A 50s geek's adventurous life with radio

[Key points] Zeng Dejun, born in the 1950s, was born and grew up in an era with relatively few opportunities. It was the radio that brought him a life that was not poor at all.

Li Wen, the founder of Desert Island Radio, has hundreds of vinyl records at home. Compared with the calm and precise digital sound sources, he prefers the warmth and personality of analog sound sources. One time, he saw a large retro floor-standing radio at a friend's house and fell in love with it as soon as he heard it.

He recalled, "The sound is very good, very warm and relaxing. It's like the radio that every family had in the American movies in the 1950s. It feels very much like that era." He asked where the radio came from, and his friend told him that it was a product of a Chinese company. He was very surprised. Historically, China just missed the golden age of radio development - almost all Chinese people have used radios, but few have access to really good radios. "I never thought that someone in China could make such a radio," he said.

This radio is Tesslor R803, produced by Shenzhen Jidian Technology Co., Ltd. Its design style is based on a floor-standing radio produced by Grundig in Germany, but it is taller and larger, and its sound quality and performance are much better than the original. It has been improved according to the needs of the times. The inner compartment on the top can hold a vinyl player or CD player, and it also comes with a pair of external speakers of the same style.

Li Wen later learned that the designer of this radio, who was also the founder of Jidian, was Zeng Dejun. After that, he heard about Zeng through various channels and learned that this post-50s generation played an important role in the Chinese audio field and was known as the "Godfather of Chinese Tube Amplifiers."

Li Wen met Zeng Dejun after the establishment of the "Music Heroes Association" in 2013. They both joined the organization at almost the same time. The "Music Heroes Association" was initiated by dozens of domestic music technology startups, including Tangsuan Radio, Lizhi FM, Deserted Island Radio, music crowdfunding website Le Tong Music, and pure technology companies such as iFlytek. This organization aims to explore the development of the music industry in the digital age. The participants are all young people. Zeng is the only one born in the 1950s, but age has not become an obstacle to their communication.

Earlier this year, when Li Wen decided to use crowdfunding to make a vinyl record player, he first thought of Zeng Dejun. "I know the products he made before. His series of products are very retro: they focus on retro styling and restore the sound of the analog sound source era, which just happens to be in line with my preferences." When he took this idea to communicate with Zeng, the two hit it off.

The Desert Island Record Player raised RMB 1 million in 47 days, which is the highest amount raised by Le Tong Music so far. Zeng Dejun was very proud when talking about it, "More than 300 units have been sent out, and there has not been a single complaint so far."

He did not lead the "Desert Island Record Player" project, but it made him see the power of the Internet - hobbies and groups that he thought were very niche could be effectively organized through the Internet. He thought of his own hobby - radio.

"Hobby" cannot summarize what radio means to Zeng Dejun. It is hard to imagine what Zeng's life would be like without radio. He was born and grew up in an era with relatively few opportunities, but it was radio that brought him a life that was not poor at all.

From a remote county to a university

In the remote Yuanling County in western Hunan, six-year-old Zeng Dejun lay in front of an "exquisite and elegant square box". In the middle of the box, there was a flashing emerald green light, and at the same time, beautiful voices and songs appeared. This was the first time he heard sounds from the outside world, and he was stunned.

It was 1963, when Zeng Dejun was in the first grade of primary school. At that time, every household had to support the army. He first saw a radio when he was doing so at the home of an old Red Army soldier. Unlike other children, Zeng Dejun found himself completely fascinated by this thing. In that era of information blockade, this radio opened a door to an unknown and larger world for him. His curiosity and natural adventurous spirit made him yearn for that world. He needed a radio of his own.

"Technology" was a key word in Chinese society in the mid-to-late 1960s: In 1964, China successfully tested an atomic bomb for the first time. In 1966, China was the first country in the world to artificially synthesize crystalline insulin. In 1967, China successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb...

These messages were transmitted to every corner through radio waves. Zeng Dejun, who lived in a remote mountainous area, would hear a new "first" every once in a while. People have never been so confident in science and technology as they are now, and the whole society is filled with a wave of "invention and creation". As a primary school student, Zeng Dejun also believed that he could do something with his hands.

He made a radio, a low-cost "crystal radio" that did not require power. The name came from the fact that the early detector components were made directly from natural ore, and when used, a metal probe had to be used to adjust its pressure and position on the ore. The crystal radio was the simplest of all radio receiving devices, and it was difficult to receive signals unless you were very close to the radio station.

Zeng Dejun, who was in the mountains, naturally could not receive anything. He did not give up, and continued to make regenerative rifle single-tube, double-tube, and three-tube radios. It was not until the receiving sensitivity of the four-tube radio reached the required level that the long-awaited sound came out of the radio speaker. Although this was a rare breakthrough, these home-brewed radios still could not receive programs and were of no practical use.

