Joseph Tarradellas is a lover of sound, a music enthusiast, of “high fidelity”. On this subject, he is the author of a book entitled “The Swiss sound: world excellence”.
Joseph Tarradellas, honorary professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), formerly professor of environmental chemistry and ecotoxicology, is also passionate regarding music, a theme around which he wrote a book entitled “Le son suisse : a worldwide excellence”. “The Swiss sound is known all over the world, but it is less known in Switzerland”, explains Joseph Tarradellas to RTS.
For the author, a good sound is first of all a natural sound, a sound that is not tampered with, in which there is not too much bass, not too much treble. “A sound in which the dynamics are correct. It’s a simple, natural sound.”
A beautiful sound is a sound that carries everything.
Joseph Tarradellas has been passionate regarding sound since childhood. Already at the age of 16, for the love of music, he built his first hi-fi system. “I don’t know if now I might call it ‘high fidelity’, but at the time I thought it was,” he laughs. “It was a time when musical journals gave out diagrams, a bit like IKEA now.”
The Swiss tradition of sound
To hear sound, we had to wait for the invention of the phonograph, the first approved device for recording sound, by the American Thomas Edison in 1877. “The idea of recording sound crossed the minds of many people The difference with Edison is that he was a raptor, a businessman. He realized it. He had it built by his mechanic who was from Appenzeller, “explains Joseph Tarradellas. This is the beginning of a long Swiss tradition of sound. The Jura company Paillard, which manufactured music boxes, launched into recording. “It makes perfect sense. From a technical point of view, there’s not a big difference,” he says.
At the end of the 19th century, Sainte-Croix (VD) became a center for the production of sound recordings. About fifteen workshops of visionaries launch themselves into the race with an unequaled quality thanks to years of experience in music boxes. Another Swiss invention, in the 1980s, the Swiss Walter Schüpbach invented the Stereolith, a small pyramid-shaped speaker “perfectly suited for listening at home”, specifies Joseph Tarradellas.
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Today, a lot of companies in Switzerland continue to nurture this heritage for good sound. “I’ve counted thirty-eight so far, but there may be some that have gone under the radar. Stenheim is one of the important companies in what is called ultimate high fidelity”, adds Joseph Tarradellas. But good sound has a price: entry-level at Stenheim, you still have to count thirty thousand francs.
The subtle messages of sound
The Swiss Sound: World Excellence – Joseph Tarradellas. [Editions Savoir Suisse – epflpress.org]Listening to quality sound also and above all allows you to perceive certain subtleties that are sometimes misunderstood by those who do not know what high quality sound is. Joseph Tarradellas evokes on this subject Stromae’s latest album, “Multitude”: “In the extraordinary song called ‘L’enfer’, the sound recording is very subtle. It’s magnificent because it [Stromae] wants to suggest very delicate things, the tendency to suicide, and, at one point, in the second verse, there are a few bars where he shifts his voice slightly. The idea is to give the impression of the risk of schizophrenia. But it’s very subtle. If you don’t listen to it on a good quality device, you don’t notice.”
For Joseph Tarradellas, small headphones are fine for listening to music on the bus or train. On the other hand, according to him, we do not only lose sound quality by listening to low quality sound, but sometimes also the messages and all the depth of exceptional artists.
Interview by Sarah Dirren
Web adaptation: Lara Donnet
“Swiss sound: worldwide excellence” by Joseph Tarradellas, published in the “Swiss knowledge” collection of EPFL