Nobody build CD transport any more. Well, well, well, how about DVD player as transport? Is red book worth spending? Fact is red book is slowly going into extinction like LP. Music download is ramping up, is music download a better music format? Is music download the preferred storage? It may seems music download has all the good things going, flexible, convenience, storage, accessibility and what not, not until you experience hard disk crash. Your precious music files go down the drain.
When an audio veteran told me audio components could possibly one of the sources of booming, I did not bother? Illogical it may seems, I brushed off his kind advice without much thought.
After wrapping up my old DAC and pre, in come BMC PureDAC. My days are beginning to look brighter. I was dancing to James Brown's I feel good. The return of my Marantz CD94 was long awaited. The aged CD94 was showing signs of tiredness and grouchiness, did not read right. I called up my Pioneer DVD player to fill in while I get CD94 fixed. Load a CD unto the DVD player and play, the sound, uninspiring. Lacking CD94's gravitas, wobbly images and hollowness. I could hear the shabby mechanism resonating like crazy in play, that does not give much confidence, doesn't it? As long it makes music, I leave it as it is for the interim, warming the seat for CD94. Everybody knows that the wagging of CD in play could not possibly allow an accurate read of the disc, this is no rocket science.
As I was fighting booming, my blame largely on the undone room acoustics. No matter what I do, the improvements were only marginal. Never really get to down to the root of it. You know it. Once, I even thought I had finally nailed with the entire tracks of Commemorative 2013. How wrong was I? A friend popped in for a listen, Eva Cassidy's Time After Time track one, Kathy's song for the convenience sake, "You hear that, the boom, man, never stop!" Humiliated, I nodded off acknowledging the unresolved acoustic problems and vowed to get to the bottom of it. The lesson learned is if you want to know the truth, get an honest fi to come over for a listen. Fi detect other's flaws much better than their own! You don't get those who say things they don't mean.
In a way, I was glad to know where the problem lies. That is where I start digging. It is my practice to play my collections to ascertain problem free because you never know what and where gone wrong. Booming is the mother of acoustic problems. Manage booming, you set to fly. Have a good read on bass. Small room, big speakers, a recipe for poor sound.
Lowest frequency obtainable is derived from Wavelength/length of the wall (in meter) along the speaker. Approximately 70Hz peak resonance which is about right is my room panic button. My room got really really excited hitting that range.
Bass trap as the name implies, traps excessive bass energy. Corner is where the booming at the peak. I tilted my corner racks and created an opening to trap some energies. It works but only that much of booming was eradicated. I went for broke, lugged my Robertson Audio Silver 20s and snugged them at the front wall corners as bass trap. Expensive bass trap, a? What the heck since they are idling there! Much cheaper than a pair of bass trap cylinders. Same things here, I allow a small opening to allow bass to get in there. Things were much better now, smacked additional two diffusers at the corners but I was still not totally satisfied.
BMC belt drive CD player and BMC PureDAC combo is a solid performing duo, utilizing four cables out aka superlink, four insulated interwinding cable cores connection. The asking price was nonetheless astronomical for me at least. I snubbed the temptation. Kaboom... all the sudden, the booming disappear. Smashing! The brief listening of BMC CD player did not qualify for comments. Now, would you have thought DVD player is the source of booming? Who is kidding who now?
CD94 housed a CDM1 featuring cast iron chassis with glass len, solid CD reading mechanism. The return of CD94 restores the pride of my system. I'm more than happy with the sound of my system now. Booming is greatly reduced, the transparency leapfrogged. This system will stay as it is for a very long time. Time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of labour.
Using BMC PureDAC as DAC and pre, I save a power cord and a pair of interconnect. My selection of cables are largely neutral and balance sounding except the Gotham coaxial cable, I wanted a shimmering highs. A decent power cord for DAC is pending. You get what you feed. This will get more interesting.
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