Instruments, Design & Sound: Cooper-Moore Live through the TCA-M at Carl Hansen & Søn

On May 20, 2025, Carl Hansen & Søn’s Midtown flagship Store in New York hosted a celebration of Design & Sound steeped in craftsmanship, and creative dialogue. What began as a listening session soon evolved into a performance-art encounter, led by the legendary Cooper-Moore: improviser, composer, instrument builder, and boundary-defying force.

At the heart of the event stood Treble Clef Audio’s TCA‑M Active Loudspeakers, known for their sculptural presence and lifelike fidelity. But the real soul of the afternoon came from Cooper-Moore’s curated playlist and live performance, featuring his handmade Diddley-Bow, Hoe-Harp, and Banjo. These instruments—crafted through curiosity, creative transformation of found objects, and a deep command of design, material, and craftsmanship—put our speakers through one of their most revealing and intimate tests yet, amplifying the inherent voice of Cooper-Moore’s sonic creations.

I first met Cooper-Moore in December 2024 at the Álvaro Torres Solo - Live at Klavierhaus New York concert, where I learned he had already heard of the TCA-M Active Loudspeaker from another extraordinary multi-instrumentalist, Kresten Osgood. Intrigued by his deep relationship with sound-making objects, some weeks later I reached out. What followed was a long and wonderful phone conversation—two hours of shared curiosity around what it means to create things that make sound.

When I asked him why he builds instruments, his answer surprised me. Paraphrasing, he said each instrument is like a child—you don’t just get to choose and play, but rather get to know them. You teach it, it teaches you. It becomes a relationship—a way of understanding what that instrument can feel, express, and become. He adapts to each creation, learning how to make it sing.

That idea resonated deeply. While I come from the world of science, engineering and more recently acoustics, our motivations align. Cooper-Moore explores how to give voice to sound through organic creation. I strive to design loudspeakers that reproduce that voice faithfully, with no added colour or distortion. Both approaches seek the same goal: authentic emotional connection.

Our designs at Treble Clef Audio^® are informed by the way real instruments sound in real spaces—how sound waves reflect off walls, how keys dropped on a wooden floor is a complex bundle of mixed frequencies, how we perceive harmonies naturally without needing to adjust for “room treatment” or “digital correction.” We just hear music—and adapt to it and the room it is played in. That belief is central to our Sound by Design^® philosophy and how we define our Authentic Standard.

So when Cooper-Moore agreed to collaborate on this event—exploring the intersection of instruments, design, and sound—I was honoured. And truthfully, a little nervous. But I couldn’t imagine a more meaningful way to explore whether sound reproduced by our loudspeakers could surprise and delight the ears of a master builder, composer and improviser like Cooper-Moore.

🎵 A Playlist curated by Cooper-Moore with Deep Roots

The afternoon opened with Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You”, her smoky vibrato and orchestral phrasing floating effortlessly across the room, bringing stillness with it. What followed was a sonic journey spanning jazz, blues, baroque, and avant-garde, revealing the musical DNA that pulses through Cooper-Moore’s own sound.

• Oscar Peterson’s “Something’s Coming” crackled with swing and anticipation, as if foreshadowing Moore’s own off-kilter energy.
• Two selections by Glenn Gould—Bach’s Prélude and Allemande—brought structural elegance, a reminder that improvisation always nods to tradition.
• Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy” (in the Hard Again version) thundered through the room with raw masculine swagger—made electric through the sheer authority of the TCA-M system.
• And then, Ornette Coleman’s “P.S. Unless One Has”, where boundaries fully dissolved. An apt metaphor for Cooper-Moore himself.

These were pieces Cooper-Moore has listened to since the 1970s. Watching him explore the TCA‑M loudspeakers—cupping his hands to compare direct and reflected sound—was revealing. With natural sound sources and loudspeakers that exhibit wide, uniform off-axis dispersion matching the direct sound—as well as the unique spatial qualities of our patented Folded Dipole Air Velocity Transducer Bass System—the spectral balance and timbre remain stable throughout the room. With conventional loudspeakers, they invariably shift, however subtly.

Seeing him investigate in this way—as a musician and deep listener—I knew exactly what was surprising him. And when he said he was hearing details he’d never noticed before in these familiar recordings, that was the moment my anxiety receded.

🔨 Sound, Handmade

Then came the live segment. Cooper-Moore sat before the gathered guests, framed by Danish furniture and an exhibition of paintings by a Swedish artist. He coaxed an astonishing range of tones from his single-string Diddley-Bow—its sliding moans captured with precision by the TCA‑M’s low-distortion and time-coherent architecture.