Hearty performer

KLIAV 2012 is not a big show. With 27 millions population as opposed to Taiwan 23 millions, Malaysian does not possess the spending power like the Taiwanese. We have a good mix of audio products from US, UK, Europe, Japan and China, nevertheless. This year show managed to spring some surprises. I know, I know some people are very difficult to be pleased. Good for you for having high standards, there tends to be an illusive sound and actual sound gap. The illusive sound is like a lit guy in your head describing the perfect sound. I have little interest in the pursuit of Singkalinggam (ill-opined), talk is cheap.

OK OK OK, I should have mentioned in my earlier post that I placed a strong emphasis on price to performance. Make no mistake about it, there is no deal that is too good in real world like scratch and win. Don't be naive. With that got away, I'm willing and prepared to pay for performance unlike some talk a lot and not wanting to pay for anything, like the world indebted to them and yet never stop complaining. Hello! World.

My favourite room is tatatada..... Yter Accordos and Orpheus combo fed via CAS. I couldn't stop waxing lyrical about this combo, more specifically Accordos. Ooopppps, you gotta excuse my saliva. The sound is undeniably right to my ears, especially the critical midrange and upward. Huha! Rich but not overly rich like his previous creations, about the right dense (ATC have too much of it), dynamic and transparent, all in less than a 20 litres package. Density of sound and transparency in inverse correlation hold true here, I have never heard people praising ATC being transparent. I'm looking for a right balance. The imaging of Accordo is something to be die for. In another word, spooky.

The silk dome tweeters are revealing and most importantly, they have got some body to them, not a trace of metallic, sounded dearer and less razor than Titanium, Berryllium and Diamond tweeters. Who says silk dome can't rock! Jokingly, we need bright tweeters to compensate our ageing ears, we become less sensitive to these along we age. Welcome to F& M curve.

Now, I heard you, I heard you, Mr Wilson. His rationale of incorporated silk dome tweeters to his new Sahsa and Maxx 3 etc. He could afford, no, no, no, Wilson customers could afford the most expensive tweeters in the world.

Accordos appeal to me, a sound synonymic to this blog description. Small speaker, big heart, room filling sound. I have the highest respect to Franco Serblin's talent, a truly speaker genius. Accordos have outgrew Minima Amator although some reviewers might like otherwise. The cabinetry of Accordo is of what you can expect from the fine artistry and craftsmanship from the Italian. I did not fall for that, hmmmmmummm, I do not want a beautiful box. I want great sounding speakers that do the tone and dynamic right and the fine craftsmanship cabinetry is a bonus to me. This should be very clear. The ol Sonus Faber sounded too coloured to the extend that the sound is homogenised. What do you think?

Accordos are godsend for small room. 150mm midrange driver is fast, extremely clean. Everyone knows that putting the most exotic speaker components together does not guarantee good sound. The ability to capture the discerning musical harmonic, the voicing is the key. The perfect marriage of the highs and midrange requires skills and technique. You go assemble your speakers and you will find the painstaking difficult to play them as one aka coherence over a wide genre of music.

With all due respects to the speaker assemblers in Jalan Pasar, I was brought there by my colleague to buy a pair of speakers. Great flexibility, you get to choose literally what pleases you, tweeters, drivers, speaker box size and the guy hooked them up with on the shelf crossover. "Nah, these rock! Can you feel the pounding of the bass and exquisite highs?" playing discotheque music (all that they ever played). "Sorry man, my ears start bleeding and chest thumbing bass suffocates me." The music through the speakers was scratchy. The music fell apart, like a brutal murder. They murder the music.

Marketing is a process of brainwash 

The speaker foremost job is to deliver to the tone right, we, consumers were being led by the manufacturers' marketing ploy to be drawn into the technicality that we know nut about. They shit us with the drivers employed, resonance free cabinetry, crossovers, and bla bla bla. The designer job is to create a finished product and the marketing gets people buying them. Some splashed big bucks on advertising and promotions to create the buzz. The designer's goal is what interest me, what the designer trying to achieve so on and so forth. Which do you want? Technical superiority or speakers able to convey emotions. People tend to relate high price to high quality, high tech to high performance? A top notch camera in the hand of amateur photographer, what do you expect? Speaker is exactly like that too. That's why I consider speaker making is an art more than science.

Take a listen, that's all you need. But most of us were not confident enough to decide but to resort to our friends' views and audio reviews. We sort out to a cohesive view. Big mistake. Who is the one the speaker to please, the owner or the friends?

No speaker is perfect, how I wish Accordos could go down a little deeper and more bass grunt. For about RM30K a pair of bookshelf speakers, they are not exactly cheap but Accordos could shame the more expensive speakers in many ways, timbre and imaging. No wonder, the dealer managed to sell about 20 pairs of these in Singapore. I had goose bump listening to Accordos. Accordos quietly whisper to me "Signed, sealed, delivered. I'm yours." I'm tempted....