Tone deaf

The Olympic badminton final between Lin Dan and Lee Chong Wei battled out yesterday. Lin victory squashed Malaysian hope of clinching a gold medal, I'm not sure if this is the first one. I have found new respects for Lee, for his timid demeanor and sportsmanship. Lin Dan has an intimidating and arrogant demeanor in contrast, a reflection of his game too, speedy and aggressive. I feel Lee's devastating pain and helplessness. Nobody remembers the runner up. Who in the world never experience failure and dejection in life? Loss of contract, flunk in exam, betrayal, conned etc.

A great champ is usually a lousy loser. A great champ hates losing. You see this quality in Alex Ferguson, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Nicole David, Mohammad Ali etc. The master of winning ugly is John McEnroe. He uses everything to upset your mood. "You can not be serious!" John always yells at linesman, questions the empire decisions. These little actions pose adverse effects on the opponent. I saw Lin did many little little unsporting things to upset opponent's psychology/rhythm. Most obvious one, refused to change shuttlecock upon request. The others like waiting for play. This is the mental game. Short fuse players are doomed.

Great champions are not the easiest people to be around, they battle on every issue. No worry if you do not have great champs as friend, a combative lawyer friend is equally self opined. Audio sinshe is no exception too, I called these people Mr "Know It All". Do not argue with them, but listen, listen and listen.

One fine day, the music man came to listen and pointed out the time and phase incoherency of the sub integration when playing the rapid plucking of double bass. Aiyoh! My pride was towed away all the sudden. Never too late to know, the string notes was somewhat overlapping.

大碌

The notes were dirty and required Daia to clean up. My system failed miserably in this regard. It was this double bass that makes me retire my sub. Without the sub, the notes were much cleaner and articulate albeit there is a loss of bass weight. Now, I truly comprehend the meaning of "Less is More".

In order to remedy, I tried many things and I read quite a bit. Sorry if this sounds academic, it is absolutely necessary to go back to basic - sound behavior. The past couples of weeks was very interesting and equally challenging.

Fact One : The Speed of Sound

The speed of sound in air is determined by the air itself and is not dependent upon the amplitude, frequency, or wavelength of the sound. Speed of sound corresponds directly to ambiance temperature and humidity. If you turned on your air conditioning and the humidifier (drier air), the slower the sound travels. That's explained why German made speakers sound the way they do, yes or no? Why Danish speakers sound (slower) the way they do?

Soon enough, his hairs will start dropping.

Fact Two : The Speaker Positioning

The strength of equilateral triangle positioning is the least affected by reflected sound and holographic pinpoint imaging. The downside are narrower soundstage, small sweet spot and the low frequency is amiss. Everything is well and good but you will miss the weight and authority of the bass when the passage calls up if Classical is your music staple.

The standard layout of orchestra

Fact three : The Sound Mapping

Do you realize that most basses come from the right side? There is a certain standard it seems. Orchestra layout is the standard. The basses are located at the right side, you can expect more bass coming from that side.

I want to establish my own sound signature

Speaker positioning is an audio fundamental tantamount to second degree audio murder. My past experience taught me that you need to experiment sitting in various points along the critical one and a half foot axis to achieve your "perfect" bass. I need some compensation here.

Depending on the speakers, bookshelf speakers are less fuzzy than floor standing speakers. Some aligned to mili-meter in measurement, I'm not that fanatic. I can't tell the sound of three mili- meter.

I get my best listening spot when I am 9 feet from the mid point between the speakers in my room, where the highs, mid and low meet at the same time. "There is my bass!" was my first reaction listening to Youn San's Pancake. I have got my bass 1/8 octave lower. This track is funky and the bass is wonderfully recorded. Bass quality of this recording is rare! The bass is big and weights a ton. No problem with Dream of An Opera's one off drum stroke albeit a little noisy or any similar kind of bass. My system can put these in the pocket. A pleasant surprise.

I have also realized that my seating moved three rows behind with the soundstage gets more "panoramic". The downside is, I lose a small degree of razor sharp clear mid and highs. The room resonance comes in to the play.


Every system is unique even though they are identical. Their sound can be categorized as above, perfectly balanced, highs eccentric or weighted to bottom. This is my tone analyzer. Tone deaf - when A key does not sound like A key, it is time you re-examine your system. No matter how expensive the system, one must get the tone right. I am not a fan of ultra resolution. Good luck.