Deep listening

Been busy lately. Quite a scare learning the missing MH370 when I was in overseas and will be flying back two days later. Life is so unpredictable. I feel for the passenger and the crew love ones. 

Do you buy what these guys are saying? Deep listening is the way to music appreciation? Before we come to that, we must identify in what capacity are you in? Musician, music critic, music lover, recording engineer or audiophile listens differently. I ruled out the assumption of hearing deficiency due to old age for this sake of argument or otherwise we bundle in wild parameters and this will be endless. Musicians focus on virtuosity, timing, flow and chemicals. Music critics too walk along the same line, their job is to write about music anyway. Recording engineer is tasked capturing the essence of the performance. Mixing engineer edits the recorded music and enhance stereo sonic enjoyment, you know the hoo and ha. They mastermind the listeners focus via amplifying specific instruments, specific loudness, specific effects etc. Soundstage is another byproduct of mixing, and we all love soundstage. After all, they produce what we want.

Audiophiles, let's be honest, a little bit of everything, but mostly recording. Because quality of recordings showcase the prowess of one system, usually big scale music. Great bass garners praises. Thus, sells by itself especially among audiophiles. Question is how often to you listen to these stuff?

Deep listening is a very tiring exercise. I can't speak for others, to me of course. Try it for an hour and tell me it is not. You are as if crunching your brain picking up the abundance of musical and non-musical signals, process them into something that make sense to us. Our brain is a complex computer, largely un-utilised, only brain surgeons would explain how it works. When our brain gets tired, you can't think straight. Anyway, just follow the flow of the music and you will appreciate timing or beat is the essence of music, no two ways about it. 

Music appreciation does not have to be that technical. Sit at the sweet spot and let music speaks to you. It comes down to two scenarios, either the music speaks to you or not. Like a sermon, some preachers can preach better than the others. There is another phenomenon, digital is less involving than vinyl. I always have the feeling that digital is constantly yearning for attention regardless of price. Digital sounds cold and stress after prolong listening while vinyl is gentle on ears.

Wide bandwidth is something I am not ready compromise. My personal belief is a system must be able to move air effortlessly. Therefore, I am leaning towards multi driver speaker configuration. Even though, the less than perfect coherency bothers but that is physics, at least not until the technology allows us. Tonality is of paramount importance in any system playback. The higher the price, the more money goes to the tonality. Ask the DIYers, good drivers cost money! Perfect linearity at a restricted bandwidth is definitely not good enough, tonality deteriorates at the extreme frequencies is highly undesirable. Compression, distortion, ill controlled step in and there is nothing you can do about. I can't live with them. It is narrow tolerance, try a tight shirt on yourself. This you avoid, that you better not play. I wouldn't mind tight skirt on babe though.

Three way speaker is the most cost effective solution, and is the most mature technology of speaker building. Be it TMB or MTMB, if it is not coaxial, I prefer MTMB configuration for a beefier mid that I do not have to contend with lean meat. Bass is the most difficult to reproduced, a little fat on the bass would be fine, sir. Adding a sub adds a different set of problems. Mind you, the sensitivity of the speaker does not really tell all the truth about a speaker. Your hearing is a more reliable instrument.

I was recently convinced that active crossover is the way forward. A Sin she showed me how he improves his cheapo system via active crossover. That was a gigantic improvement and I can imagine if it is employed in a better system. Active crossover increases the responsiveness, not until you listen to one to be convinced. It introduces immediacy, immediacy brings life. The bass quality leapfrogs, fuller, more resolution, cleaner and less edgy. Muddy Water is not here. The improvements overspill to the critical mid. The vocal becomes purer, refined and transparent as if the voices were throaty. I was nevertheless impressed with the results, easily tripled the performance. Truth is the inductor in the passive crossover sucks out a lot of juice!



Big scale music is demanding, not any system can reproduce its full majesty. Even Mark Levinson's latest high end assault with his flagship M1, 100dB/W/m high efficiency speakers, best driven by his 200W per channel monoblock, bi-amping! This is serious juice to bring the performance alive. Puny amp, the ability to assert control the drivers is highly questionable!

And the fact that the employment of active crossover in Daniel Hertz M1 will be awesome! Active crossover on M1 magnitude casts a "must listen before I die" on my personal wish list. The speaker configuration and OMG 18" drivers compounded my interest! I am confident that M1 will be THE most dynamic system your money can buy. Period.