Exclusive Interview with Shinji Tarutani

MoustachesToys Exclusive Interview with Shinji Tarutani, TAD Labs President, at ME1 TX European Presentation. And while we’re at it… my first listening impressions of this speaker,… and the debut of ZenSati cables at Portugal.

Lê aqui em português

All common sense says you shouldn’t serve the starter, main course, and dessert at the same time, right? Well, this time, your humble scribe is doing just that. Take it all in, or just savour the parts that speak to you most.

The European premiere of the new TAD-ME1TX took place on Portuguese soil, in the perfect setting: the HiFi Show 2025 in Estoril. To mark the occasion, we had the honour of welcoming Shinji Tarutani, president of TAD Labs, for an exclusive interview with MoustachesToys.

Watch our exclusive interview with Shinji Tarutani, President of TAD Labs:

If the fair was buzzing, with people streaming through the rooms and loudspeakers roaring at every turn, it was in the quiet, intimate setting of Exaudio, a few days ago, that the ME1TX truly unveiled their full potential. A focused, emotionally charged session, yes, the system was technically flawless. But more than that: it stirred something deep. You know me…

When Engineering Meets Emotion

It’s not every day you hear a system that can be surgically precise without losing its soul. And yet, that’s exactly what I experienced while listening to the TAD-ME1TX at Exaudio.

The system:

And the voices… oh, the voices gave me goosebumps. Whether in “Sei de um Rio” or “Fado Português”, with Camané and Sara Correia giving voice to fado, or “Don’t Explain” by the incomparable Nina Simone, the soul priestess laid bare my inner demons. You could literally see it in the hairs on my arms.

Then came Salvatore Accardo’s violin, flooding the room with delicate Paganini notes in “Rondo à la Clochette.” And when the London Philharmonic Orchestra entered, the soundstage opened like a theatre curtain: wide, deep, fully three-dimensional. Each instrument held its position, not just across the width, but in depth too. With the scale a full orchestra demands. Tactile and real.

Speaking of Accardo’s violin, the highs? Extended, luminous, never aggressive. There’s a sweetness to the tweeter that’s rare. As if each note had been hand-polished by a Japanese artisan.
The midrange? Absolutely gorgeous. Texture, body, presence. Trumpets and saxophones had a naturalness you can’t engineer, you either have it or you don’t.
And the bass? Astonishing for a monitor this size: dry, articulate, well-defined, and deep. On “24 Hours” by Tom Jones, the low frequencies dominated the room. Controlled, yes, though for my personal taste, perhaps a bit too forward on this track, slightly overshadowing the upper registers.

Then, the moment came for the Acutus Dark Iron + Shelter Harmony + Pulsare II combo to take over, as “Vesti la Giubba” filled the room with operatic pain and drama. My skin tingled. My guts twisted with the agony of Canio, the clown from Leoncavallo’s opera. Scale. Impact. Intensity. Breathtaking.
And this time, I had witnesses, the usual crowd from Exaudio’s Saturday listening sessions.

TAD Technology: Precision Without Trickery

Beyond Japanese Engineering

In our interview, Shinji Tarutani was clear: TAD’s goal is not merely technical. It’s emotional. The pursuit of sonic purity is not an end in itself, but a means of connecting people through music.

That’s what the ME1TX deliver. They’re not just transparent, detailed, controlled, or dynamic. They communicate. They carry the truth of music straight to the listener’s insides.

Portugal had the privilege of hosting the European premiere of a product that embodies everything TAD stands for: rigour without rigidity, emotion without artifice.

Still have doubts? The antidote is simple: go listen to “Vesti la Giubba” on vinyl, at Exaudio.

Some technologies impress.
Others move us.
This system, powered by TAD and AVID, and connected through ZenSati, did both.