka Miura: One lady just retired.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: She was with us for 37 years.
Andrew Hutchison: 37. So she was there at the start.
Yutaka Miura: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: Wow.
Yutaka Miura: And so that’s. I think we are trying to, you know, pay them well, make sure that, you know, they can stay with us and more we do, of course. More they try to get back to us and you know, we have, I think a very good relationship with them.
Andrew Hutchison: Clearly. Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: And we’ll take a quick, quick family.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh, yeah. Clearly. And 37 years is amazing. In fact, that’s a record. I don’t think I’ve known anyone. It was there at the start of the company. Still going. We’re going to take a quick break. We’ll be back with “Jack” to talk more about airtight.
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Airtight and “Jack” Miura
So, ah, we’re back with, Yutaka
00:25:00
“Jack” Miura, who is the son of the founder of Airtight, Valve amplifier manufacturing in Japan. They’ve, been around for 38 years. but of course, as you mentioned at the start, “Jack” you’re, a great, great. Your grandfather had some involvement at Luxman. Oh, that’s right. He started the company with assistance from his partner, which is an amazing, it’s not. It’s not really a coincidence, I guess it’s just that as a, as a family, you’ve kind of been interested in music and electronics for a very long time, for multiple generations. did you. I mean, you took the company over eight years ago. Did you have an interest? Like, what did you do in your life? In your work life or before that? Were you, like, were you interested, Were you in electronics or music or a bit of both or.
Yutaka Miura: Well, I was. I started playing guitar from junior high school, forming a band in high school and college and, maybe five years after graduating from college, but I was working for a trading company after graduating from college. And, that my job requires an extremely long hour working. Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: You know, going to office before 8.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: And leaving office around 11:30 or midnight. Oh, and this be could continues all weekdays.
Andrew Hutchison: And, so you hear, we hear those stories about that Japanese work culture, that office work culture.
Yutaka Miura: Yes. That’s a long time ago. So that was a culture.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. But does it still happen now? Is it still a thing or is it kind of? I mean, that’s what you did for years. Obviously.
Yutaka Miura: I think it’s changing.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Okay.
Yutaka Miura: But actually I enjoy it, because.
Andrew Hutchison: You like the job, obviously.
Yutaka Miura: Yes. You know, and it was a very, very interesting job for me. Of course it was very difficult and sometimes very tough, but I really enjoy doing my, job as a trader and.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. So, and then I guess about, midnight, you’ve got to go to a club and start drinking as well. I mean, so what time do you get home? About an hour before you or an hour hour after you have to go to work?
Yutaka Miura: Yes. So, one time for like five or six years, I was not eating my dinner in the same day, in a sense.
Andrew Hutchison: Is that right? Like you skip a whole day.
Yutaka Miura: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Wow.
Yutaka Miura: But as I say, I really enjoy what I did. but it was about 12 years ago I was assigned for positions in United States.
Yutaka Miura: When I return to Japan for new, Year’s to celebrate New Year holiday.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: I see my father and he’s I believe he was like 82, 83.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: And I think he’s. I see his health.
Andrew Hutchison: He’s getting older.
Yutaka Miura: He’s getting older. And for a while he was asking, you know, if I am, interested in taking. I said no.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: Because I really was, enjoying my previous job. But.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: But one time I thought, you know, this might be a.
Andrew Hutchison: A change at least.
Yutaka Miura: Yeah, change. And that’s something that I have to. I know. You know, he was hiring many people and you know, and also this is something that, you know, my grandfather started.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, that’s right.
Yutaka Miura: My father started. And you know, I could just let it, you know, let my father go and close, this business. But I, you know, I saw this must be, something as a family business or something.
Andrew Hutchison: Well, yeah, I mean, it’s a great tradition and a great business to carry on, but it took you a while to sort of come around to the fact that you, I guess you had been working for so many years in what you’d been doing in your own working life that it’s quite a big shift to get out of what you’ve always done and go into something clearly you perhaps initially didn’t know that much about, even though you’d be kind of indoctrinated.
Yutaka Miura: But it’s interesting, you know, up until before graduating from college, I never buy audio equipment.
Andrew Hutchison: Right.
Yutaka Miura: It’s. You can
00:30:00
Yutaka Miura: always find something in my first amplifier set is, Macintosh C 23 and some power. I forgot the name of the power amp and the turntable and a loud speaker. And those amplifiers and turntables and speakers were all over at our house.
