Needless to say, I find the best sounding source material (typically any lp I can get my hands on ­ but also CD's), enhance the sound quality and clean away the artifacts by hand - one tiny click or piece of dust at a time. I can easily spend 20 minutes cleaning one third of a second when dealing with a lot of noise.

It's quite an experience to hear all the great music without a curtain of time over it (all the noise of records - or today's too-clean noise reduction). And at the correct speed for dancing.

I discovered ways to reduce distortion - with the added benefit that that allows for more top-end. I learned how to coax the waves back into shape through really damaged areas. I got the bands sounding as big as possible and the singers' and bandoneons' breath right in your ear. And then I was dumbfounded. But more about that later.

My first excitement came from doing the D'Arienzo, Biagi and Di Sarli Cronolgica's and hearing every song they recorded in order. My love of history would have me picturing the sessions in the hot Porteño nights.

For instance, Di Sarli hadn't recorded for 10 years when he was re-signed by RCA and went into the studio on December 12, 1939 to record Corazon and El Retirao. This was just as the Graf Spee incident ("The Battle of the River Plate") was taking place out in the Rio Plato. (It was finally scuttled by the crew December 20, about the time Di Sarli's re-emergence hit the streets and airwaves). Buenos Aires during the war was much like Lisbon, Istanbul and other cities for intrigue.

I found it interesting to hear the choices they made about what to put out next (they recorded 2 songs per session, usually a couple of times a month). Listening to them in order, you get a real feel for the times.

I move a lot to the music that fills the room 16 hours many days. I found my dancing became more refined and subtle, more rhythmically inspired after a few hundred hours of work/play. It's all about the music.

All of the big orquestas can be heard doing remarkable, even stunning things that just can't be heard without all the treatment. Makes sense - would El Arranque do as much for you if they sounded like a 1941 recording? I don't think so.

But I've made early recordings sound so clean and rich that they can be played alongside El Arranque tonight at a milonga. THIS is the excitement for me.

Well, it's all in the programming. The quality of each of the artists' work varies, even after restoration. You still get the sound you started with, if you know what I mean, even though you've cleaned and helped it as far as possible. So, I am careful about what I put before and after a thinner song, naturally.

I cannot make Tristeza Marina by Di Sarli/Rufino sound as "good" as my Milonguero Viejo - but it is just fine and such beautiful music that, placed appropriately - it sounds heavenly all the same.

I now have a plethora of songs useable that from modern CD's we wouldn't play for dancing because they are just too inferior in quality.

But at some point in every song I work on, it takes on a different aspect somehow as you take the tiny (and big!) clicks away. Restoration brings the music out, is all I can say. It sounds smoother, more refined. These moments - when the song becomes a new thing - are thrilling. They happen when the rests and spaces are cleaned; when the clicks that are often on a downbeat are removed. And I always take great care with the endings - the last note and after. They need to be super clean and hang just right going to black. The little tricks I use here are part of my personal style.

When the song is done, it really should just sound like a song by an orchestra. "SO?" isn't really that bad a reaction. If you don't think anything's been done to it, I've done a good job. But the reaction is quite different when a comparison is made with a typical commercial CD version of the same song. Then you notice the quiet, the bigness.

Playing them in a milonga is my big reward. And it's a curious thing, that I might be dreaming, but I swear the floor has less bumping on it when the music is clean. See how koo-koo I've become?

I also hear from first and second hand conversations that people are hearing something new about the music. That's when I know I'm not crazy.

Really, it seems my whole life has been leading up to this. When I first fell in love with tango in 1990, I collected lp's right away (there weren't many CD's around). I came back from Buenos Aires with Maria Nieves's album collection ­ a gift from her, my sister-in-law at the time. In it was a lovely Readers Digest set of 120 songs released on great vinyl in 1968.

So, I've been on - am on - a mission from god, so to speak. I dream of seeing Carlos, Juan, Osvaldo, Ricardo, the Angels - ALL of the musicians and singers who were there - resting more peacefully knowing their exceptional life's work is getting some loving attention and care.

