New year sound

In politics, we have the ever contradicting right and left wing. We also have the same in audio. On one side, there are fi wanted neutrality and believable timbre which is the mainstream, on the other hand, there are fi longing for aesthetical presentation - beautiful tone. A very experienced fi once said, only if you have achieved an acceptable high standard of audio playback, you can then talk about euphonic. What he is trying to say is only add euphonic properties upon a balanced sounding system. Started off with imbalance sounding will get you to Holland. 

A new year, a new beginning had me reroute to believable timbre. No more chasing rainbow. All of us have our own idea of an accurate sound like. Unless you were present during the recording, it is impossible to know the actual presentation, let alone the mixing and EQ in the process of recording.

Make things worst, we can't resist the temptation of wanting something more, more highs, more lows. Too zealous to add something extra to impress thyself and thy guests, spicing up the presentation with gutsy, sweet, moist and lustful will inevitably deviates from the true content of music. The sonic influx largely distorts the timbre, pseudo strings, forward mids, impaired dynamic, sluggish bass etc.

Music is all about harmonic, a system ability to recuperate the wholeness of harmonic is its worth. I spent crazy hours perfecting my sound, so much so that I can't find time to write. There were many misses along the way and I can always take in stride. Audioing is a journey of no end, it is an endless progressive improvement. My ego acutely ward off any unconstructive criticism, like a air bags. I must say great majority fi pride their system on how they sound. Unconstructive criticism, you wouldn't want to be running in a landmine, would you? More so, criticism without remedial solutions. It is plainly full of hot air. That is of course, if you can pull a rabbit out of your hat. Then, my ears are all yours.

To me, it is perfectly OK to criticize my sound. But it is entirely up me to accept your critics but challenging my tweaks via stupid blind tests is an outright insult to my intelligence. I don't deserve this. You can choose not to believe my tweak and you may have it your way too. Crossing that border, I will scrutiny your system mercilessly. You better have a system that live up to your "status". Criticize and be criticized, that's a fair game.

死凈一把口, Death man talking

Sounding balanced is the minimum playback standard. How is your highs fare? Does it have the refinement? Does it have lightness, nimbleness and yet heavenly? How far does it recreating the ambiance? Does it differentiate Stradivari or Guaneri? At a right density? I despise fi who have not proven his worth but lecturing audio. Talk is cheap. Get there first then I will start listening.

I don't like speakers with strong characters, the recognizable sonic signature is like a tag on the system. I also don't like hungry speakers too, they tend to eat up a lot of details. I favor neutral and easy to drive speakers. Pioneer S1EXs are not easy speaker to set up. To make thing worst, playing in a small room. It is a recipe for disaster. My friend goes as far saying Andrew Jones shortchanged S1EXs midbass. I was struggling with that. A rough estimate, you need at least six months to study the speaker characteristics and bringing out the best in them. There is no perfect speaker in the world nor speakers that do not need tuning. Buy a system, bingo! World class sound, it is just silly wishful thinking.

Emphasis on certain frequency range that adds excitements will no doubt attract attention, maybe winning praises too. I look for emotion connectivity in a system, not hi fi-ish properties that you use to impress your guests. A system that conveys emotions is more enjoyable than a "show off" system. Beware, hi fi-ish property is a great temptation, your mind is playing you. Too much of it will lead to peculiar voicing.

Live recording is a great way to measure a system. The crowd, the ambiance, the staging, the band, the performer and the imperfectness make a system sweat. Unpretentious. Could you achieve the sense of being enveloped 包圍感? Floating notes in the air 飄逸感? The luster of notes 光澤感? The rosin smell 松香味? The tendon-ness 牛筋味? The delineation 線條? The nimbleness of notes 鮮活感? The reverberation of musical instrument 共鳴感? The emotions 感染力? The layering 層次感? The dynamic 張力或扭力? The Q-ness 彈跳力? The clarity 清晰度? The transparency 透明度? The descending bass like waves washing the shore 伸延感? Most importantly, the decaying 諧音. Now that I mentioned them, I had started already working toward these departments. Sure, I am harsh on myself, if not, I will do other hobbies.

To self examined, I took an audiometry test. There is a story behind the test. The result showed that I have got a balanced hearing. Boy! Am I happy to see the result. My hearing ability is pretty good according to the nurse.

Cantate Domino remained to be my test CD. It is easy to tell playing this CD. Recreating the church natural ambiance is breathtaking like you were literally transported to the scene. The depiction of space and occasional pipe organ caressing the carpet is delicious. It is a good linearity test. 

My take : A good sounding system makes you forget you are listening to stereo but immerse in the music. Live event is often loud but it will not irritate. Hence, a great sounding system will not chase you out the room even you crank up the volume.