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MillerCarbon: A Passionate Audiophile Making Waves in the High-End Audio World

Featured in Stereophile

Within the tight-knit community of audiophiles, Miller Carbon is a name that resonates with admiration and respect. He’s a true aficionado, well-known for his active engagement on the Audiogon Forum, where he generously shares his audio discoveries and insights with fellow enthusiasts. Miller’s passion for high-quality audio is palpable, and he derives immense joy from showcasing his meticulously crafted system to others who share his passion.

Recently, Miller Carbon had the opportunity to exhibit his remarkable audio setup at the prestigious Pacific Audio Fest, held in room 7115. The centerpiece of his system was the Townshend F1 Speaker Cable, complemented by the innovative Seismic Isolation and the Allegri Pre. For those fortunate enough to experience his system firsthand, it was nothing short of a revelation. It marked one of the most impressive debuts in the high-fidelity arena in recent memory.

Even the experts from Stereophile were in attendance to witness Miller’s demonstration, and their subsequent write-up serves as a glowing testament to his unwavering dedication to the pursuit of audio perfection. It’s a striking example of how an enthusiast’s visceral judgment, driven by passion rather than profit, can lead to audio experiences that transcend the ordinary.

As someone who’s deeply immersed in the world of high-end audio, I can honestly say that I’ve never come across a more finely crafted write-up and accolade than the one inspired by Miller Carbon’s remarkable audio journey. It’s a testament to the power of pure passion in the pursuit of audio excellence.

Stereophile write up here

When I asked MC for his thoughts on his fairly recent discovery of Max’s gifts to the audio world Miller reflected:

“Max Townshend was a big thinker.

Max didn’t just want to make a world-class component or two, he wanted to make all the components in a world-class stereo system. A lofty enough goal, for sure. But Max didn’t stop there: he envisioned building a whole new audiophile community. One where audiophiles can learn, and learn from each other, and more- maybe even help advance the art of audio.

So it was that nearly two years ago now John Hannant reached out to me. I was at the time writing audio, and doing my best to elevate the on-line conversation. Max had been reading, and believe me when I say never in my life would I have imagined where that would lead.

This is the launch of Max’s dream: a new website, one that we hope will grow to be more, much more, than just another company website. The Townshend Audio Files Blog will inform, educate- and hopefully entertain! The current state of audio forums can be daunting, with many really valuable voices self-silenced for fear of the ever-present put-downs and one-upmanship. The Audio Files Forums will encourage and cultivate inquiry, and creative solutions, hopefully now and then generating ideas that advance the state of the art. But even more so with the practical goal of helping you figure out how to best improve your own system.

We have more coming than just a new website, too. Max had a number of outstanding new products in development. His team of select engineers, mentored and cultivated over the years, are more than capable of carrying on, and bringing these new designs to market. As loyal Townshend Audio customers and followers you will be the first to learn about them, simply follow The TownshendAudio Files.

So, what’s going on, anyways?

I’ve always been trying to understand the world. All the sights, and sounds. As a little kid there’d be a siren and my dad would say there goes the police. “No, dad. Ambulance.” Sirens back then were pretty much all the same, but I could hear the difference. It was a game, I guess you could say.

By junior high I was experimenting with acoustic panels, and by high school building a Dynaco ST400. After college, built Roger Sanders transmission line/ESL speakers following his design in Speaker Builder. This was 1980.

My dream of a dedicated listening room came true in 91. Up until this point I had been raised on Julian Hirsch, and when I went looking for better it was a shock to learn there is more to audio than thick gauge wire and ruler flat response. Much, much more. Let me tell you, I dove right in.

One after another, all kinds of crazy things that seemed impossible were tried, and many of them turned out to be true. Even when sometimes things seemed to be not quite right, yet still it seemed to always teach me something. Power cords (speaker cables, interconnects, etc) did make a difference- even if the theories as to exactly why didn’t always pan out. I learned to separate the wheat from the chaff, take what works and run with it, and not to worry overly much as to why. Nice to know why, of course. Just not necessary.

This openness to being willing to try has served me well. Learned a lot just by trying. Once I learned about vibration control I must have tried a hundred different things. One thing it never even occurred to me to try back then was springs. I mean, why? If there is a nuttier idea, I’d like to hear it!

Then one day Rick Calder asked if I would consider springs. The way he explained it actually seemed to make sense, especially after watching this video he sent me. https://youtu.be/BOPXJDdwtk4?t=6

Talk about compelling! In the course of 3 minutes my thinking completely changed. This is the power of science, engineering, and reasoning. Up until now I had been entirely BDR mass/stiffness/damping oriented. In no time flat all my BDR was gone, replaced with springs. Just plain old springs. Knocked together a crude platform, and I’d not at that point ever seen or heard of Podiums but that is basically what I’d built. A really ugly, cheesy, cheap MDF Podium. But it got the job done. Such is the power of spring isolation.

Then one day John Hannant suggests Townshend Pods are even better. This was actually a tougher sell, as I had to try and understand how Townshend springs could be so much better than the ordinary plain springs I was using. But my turntable had a resonance the plain springs weren’t able to control, which John assured me Pods would- and he was right! Gradually, one at a time, my components were moved to Pods. Each and every time the improvement was obvious, and better in every way. Finally, the big one, Podiums. The absence of tonal coloration their tuned damping provides reveals instrumental textures with a degree of truth and honesty I’ve heard nowhere else.

One thing led to another, and so over the course of the last nearly two years now my system has been transitioned to nearly all Townshend Audio.

Along the way I couldn’t help but wonder, how is it Townshend is making all this great stuff and yet somehow flying under the radar? And where is their US rep? Kind of hard getting questions answered what with the time zones and all. I brought this up one day saying, “Sounds like you need a new rep.”

“How about you?” Seriously. That’s what’s going on. After years writing on-line I’m now… writing on-line.

What can I say? They like my style. Hope you do too.

Chuck will be a guest writer on The Townshend Audio files and you can find more from chuck on his NEW site: