Power Brick

World's second tallest building

Hey folks, I had just returned from the beautiful Taiwan. 7 days 6 nights, a gruelling tour covering Taichung, Cingjing, Hualian and Taipei on free and easy. Wallet became lighter and I lost 3kg of body mass in a week! I couldn't loose that much of weight in six months in homeland. Lots of walking. I happened to be lucky to find a good car for hire company and she helped to arrange everything for us. The journey was smooth. On the surface, I promised my wife a fully sponsored overseas trip but deep down, audio is the secret agenda. Since I am paying, I get to decide the destinations. I choose Taiwan to meet and learn from this low key audio sinshe. I am his 5th Malaysia customer, I was told.

To be an audio tweaker, you need to have ears like a bat. You must first be able to discern the differences to be relevant. Boy! Given his age, 60s +, I was in awe with the sinshe hearing capabilities, he notices changes of sound with merely 1-2 mm of misalignment of his tweak. Coincidentally, we share the same ideology that room acoustic is the single most important ingredient in audio playback. I got away with audiophile approved tweaking, they always cost a bomb. That's goes without saying that everything in a room changes the sound, some are friendly and some are hostile, some are obvious and some are negligible. Therefore, be alert how you play your cards.

There are certain rules about achieving a good sounding room. Foremost, the room size matters the most. 1:1:1 and 1:1:2, you are doomed. No matter how hard you pray, your prayer will not be unanswered. You may get the professionals to fix the room acoustics or you may do it electronically, the room correction software route. Not getting your hands dirty, you will never learn room acoustics. Nobody can cheat learning, there is no short cut to it. Don't give me the fish but teach me to fish. Nothing remains constant forever, especially audio room. As time goes by, you might change here and there in your room. 

Topic today, Power Brick, my Taiwanese prize. No detail is spared. All I know, it is of paper pulp, very hard brick indeed. The dimension is 11cm x 11cm x 3cm, weights 525gram a piece. The sinshe warned that Power Brick is a double edged sword, it will take some trials and errors to find the right spot to trigger "butterfly effect". This is where the bat like hearing comes in.

For the ease of understanding, grid your room into sectors. Some hot sectors are first reflection spots will deem to produce the most impact if you tweak there. Beware, too many diffusers make the room dead. Some tweaks are bound to work against this rule though. If this is too tough, worry not. Divide your room to left and right, feel the energies of the room. In most circumstances, you tend to feel an imbalance energies. The air cond flow, the door and the window have different coefficiency of sound reflections. Imagine some spots as air pocket in air space, any plane will free fall when entering in. Your duty is to balance up the energies as much as possible, harmonizing the energies. This is where Power Brick becomes handy and that's the easy part.

Now, the difficult part is to identify exactly where to place them. Having identified the weaker side, it narrows down your search for Power Brick placement. Start from front wall, I found Power Brick effect would be amplified placing not more than one meter from the wall. Once identified the location, you got to experiment different surfaces and angles of the Power Brick to obtain best result because Power Brick has directions, and there isn't any marking on it. Worst still, you can't tell which is which. Each surface do has a slightly different sound to it. I choose the most vibrant sound as the best surface.

There is no mention of how many Power Brick is required or the coverage area either, your ears determine the quantity. Now, I' shall come to the effect of Power Brick, an issue that you all eager to know. On the beautifully recorded piano concerto suite from the ballet "The Nutcracker" Op. 71 by Melodiya record, the piano notes were very noticeable well separated, note perrrrrrrr..... note. Russian school pianists hit the keyboard harder than anything else, this is exemplary here. These effects accorded by Power Brick are unanimous. There is a picosecond pause between the notes due the smearing was reduced to minimum. Without Power Brick, the notes sounded glued. This is magical. On top of that, I noticed the notes were polished, leaving a layer of sheen. Consistently, I heard less jarring, this itself is very inviting. At times, I also feel the notes get hardened a lit bit, a slight tilting of Power Brick angle could fix it. Seemingly, the notes were enjoying an unprecedented freedom of expression, throwing a deep and wide soundstage.

The effect of Power Brick in a very good sounding system could not be undermined. Everything is laid bare, good becomes better. Normally, you do not expect too much a difference in a very good sounding system. Wrong again, Power Brick hauled the sound to next level. On Sound of China, the pipa playing was exemplary. Power Brick brought out the essence of pipa, the punching notes were so mercilessly separated, distinctive. There is a degree of "gua hei" 貴氣 exhibited, a rightful proprietary virtue of top notch front end electronics. The subterranean bass shook pants with no sign of slowing pace. In the contrary, the pace actually picked up, heart pumping experience. The musicians got more upbeat playing their thing to produce a thrilling performance.

