Conrad-Johnson Design Factory Tour
by Marc Mickelson

A dozen years ago, I knew Fairfax, VA, home of Conrad-Johnson Design, like the proverbial back of my hand. I went to graduate school in Fairfax and drove all over Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia, knowing instantly where thoroughfares like Gallows Road and Lee Highway would take me. On my latest visit to the area in July, I recognized the road names, but I didn't remember where the roads would lead.

The names of many Conrad-Johnson products occupied this same place in my memory. PV-5, PV-7, Premier One, Evolution 2000 -- the names were recognizable, but the products were now unfamiliar. I've owned a fair amount of Conrad-Johnson gear over the years: a PV-11 preamp in black and not C-J's standard champagne-gold livery; a Premier 10 preamp with its stiff stepped attenuator but gorgeous sonics; a Premier 11A amp, still one of the loveliest pieces of audio equipment ever made. I've always admired the C-J sound: sweet, refined, and never hard on the ears. For many audiophiles, Conrad-Johnson's products have defined tube sound, and I've always easily understood why: They unabashedly display the very best sonic traits of tubes.

Located in an industrialized part of Fairfax, Conrad-Johnson's facility looks unassuming. As I sat in the parking lot and gathered the tools -- paper, pen, camera, flash -- for my visit, a UPS truck pulled up to the front door, dropped off a couple of boxes and picked up a couple as well. Talk about unassuming! Who needs to use a loading dock when the front door serves the purpose?

Bill Conrad and Lew Johnson began the company that bears their names in 1976 with their first product, the PV-1 preamp. Conrad and Johnson were audiophiles without electronics or design backgrounds, but they discovered that they could make audio products that sounded better than those they were hearing at dealers. The PV-1 ushered in a broad range of products over the next 27 years: tube and solid state, digital and analog, even loudspeakers. Lew Johnson admitted to me that his company's ART preamp was perhaps his favorite product, a "source of considerable pride" because of its critical acclaim and seven-year run as one of the elite preamps on the market. The ART was limited to 250 units, and by the time you read this, it very well may be sold out, with no more to be made.

In addition to products with its own name, Conrad-Johnson has manufactured components with the Motif badge, and more recently it has produced under the McCormack brand name as well. McCormack is of special interest these days because the brand is steering Conrad-Johnson toward multichannel sound. The McCormack MAP-1 multichannel preamp has been very successful, and the UDP-1 universal audio/video player will stake out even more of the multichannel landscape once it is available.

C-J's current headquarters started life as a health club, which the company gutted and remodeled prior to moving in ten years ago. The atmosphere is decidedly low-key. The 18 employees dress casually and go about their jobs in personal comfort, which is especially nice during the steamy Washington, DC summers. Conrad-Johnson products are designed and built here, while McCormack products are designed mostly in California by Steve McCormack and built here. Currently, 20 Conrad-Johnson and McCormack products are manufactured at the Fairfax facility.

There are four main manufacturing functions carried on here: designing, building, testing, and packing. Also covered here are "back-house" functions: accounting, sales, marketing, customer service, and inventory control. When you realize how many products Conrad-Johnson currently makes and have an understanding of what goes into making those products, you begin to wonder how a mere 18 people can pull it all off.

The build area is cozy but sizable enough for Conrad-Johnson to keep up with orders. On the day of my visit, large solid-state amps and tubed preamps (of course!) were under construction. Notice the wall of cardboard parts containers.	More parts containers are located on the opposite wall.
After being built, preamps are burned in for 100 hours before they leave the factory.	Senior technician Jeff Fischel is one of four people who test each unit before it leaves Conrad-Johnson.
Here a number of McCormack amplifiers await chassis. At Conrad-Johnson, the chassis goes on right before the unit is packed to minimize the chance of damage as the product moves through the factory.	Akbar Keys does all cosmetic assembly and packing of C-J products.

Products follow a certain flow through C-J's facilities. First, they are built up to the point where they are fully functional but without their visible cosmetic parts in place. C-J does this because it allows for easier testing of the products and doesn't subject chassis parts to potential wear and tear before the products leave the factory. The build area is surprisingly small but well lit; around its periphery are smallish cardboard containers in which parts are kept -- many, many parts. In addition to stocking parts for current products, Conrad-Johnson keeps parts for older products on hand as well -- no small feat given the sheer number of different audio components Conrad-Johnson has made over the course of its history. Lew Johnson admitted that parts for older products are often hard to get these days, and the products themselves can be difficult to fix given that owners have sometimes modified them. But Conrad-Johnson still offers support and service on them.

After each product is built, it is burned in for a static amount of time, and then it is tested. Burn-in happens with the product resting on long shelving units that have AC outlets connected. Testing is done by one of four C-J technicians. After testing, the product is finished off cosmetically, getting its outer casing and faceplate, and then goes to be packed, which is not as straightforward as you may think given that tube sets are often included in the cartons.

I asked Lew Johnson the question that so many tubeophiles have had on their minds: Why hasn't Conrad-Johnson produced a single-ended amp? Lew admitted that some SET amps have a "beguiling charm," but as he sees it, their high output impedance will affect how they drive different speakers. "They sound different with every speaker and won't sound right with any," was Lew's assessment.

The day of my visit, a few of the new Premier 140 amps were being shipped, and fittingly, my tour concluded with listening to one of these in Conrad-Johnson's purpose-built listening room. Here a collection of C-J products currently made and under development were connected between a VPI turntable, older Conrad-Johnson DV-2b CD player, and a pair of Wilson Audio Grand SLAMM Series III speakers. Back when Conrad-Johnson made its SRS (Synthesis Reference System) speaker, the only speaker Lew Johnson and crew heard that they thought was better was the Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy. So it seemed natural for the company to have Grand SLAMMs in its listening room now.

Lew told me that the Premier 140 driving the big Wilson speakers was "the best amp we've ever made," but I was still wary about what I would hear. I've heard Grand SLAMMs more than a few times at shows and have come away underwhelmed, perhaps due to less-than-ideal setup. They always sounded big and dynamic, but I could never shake the impression that I was listening to speakers. In other words, they never suspended disbelief.

I braced myself for further disappointment -- more big sound from these big speakers. But it was a different story this time, as the Grand SLAMMs disappeared sonically and left behind only musicians. This is one of the things the big Wilson Audio speakers do when they're dialed in just right. It's what I heard from the MAXXes when I visited Wilson Audio, and it's what I was hearing from the Grand SLAMMs in Conrad-Johnson's listening room: two large speakers that were impossible to miss with eyes open but impossible to locate with eyes closed. The music also had a sense of scale that Wilson Audio speakers thrive at producing, along with layers of musically significant detail. By far, this was the best-sounding installation of Grand SLAMMs I've ever heard -- and one of the best-sounding audio systems I've heard as well.

But the listening treats weren't finished. Lew Johnson is a collector of antique all-in-one-cabinet audio systems, a few of which were situated in his company's listening room. The largest of these, a Victor Credenza in an attractive mahogany case, needed no electronics because of its single folded-horn speaker. Acoustic playback through this system was surprisingly satisfying. No it didn't equal the majesty of the C-J/Grand SLAMM system, but the immediacy and purity of the music were undeniable.

I may have forgotten how to get to Conrad-Johnson, but I'll remember the sound I heard there -- some old, some very new.

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To find out more about Conrad-Johnson Design, visit www.conradjohnson.com.