Their genius continually amazes me as I hear what they really put down in all its glory.

I have written elsewhere about how things were when I found tango in 1989. Boy - it was the dark ages in terms of how one collected the music. What you could find in the typical North American city amounted to a few bad CD's, boring cassettes and some unsatisfying lp's. Much of what you could get was music not suitable for dancing. And if one didn't have Argentine friends with cassettes you could copy, you didn't have much music.

I was just so happy to find anything I didn't have or know about. Really, the poor quality of the sound didn't matter much to me - I was just crazy to find more any way I could. Noisy, scratchy, thin, it didn't matter. I just loved the old recordings.

It wasn't until 2001 that I started wondering if I could do something myself about the quality. I took baby steps. Once started, an obsession overtook me in an avalanche.

The fun for me in the beginning was not really derived from making all that drastic an improvement in the sound quality. After-all, I didn't have great source material to work from, and I had quite a learning-curve to go through as regards what techniques to use. No, the fun came from delving into the recorded catalogue and learning the material. Here, my previous decade of studying the history of the music - who did what - paid-off. Getting a clear picture of what the library entailed in total was a big step forward.

After working in a kind of fever for a couple of years, I sat back and took stock. I had made some discoveries and break-throughs which allowed me to understand more clearly what I could and should be doing.

Somewhere in that time, I discovered the wonderful result I could achieve by re-drawing the wave-forms by hand. It was trial-and-error in the beginning; and wow - those errors were frustrating. But after a couple more years of experience, it all became easy to fix problems without getting into trouble.

Not for the first time, I arrived at a point where I knew I had to throw out everything I had done and start again to make it better. Actually, I have repeated this starting-over-again about 4 times in all. I'm nothing if not determined.

And there is no teacher like experience, when it gets down to it.

Through this period of time, I was exceedingly fortunate to make connections with people around the world who became supporters - feeding me with both source material and encouragement. When it became a "team" thing, it really got traction. To those dear friends, I will be eternally grateful.

It was about 2 years ago that everything reached a level where there was no need to worry about whether I was achieving ultimate results or not. The proof was in the pudding. The combination of ever-better source material, software, restoration techniques, experience and playing the finished product every week for dancers to get the mix right brought it all to a new level.

The great tango standards do sound somehow "different" after restoration. Sweeter; softer in many cases; but richer altogether and even more impressive (and moving) than in the noisy, distorted form they have come down to us (see "Destruction of the Masters" below). Without the distraction of noise and clicks, it can sound like the musicians are in the room with you.

My entire catalogue has been re-done over the last 18 months and the Artist series now numbers 60 CD's; as does the Tandas series.

To those who say they LIKE the scratches and noise of old records, I say - you gotta be kidding. Why? The artists did not ask for all that guck to be overlaid on their beautiful sounds.

I recently sent Alberto Podesta my collection of all his recordings (with Di Sarli, Calo and Laurenz) done my way. He was performing in a club when they played a couple of the songs. I'm told he burst into tears. His musicians were apparently more than impressed with what they were hearing.

I mean - this artist hasn't ever heard his recordings sound clean since the day he recorded them in the early 40's!

I can't believe how GREAT these musicians were that made the old tango recordings. Hearing them at their optimum is a pleasure that lasts a lifetime.

Do you have an interest in insignificant details?

We are fortunate that some record companies have been releasing much better versions of the old recordings of late. The ones which are best actually have 2 layers of artifacts for me to remove.

These 2-channel mono copies have been taken from what sound like "virgin" vinyl lp versions. If you remember buying vinyl, you will recall taking out a new record and hearing some static on the first play. This "static" is heard on the tango tracks - but not on both channels simultaneously. I have something to take out on the right side, something on the left in a different place. But, sometimes there is a click or anomoly on both channels at the same time; this is from the original 78 Master that was used to make the 33 1/3 which has now become their Master.

Well, all clicks must come out!

If you get my restorations, you will have something very special that the general public just doesn't have or hear.