Down time

Down time is a nightmare for the production, yield drops, the production is answerable, the poor maintenance guys bonus at stake, the boss is crying over the missed sales. Everybody's KPI score card is scratched. Nobody likes down time.

As a norm in life, you have good and bad days. My system down for two weeks for my grumpy CD transport, I did not know how I manage the down time. I spent hours, hours I mean, grasping our fellow fi experience and knowledge in the forums. A piece of advice, take the info at your discretion. If you taken in everything without due diligence, you could end up somewhere you hate to be. Mr Know-a-lot, me? No, I do not deceive to win an argument. That's inferior complex! People scrutiny everything Mr Know-a-lot say. I prefer to be Mr Know-a-lit.

The return of my CD transport put a smile on my face, life is back to normal. There are still some unresolved technical glitches. Ouch... In the absence of my CD transport. I got myself a disc demagnetizer. Story comes later. I am glad that I hold my horses before jumping into CAS. I have not listened to any DSD file as yet, so my experience is limited to those hi rez files. Red book has its limitation, I missed the plastic flavor!

Sidetracked, I quickly set up the CD transport and fire up. The sound was uninvolving, hardened and harmonic was choppy that when you live with your system long enough, you will immediately know it. Dynamic was awful, lethargic. Cranked up the volume, the system started to scream, "Don't rush me!" OK OK OK.

After an hour in play, things were beginning to gel. The sound mirrored my sonic memory and I am starting to exhale. The CD pick up is able to track better with an tired old cap being replaced and preventive servicing. 

Everyday provides a lesson to learn, I've learned one today. A system is tuned to a preset loudness, the sound will be distorted if cranked the volume out of its preset range. This event is liken to my wife got really angry when I came back home dinner an hour late. She became a woman unlike the one I got married to. She screamed at me, pinched me and grumbled the whole night. Ha ha ha.

So, play at the host listening volume when we make visit. We often make mistake asking the host plays at our preferred volume. Mind you, some of us play at insane loudness. That's would be not right. Respect the owner, your respect will be repaid.

OK, let me catch my breath first, until then....