Zeng Dejun wanted a radio so badly that he saved the money he earned from working during the summer vacation and finally bought a Kaige 455D radio with his sister before the first year of junior high school. This radio was the first and only one in the county, and his home became the most popular place in the county. People gathered around to listen to the radio. Zeng Dejun was the most fascinated by it. Day and night, the sound coming out of this small box drew a clear life goal in Zeng Dejun's mind.

At that time, the radio broadcasts had a lot of political content, but fortunately, science and technology were politically safe and could be broadcast on the radio. Zeng Dejun learned a lot about science and technology through the radio, and heard about missiles, atomic bombs, satellites and other popular technologies at that time. He was very excited to hear these news, and set his life ambition on these cutting-edge technologies.

Zweig said, "The greatest luck in a person's life is to discover his life mission in the middle of his life, that is, when he is young and strong." Most people may never find their life mission in their entire lives, but some people are particularly lucky when they are very young.

Zeng Dejun was lucky. His luck was not only that he knew what he wanted to do in the future at a very young age, but also that in an era when there were not many opportunities, he got an excellent opportunity - the radio, which helped him get closer to his ideal time and time again in that turbid river of history.

But at that time, Zeng Dejun didn't even know whether he could go to college.

Zeng Dejun didn't even have the chance to go to high school, as the Cultural Revolution was in progress and schools were closed. He was studious by nature and didn't want to waste his time, so he took advantage of this time to self-study some electronics courses at Tsinghua University and Fudan University. After high school in 1974, he inevitably began his life as an educated youth, working the fields.

The radio pulled him out of farm work. At that time, the government required that every household could hear the voice of Chairman Mao. As one of the few local people who knew radio, he was assigned to work on rural cable radio. Later, he was spotted by a radio administrator in the commune and worked together on radio management automation. After the success, he worked on transistor radio amplifiers. Everything was easy for him.

His outstanding work at the radio station earned him a job as a broadcaster. At the time, everyone around him thought this was a good opportunity, except his mother.

"My mother said no. She said, 'Son, you have to know that you are a person with ideals. Our small county cannot accommodate your ideals. You must go outside to have room for development.'" Zeng Dejun recalled.

This choice will affect Zeng Dejun's life. If he chooses to enter the radio station, he will hardly have the chance to leave this place, and what he wants to do - research cutting-edge technology - will not be possible. But this choice is so tempting, and radio is also what he likes. The other choice seemed a little vague at the time - go outside, how to go? But as his mother said, the unknown bigger world also stirs people's hearts.

Choosing the better of two things is not a choice, but a selection. A choice is choosing one of two good things. 19-year-old Zeng Dejun had to make a choice for his life and what kind of person he would become. He chose the more adventurous and exciting one.

Less than half a year later, the county began to recruit young people to join the army, and he realized that the opportunity had come. At that time, there was no college entrance examination, and joining the army might be the only way for young people in remote mountain villages to go out. His mother was more cautious: even if you want to join the army, you must choose a branch of the military that suits you. The second artillery of the Chinese People's Liberation Army recruited soldiers that time. "The Second Artillery is engaged in missiles, so we must engage in computers and high technology, and this is what I want to do," Zeng Dejun was very excited. So he reported to his mother, and his mother agreed. In 1976, Zeng Dejun joined the army.

Contrary to his imagination, he did not join the technical department, but was assigned to the engineering corps that dug tunnels. This time, it was the radio that changed his life.

During the training of new recruits, the regiment commander's radio broke down. Zeng Dejun's specialty happened to be repairing the radio, so he easily helped the regiment commander fix it. As a result, he received special treatment and was assigned to the radio operator position he wanted.

When opportunities are scarce, it is difficult to keep your eyes on your ideal and walk straight towards it. Instead, you should seize every possible opportunity. Perhaps the next opportunity will put you on track. Being a radio operator is far from the end. This job is just sending and receiving telegrams, which does not require much technical skills. Fortunately, the teacher of the radio operator training school he attended at that time taught him a lot of additional radio technical knowledge and gave him some books and materials on this subject before graduation.

People cannot surpass their own times. When the times are not ready, no matter how lofty the ideals are, they can only wait in the heart. But once the time comes, for those who have been prepared for many years, the ideals will flow like the river water when winter turns to spring.

After completing his studies in radio communication, Zeng Dejun caught up with the era of change. In 1976, the Gang of Four was crushed, the Cultural Revolution ended, and the college entrance examination was resumed in the winter of the following year. Countless people picked up their books and entered the examination room again. In the summer of 1978, more people applied for the exam, and knowledge and technology were respected again.

Zeng Dejun, who was still in the army at the time, did not have the opportunity to enter the examination room, but the army was also influenced by this trend. In June of this year, Zeng Dejun was transferred to a unit of the Beijing Second Artillery Corps as an outstanding technical innovation expert to engage in scientific research.