Andrew Hutchison: Is that right?
Yutaka Miura: Yes. And I can just grab what I can buy, take it to my room and set up. And I was enjoying this a lot.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: From very young.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Right. Well, I mean, you were in the right place for it. I mean, plus there’s a. There’s a system in every room.
Yutaka Miura: You know, audio system is not, not, not this, you know, as, not the new things. You know, it was with me all the time.
Andrew Hutchison: But not something that you needed to work with for a living, though.
Yutaka Miura: that’s correct. Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: So. And how have you. Because it’s quite a recent change that you’ve taken the business over. How have you, how have you, how have you enjoyed it? I mean is it, is it you don’t miss your previous job? Well, you certainly don’t miss the working hours, surely.
Yutaka Miura: Well, I guess, yeah, that’s true.
Andrew Hutchison: You close the factory at 5 o’. Clock. Are you going home as well? Yes, you are. Wow. Okay. So this is a different life for you.
Yutaka Miura: Yes, very different.
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Yutaka Miura: You know I, I was devoting almost all my time to music. Listening to music or playing music, you know, talking about new music about with your friends and after entering to junior high school and that was, that was my thing. But because my previous job was so busy, I kind of. And you are almost stressed all the time.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: That did not gave me motivation to listen to music.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: I mean it was too stressful.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: And. But after joining Airtight.
Yutaka Miura: You know, it’s like, you know, you are.
Andrew Hutchison: Rejuvenated.
Yutaka Miura: Yes. I mean, yeah. You I can’t find the good word. You’re meeting with music again.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You rediscover it.
Yutaka Miura: Yeah. This. Yeah. You are rediscovering your music and now you are discovering. Discovering the music, you know.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: Using a very high end equipment which is very, very It’s the way mind blowing and interesting experience.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. There’s another, it adds another. I mean better equipment obviously adds a. I mean music can be listened to in all kinds of equipment. When you get to equipment with the quality that you’re manufacturing, it does take it to another level of excitement. It’s not just better sound. It allows you to hear more of the music and it’s what we’re all here for really. What a story. Wow. And so where do you see the future for Airtight? I mean you’ve got a hell of a product range. You’ve got a lot of preamps, power amps.
Yutaka Miura: We are small company, we do not want to. And some people suggest that we should just make a fragment very expensive fraction amplifier preamp and Maybe three, four models or. Three models only.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: So that we can, you know, be more productive and beneficial.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: But I don’t want to make my company like that. You know, I want to have an entry model.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: You know, and the various model that customer can choose and enjoy a different type of audio equipment from. Airtight.
Andrew Hutchison: One that suits them. Yes. Yeah. You do have many choices.
Yutaka Miura: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: Do you, do you see any real change? I mean you do in the sense that. Do you start looking at, you know, I mean, realistically, I don’t expect that you will develop a DAC or a streamer or something because that gets. It’s not really something that works. I mean you can use tubes in those products obviously, but in the, in the audio out the analog stages.
Yutaka Miura: But we’re not trying to do anything. But I am hoping to come up with a good headphone amplifier.
00:35:00
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: and there are many challenges we have to do and you know, you have to first of all buy so.
Andrew Hutchison: A lot of headphones.
Yutaka Miura: Many, many what’s called high end headphones. Which is not cheap.
Andrew Hutchison: No, no, no.
Yutaka Miura: I mean you need to get like more than 10 different types of headphones to have a library of them.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Well, well that’s, I mean that’s a bit of fun though, isn’t it?
Yutaka Miura: Yeah, that would be fun. And we are. This is an official product. We made some junction box that you can connect with our 300V amplifier and play with, Abyss One type of Abyss headphone.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Okay.
Yutaka Miura: And we made this box by request from high end audio shop in Amsterdam.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: But we’re hoping to do similar kind of things with, for other headphones and hopefully one day we’ll have the dedicated headphone amplifier so there’ll.
Andrew Hutchison: Be specific amps for specific popular good headphones.
Yutaka Miura: Yeah.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, that’s the future. Well, look, I, that’s a near future. That’s the near future.
Yutaka Miura: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah. Okay, well what’s the far future? One doesn’t know. I mean clearly.
Yutaka Miura: Well, we, we have. I have no intention.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: To try to make my company size double or anything. You know, we want to stay as we are and but we want to stay in this business for another 40 years. So the customer who buys our equipment will not regret 10 years, 20 years from now, we can still service our amplifier we made back 40 years ago.
