It takes a lot of courage to start a very high quality audio products shop in the middle of Finland. Mr Tommi Ratilainen has accepted that challenge and managed very well so far. I’ve noticed that Mr Ratilainen has found his own way to handle audio enthusiasm. So I was almost forced to go to Kangasniemi and see the guy and his office/listening room. The visit was warm and gave more than I expected. Even though we had slightly different opinions on some issues (actually that is more or less richness as well) there was plenty of mutual understanding as well, especially when we got discussed things on a more in-depth level.

Before my take off I got some guidance for the arrival:
”When you see the St.1 service station in Kangasniemi you must turn right. There is a block of flats behind it. You can see that Audioshop is one company in there. The others are the Police and Recovery Proceedings Authority. So, all is taken into account!” From that one can see that Mr Ratilainen has a very good sense of humour!

After some refreshments we began to talk about our lovely audio hobby. Tommi told me that his audio enthusiasm began when he was 15 years old. He had to choose if he’d take a motor cycle or stereos. He chose the latter one, what a clever young man he was! In the end of 90’s he already had a very expensive system but he was not totally satisfied with it. The sound of that system did not meet his preferences and expectations. So he began to check out some audio products which so far were not officially imported to Finland. After some mistakes he read some recommendations made by Srjan Ebaen about the Zu products and decided to try them. That was a crucial upturn! When he listened to the Zu Druid speakers he knew exactly what he had been missing.

Tommi’s other hobby is dancing. I asked if he had found any benefits from that related to his audio hobby, but he mainly knocked my suspects out. Naturally when having other music activities, one more likely has something special to tell about the audio enthusiasm as well, but I can’t see any special relationship on that, Tommi said and added, that probably the other enthusiasts have noticed other points of convergence as well?!

When I turned our discussion to the Hifi/High-End enthusiasm Tommi became a bit more serious. He told me that actually Audioshop doesn’t use those terms at all. Only high quality audio which feeds feelings is needed. He thinks that audio enthusiasm is too narrowly defined in Finland. Many enthusiasts buy music almost totally for equipment comparisons, Tommi explained. Shouldn’t it be vice versa?! Additionally he thinks any beginners will be too guided when they are choosing their first system. Because of that they may at least temporally loose their own opinions and preferences, Tommi added. What may be the reasons for the situation, I asked. Tommi thought about it for a while and said: “That is a good question. It is possible that the enthusiasm feeds itself and will get into a rut. Time and the pure technical aspects may effect the results as well”.

Then it was time to discuss preferences. Tommi said that the most important thing for him is to hear the music “breathe” which means that the sound must be open, airy and fast. I can even tolerate the other weaknesses if those features are fulfilled, he explained, and added that the audio system is correctly built if the listener relaxes and enjoys listening to his favourite records. It seems that there are a lot of enthusiasts who’ll almost totally focus on certain features of the sound but forget the long term listening and the entirety, Tommi explained and added that at the same time that he can’t blame them for that but that certainly isn’t the way he’d like to go.

We agreed that there is a lot of many kinds of music production available. All the records or CDs will not sound as good as the best ones and some recordings are subjectively even intolerable. Tommi thinks that most of the mixing and mastering results are consciously chosen, most of the “bad-sounding” ones as well. I accept that the results are in several cases purposefully done, but still I criticise the widespread use of compression and limitation which unfortunately seems to have become a global main stream in the rock production today.

There has been a lot of discussion about the musicality of the systems in Finland. In this issue Tommi again has a very clear attitude. I think musicality as a term can be connected only to people, not to the equipment, and that all people are more or less musical, he said. The term ‘musicality’ is tightly connected to the music production and not to the listening. If the system causes colorations and changes the original information it may be musical but that is not what I’m looking for, he defines and admits to having quite a unique point of view. May be this term is generally used in a wrong connection.

Although Tommi has a very special point of view in some issues he understands the other opinions as well. Let all the flowers grow, he said, and mentioned that his most important hopes and visions are focussed on the continuity of the company. Besides that he hopes to continuously find new experiences in the wonderland of the music!