During that period, there was a craze for "electronic teaching" in the army, which required wireless microphones and FM receivers, the latter of which was actually a high-quality FM radio. Zeng Dejun was assigned to be responsible for all the electronic and structural designs of this project. His previous accumulation came in handy, and he made two different models. After completing this project, he got the opportunity to enter university and began his university life.

Merchants and craftsmen

In the next 20 years, the radio was temporarily absent from Zeng Dejun's life. Although the radio was always with him, he never made a radio again. He gradually realized that the sound quality of the radio in his hand was not so satisfactory, but he didn't know what good sound quality should be like, and how to make it.

It was not until 2000 that he came into contact with excellent radios from abroad and discovered that the sound quality of radios could be so beautiful, moving and charming. He rediscovered his passion for radios from his youth.

Unfortunately, it was too late. Radio has a history of 100 years. Its golden age included the United States in the 1930s and Germany in the 1940s and 1950s. China at that time had no chance to catch up with that train. China's first radio was produced in 1950. There were a few excellent products in the middle, but the quality of most of them was not satisfactory, just "just enough to work". For Zeng Dejun in elementary school, "just enough to work" was already amazing, but it could no longer make Zeng Dejun excited after entering university.

For a person, if you miss an era, you miss it. Zeng Dejun bought many classic old radios with excellent performance and sound quality from Germany and the UK. These are basically old products from 50 years ago. Time has caused their performance to decline and their sound quality to deteriorate. The FM band can only reach 100MHz (normal is 88-108MHz), and many radio stations cannot be received.

Zeng Dejun decided to recreate the golden age of radios himself. He said that these "made me burn with the desire to make a radio with excellent performance and excellent sound."

In 2003, Zeng Dejun was discharged from the army after 27 years in the army. At that time, there were several options for leaving the army: transfer to civilian jobs; find a job on your own; and demobilization. Transferring to civilian jobs means that the army is responsible for arranging a job, finding a job on your own means finding a job on your own but still keeping in touch with the army, and demobilization means completely cutting off contact with the army and being responsible for yourself in the future. The difference between these three options lies in the different fees paid by the army when leaving. According to the degree of responsibility of the army for this person in the future, the more responsibilities the army has, the less fees it will pay. At that time, only 1 person out of 1,000 chose to demobilize. It takes courage and strength to abandon the iron rice bowl.

Zeng Dejun did this, he said, partly because of his personality, and partly because he was confident in his skills. This choice set the direction for the rest of his life. This time, he made the same choice as 30 years ago - the more adventurous and exciting one. In the end, Zeng Dejun took 400,000 yuan when he left the army. He used 200,000 yuan to buy a house in Shenzhen, known as a hardware paradise, and used the other 200,000 yuan to start a company, which is Shenzhen Jidian Technology.

The first radio designed by Zeng Dejun was the R601. The design process began in 2004 and lasted for three years, with many twists and turns. When designing, he set the scope of reference products in the United States in the 1930s, when early radios were at their most glorious. He selected one from hundreds of American radios at that time as a reference prototype, and inherited the appearance style, size ratio, knob details, etc.

The appearance is relatively simple to make, but the most difficult problem is the sound quality. The sound quality of the products he made always failed to meet his expectations, and he later found that it was because he did not master the core technology - the soul curve.

Zeng Dejun explained that the design principle of Hi-Fi audio is "the sum of the individual = the whole", which means that if each one is good, the whole is good. He used this principle to make radios, but the results were always disappointing. After several years of testing thousands of speakers and adjusting circuit parameters hundreds of times, he finally found the true meaning of radio sound design - "the sum of the individual > the whole";

This is the "soul curve" in radio system design. Each part of the radio, such as the speaker, amplifier, acoustic structure, etc., has its own characteristics and strengths and weaknesses. The "soul curve" allows them to complement each other and combine together.

This radio has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 on the US Amazon website, and an American user wrote enthusiastically in his review: "The warm, charming tube sound is just like a retro radio from the 1950s. This radio is really very sensitive and has a beautiful wooden structure. It is worth the money." In a review video on Youtube, when introducing this radio, the reviewer said that he felt "incredible" when he learned that the maker was a peer from China.

The R601 later developed into the R60x series, and Zeng Dejun later designed the more modern R30x series and the floor-standing R80x, etc. The buyers of these radios came from the United States, Europe, Australia, South Korea, etc., and very few were Chinese.

Wan Songping started to "help Jidian manage the overseas market" in 2006. He used to work in trade and investment, but he got to know Zeng Dejun because of "playing with the radio", so he joined the company. Wan introduced that Jidian had no money to build channels and do marketing, and almost everyone who bought it relied on word of mouth, and the final result was that its sales in the Chinese market were very small.