Andrew Hutchison: I was going to ask you. Yeah. Because it’s a kind of an oldy worldy idea, but it’s one that I like is that where you, you buy a product in your 20s or 30s and then as you’re nearing retirement you can still have it serviced and fixed and fixed up and refurbished. And lots of manufacturers, smaller, companies like yours used to offer that service. And less and less now do it and less and less feel that it’s important. So it’s great for me to hear that that’s a goal that you would like to maintain.
Yutaka Miura: That’s benefit of, you know, tube amplifier customers using tube amplifier and especially amplifier without printed circuit board.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes, yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: You know, if it’s printed circuit board when it’s crack.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes. Then you gets hot, heated, corroded, what have you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: But in our case it’s all couple.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: Type of printers, circuit board. So you can always repair. And even we disappear someone else who have a knowledge about children.
Andrew Hutchison: That’s right, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: They can repair.
Andrew Hutchison: Absolutely.
Yutaka Miura: Yes. But you know, us staying in this business, should benefit customer. Yeah, I have a customer calling me, about a month ago. He said I want you to do overhaul on this atm2amplifier. okay. Because I wanted to pass on to my son.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay. Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: Which is wonderful.
Andrew Hutchison: It is, it is. And in fact I, I feel that there’s more, more of that happening as time goes on with, with great equipment from. Probably a lot of it is from Japan because of course the you know, the 60s, 70s, the 80s was, you know, for brands such as Luxman was a great time. There was a lot of good amount. Luxembourg being perhaps key. But of course even you know, pioneers and what have you as well. They’re very repairable and you know, you can maintain them, but it’s not something you can do with a modern amplifier. With the exception being amplifiers such as yours where you can definitely keep them going. What do you see is the future of tube manufacturing? Because it must be. Is it difficult to source tubes that are consistent and good quality?
Yutaka Miura: At the moment I have a one magazine DDC in Japan talks about the tube amplifier manufacturers in the world. And There are about 57 manufacturers named listed.
Andrew Hutchison: Okay.
Yutaka Miura: What’s surviving is about 15.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah.
Yutaka Miura: 60.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: So this is And I think this will continue.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: But I also see many like a Chinese manufacturers or the Eastern Europe manufacturer, start making tube amplifier, Brands.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: And meanings. They
00:40:00
Yutaka Miura: are demandful.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. I think the demand. I’m interested in your opinion, but I feel like tube amplifiers, are not going away at all in the same way as records and Turntables are not clearly not going away. In fact it feels like both are probably a growth industry. Has your business grown in the eight years that you’ve. I mean because you say you don’t want to double it, right?
Yutaka Miura: Well actually because we audition doubled.
Andrew Hutchison: That’s right. So you’ve doubled in the last eight years.
Yutaka Miura: Yes.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah.
Yutaka Miura: And so And we do not want to stretch too much so that make ourselves very vulnerable from the ups and down of industries we want to keep us. I want to keep my company financially strong of course so that I can keep those, you know, skilled amp builder in our house for a long time.
Andrew Hutchison: Absolutely.
Yutaka Miura: Yes. And ah. Moreover, you know, I want. I need to make sure that the customer who buy both airtight product will not be regretted.
Andrew Hutchison: It’s hardly likely they’ll regret it. I mean the way the trouble that you’re going to to make them and make them reliable, reliable and reliably and then the backup service where you can source parts and and repair them in house or what have you is is a service that is going to become a repair a rare thing I.
Yutaka Miura: Believe unfortunately more and more this our, our type of classical way of manufacturing tube amplifier is getting less.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: So we’ll. But we will keep this forever actually.
Andrew Hutchison: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No and that would be fantastic.
Yutaka Miura: And we’ll do our best to keep going.
Andrew Hutchison: Yep.
Yutaka Miura: Ah for another 40 years and hopefully customer who bought our product now.
Andrew Hutchison: Yes.
Yutaka Miura: Pass it on to their sons and maybe to a granddaughter. Grandson.
Andrew Hutchison: Oh and possibly a granddaughter. Hey, thank you so much. Thank you so much, so much. It is greatly appreciated. It’s all very interesting. I think the audience is going to love the story so thanks again, “Jack” from Airtight
Yutaka Miura: Thank you so much.
00:42:13