Bingo, I was lucky to have placed the right spot for Power Brick in my maiden touch. This was only an effect of one Power Brick, buddy! My confidence rocketed. My beta testers all fallen for it. I brought back 10 pieces and with the intention to give a piece each to my buddies, but decidedly to keep the remaining 8 for my own use. Sorry! They aren't going anywhere . Now, imagine I use 8 Power Bricks in my system!

On Antonin Dvorak's Sonata for violin and piano in F major under Suprahon label, the violin has some lightness to it. Greater transparency gives an insight to the precise locality of the instruments. My speakers emanates the sound of violin two and a half feet higher than the piano. The texture and tone of the strings constantly remind me of the live violin play at opening of Meridian boutique store downtown late March. Live vs playback, that's not very fair comparison. My violin rendition is slightly less bloom, less fluffy, drier, a little less density, less nuances but I guess it is acceptable. There are many influencing factors, the play, the violin and mainly the digital conversion shaping the sound. The last thing I need is a sound that mask up inner details.

This is an outstanding double CD Mandarin unplugged lullabies, I praised its musicality. Simple arrangement, simple music, no hyper technical, non offensive, but rather a story telling like music transport the listeners en route to the remote mountain side. Given a Chinese recording, the recording quality is a big surprise. None of the etched brightness and glare commonly associated with Chinese pressing.

Here is the clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piZDQvbp7lE&feature=youtube_gdata_player titled "Go and marry a girl, my favorite track". An ethereal voice, with a challenging bass tenacity to reproduce. Power Brick sails my system through with ease. The images pin on my wall, removing Power Brick, the images somewhat collapse. Clean bass with good continuity and clear visual seeing the bass go deep is so cool. Top to bottom increased transparency, man. At times, the bloated bass were not as bloated anymore. Power Brick also accord some serious bass kick to the stomach too! My brain keep telling me Power Brick boosted the power, my conscious rejects the thoughts.

Truth is I love this tweak especially passive unconventional tweaks. These Power Bricks will keep me busy for weeks finding the right order. I am hearing my system receiving a new blessing, my wife could not agree more, nodded her head. This tweak can not be copied. I could not think of anything that comes close to Power Brick. Spike? Ball bearing? Their improvement does not come close. Only a genius can figure this thing out! On this account alone, I salute the sinshe! Power Bricks received my unreserved recommendation.

Who are you

An ancient warrior is measured by the scars on his body. Likewise, audio is measured by how big is your speaker. Big speakers, big sound. Thus, the speakers become the identity the owner.

It is a natural progression that one starts with small speakers, gradually upgrading to big speakers. Big speakers can reproduce a level of realism that no small speakers can, moving enormous amount of air. Four elements fuel this crazy hobby, cash, time, knowledge and passion. You can't have it without either one. That's cruel, fact is true.

No cash, no talk. Start drooling.
No time, no talk. Sit and listening to stories.
No knowledge, shut up. Start acquiring some.
No passion. Go do something else.

Many of us may not have the chance in their life time to own a pair of speakers worth half a million, what decency one has to ridicule? Unoptimized is as far I go. The potential is there, it is the matter which button to push! Small systems? No button, your journey is as far your ticket takes you.

I always disgust with some comments lashed out by audio ciku, they have not reached anywhere in audio. They are nobody. They are irrelevant. These are half baked fi who think they could cheat audio with careful selection of audio components. They are proud of their system that others may not able to achieve high performance per dollar. They ridicule that they spend one tenth of money to achieve 80% of high end performance, figuratively speaking.

What is the difference between a five star hotel and a four star hotel? Both provide decent accommodation for a good night sleep. What is the difference between fine furniture and IKEA furniture? It is still a stupid furniture. What is the difference between a Bmer and a Toyota? Both get you there too. Attention to details and uncompromising quality costs money. Five star hotel changes your bed sheet at least up to three times a day, fine furniture receives five and six layers of coating, a Bmer turns head, Toyota does not. As you may not reach the level of finer thing in life, you may find the justification hard to swallow.

I know some who go shopping without looking at price tag, buy at will. Value has little meaning. Class has its cost. Shopping during sales, get out of here! For most people, value is the paramount.

Understand the law of diminishing returns, understanding pushing the limit. The audio community does not talk about these. Remember this, these audio elites who do not have worry of feeding the children, schooling them, let alone paying bills. In most cases, they are more intelligent than most. They give us jobs, in return you make money for them. Think deep.

If that does not convince you, they chill at cafe shop while you are being asked to solve their problems, like a working bull in the field. So, think before you comment.