The success of the Desert Island Record Player on Le Tong Music made Zeng see the possibility of selling this radio in the Chinese market.

He developed a new radio based on the R601SW, the highest-end model in the R60x series, which has added Bluetooth and NFC smart wireless pairing technology. When listening to traditional radio stations, you can listen to audio content through the mobile phone APP. This is the Elvis radio that is currently being crowdfunded, with a crowdfunding price of 2880. Zeng Dejun decided at the beginning that he would do it no matter how many units he raised in the end.

This is a risky crowdfunding, even more daring than the desert island record player at the beginning of the year. Li Wen commented, "Spending 3,000 yuan to buy a radio is actually hard for many people to understand."

Wan Songping also didn't understand why they wanted to make an Elvis radio. He said, "There is no market for this radio at all. From a business perspective, it is not worth spending time on it. This kind of product that has no sales volume is a loss for the factory." Based on past experience, he believes that if the monthly sales of this kind of product are less than 500-1,000 units, the factory will not be able to make back the cost. Now the crowdfunding has raised less than 300,000 yuan, which he thinks is "not enough to cover the cost of advertising."

This is not Zeng Dejun's way of thinking. "Mr. Zeng is quite stubborn. He will spend time on things he likes," said Wan Songping. Li Wen's evaluation of Zeng is, "In theory, he is a manufacturer, a factory owner, and a businessman, but when I interact with him, I feel that he is more like an artist, a true craftsman."

Craftsmen have feelings for their products, unlike businessmen who only see them as products to make money. The Elvis radio is something Zeng Dejun likes. He said, "Adding rich wireless network content to the traditional radio makes the beautiful world within reach. Elvis is the practice and extension of my dream of radio."

Never-ending adventure

Now 57 years old, Zeng Dejun has a bigger dream - to make a product like SONOS.

Founded in 2004 in Santa Barbara, California, SONOS is now a well-deserved leader in the field of wireless speakers. It has many halos, such as "Steve Jobs' favorite speaker." It brings a new music listening experience. All speakers in the home can be controlled through the mobile phone application, and any music in the cloud can be accessed at any time through the music application.

Zeng Dejun had thought about how to listen to music before SONOS appeared. "At that time, my house had three bedrooms and a living room. I liked audio, so I put it in every room, but I couldn't listen to it wherever I wanted, what I wanted to listen to, and turn up the volume as much as I wanted," Zeng Dejun said. In those years, he also did some experiments and studied sound cards, but due to the limitations of knowledge and ability, he never made such a product.

It was not until the 2006 Berlin CES that Jidian appeared at the exhibition with its iPod dock, and Sonos was right across the street. After seeing Sonos's products, Zeng Dejun immediately realized that this was what he had wanted before.

At that time, SONOS was more expensive than it is now, and the experience was not particularly good, but this did not reduce Zeng Dejun's excitement at all. After returning to Shenzhen, he went to the public information to check the patents used by SONOS to understand how it was implemented. The core of SONOS is the interconnection and networking of multiple devices, so that all speakers can sense each other and communicate data with each other. Zeng Dejun believed that he could develop a new standard without "copying" SONOS.

To this end, he founded another company, Shenzhen Yundong Chuangxiang Technology Co., Ltd., in 2010 and began product development. Zeng Dejun said, "The most difficult part was the standard. We had to overturn the structure several times and finally perfect it at the end of 2012." The company's first generation product, a wireless speaker, will also be launched next month.

At this time, Zeng Dejun saw not only wireless speakers, but also the emerging trend of smart hardware. Zeng Dejun did not hide his lofty ideals, "Our system is open, and it is easier to extend it in the direction of smart home." As for entering the field at such an age and in such a way, he described it as "really encountering smart hardware by accident."

It's not completely unintentional. Li Wen said, "He is a very open-minded person." With an open mind, when faced with choices, he always chooses the one that is more exciting and risky. When he looks back on the first half of his life, he always thinks of his mother's advice to him after graduating from high school - go to a bigger place where he can display himself. "My mother is really a very visionary person," he said.

He benefited from this and passed it on to his next generation. A few years ago, his daughter graduated from college and got a job at China Merchants Bank. The family was very happy, but Zeng Dejun disagreed with this, just like his mother did. He thought banks were too hierarchical, "If you want to endure this culture, you might as well go to Tencent, which is a very active place."

"I told my daughter that this is a good era, and the Internet is a great opportunity. I also want to seize the opportunity of the Internet," Zeng Dejun said. A good era means that a person can expand his or her ideals as much as possible, because no matter how far-reaching the ideal is, there are more possibilities to be realized. In the future, his story with the radio may come to an end, but opportunities and adventures are always there. (Photo by Wang Chen)