Usable standard

You know God has created the laws of physics that promise repeated results. And there are still undiscovered physics yet to be fully understood by mankind. Things that beyond mankind intelligence, at least not timely as yet. Let's not talk about the best audio electro topologies, physics have never spoken any louder. Acoustic is about physics.

Our listening was gradually conditioned by our own room acoustics, unknowingly. It has wilfully established our sonic standard. Given the same system in another room, ceteris paribus, the system would sound dramatically different. Room acoustics is one hell of sonic contaminant. We need to establish a usable standard to refer upon. What betters live performance as standard, the very event that we try to reproduce.

Audio is not only about equipment. Knowing how to work with your room via speaker positioning and room treatment separates the good and mediocre, particularly most of us do not have the luxury of building our audio room from ground up. We are listening to the room. We need to reap the good energies of the room and obscure the bad ones. This is where room treatment works its magic. As in every system, there are some dirty little secrets that never see the light of day unless unrevealed. Old bird as we called it over here, knows it too well.

A wise audiophile will always establish a playable list of materials because each system has its own hits and misses, capitalise on those that makes your system shine. For instance, asking a full ranger to play full orchestral works is largely a suicide. Nothing beat single driver speaker and flat speaker on voices for its coherency, phase and clarity. Try listening one, you'll understand what I am saying. In sheer versatility, multiple driver speaker could weather the music like no other speakers could. It does help to explain the dominance of box speaker in market share. Not ignoring its presence complimenting the big screen TV.

Tonal balance will either make or break for all audiophiles. Getting over tonal balance, tonal quality is closely correlated with price. The better employment of parts and components grants greater tonality. No argument here. Money always buy quality. Unrestrained, free of dynamic compression is one of the highest order. Aren't you glad that either your crescendos or decrescendos rise or stop at will? The ability to do that is what makes music music. It evokes emotions and goose bumps. It triggers adrenalin rush. It allures you to follow the beat. Music as what it is intended, has plenty of dynamics/transient, in micro and macro level. Without it, music will be like religious chanting. We all know how boring that is.

The quality of unhurried-ness is another superlative audio order. Truth is, I only hear this quality from big multiple speakers. They relieve small diameter driver from upper bass and downwards duties, they are out of their comfort zone there. The response curve at those frequencies volatile like crazy and requires filtering. This is where the number does not reflect the whole story. Many small speakers claim 40 Hz, but they hardly have the bass volume to impress. The bass did not have the supposedly fullness and wholeness.

The area of 7 inch driver is 38.48 square inch whilst 10 inch driver is 78.54 square inch. Two 7 inch drivers area is almost equal to one 10 inch driver. Both bass sounded vastly different. The earlier bass will sound tight, hurried and punchy, the later will sound relax, fuller and goes lower. My preference leans toward the later. Smaller bass driver is driven by costly urban space, no space to accommodate ugly mini refrigerators in their living hall. Aesthetic overrules fidelity.

Inspired by KF's system, the little adjustment of my bass traps brought forth a profound improvement. Mostly, curing the plague of smearing. Past experience taught me poorly designed three ways speaker always carry an excessive upper bass energies. These bad vibes will only creep into the midrange and smear the notes. This is one of the major downfalls with big speakers. This is the crossover job. The ruler straight frequency response curve stays on paper, in anechoic chamber. You can't stop room interaction from screwing up the response curve. It is the major contributing factor to midrange booming and each room has a varying degree of booming at different frequencies. The new found serenity of sound after treated is intriguing. To illustrate, the decay of timpani has got cleaner, more elegant and with an unspoken grace. As such, the critical midrange benefited most, gone are the pseudo warmth and dirty and confused nuances. I welcome the transparency, they bring me closer to the real thing. The music activates the gushing of endorphin, tantalising my senses giving my body shakes.

My hope was high. Great, I invited my wife to listen to my piano playback.

Johannes Brahms Piano Concerto No 2, a CD conveniently at reach was played. Her disgruntled look hinted trouble. It made my flesh creep.

"What? What? What?"
"What did you do?"
" I didn't do anything. I knew that look, tell me."
"Your piano did not sound right now, notes were light. Veiled, sounded like a thin cloth in between. It was alright a week ago. You went into the room and did something yesterday, remember?"
"O yes! I repositioned my bass trap. But that can't be it. Ah, I get it. Not this CD, try this."

"Yes, This one sounds right!"
"Damn! Emil Gilels's JS Bach Piano Concerto No 2. sounded hollow and thin too."

That spells relief. Both were playing a Steinway piano. The big yellow Deutsche Grammophone label is always better recorded. The lesson is nail the playback material first.



So, I was hold ransom by the recording. Please be reminded that it is impossible to emulate the overtones of piano, a lot of overtones were diminished.

Why is this important? We must always establish a standard, a standard which is consistent and commonly acceptable. What is the worth if a violin be mistaken for a viola? A Steinway for a Fazioli? A Strad for a Guaneri? Musical instrument has its individuality, music has its musicality content. Are we supposed to add the superlative sweetness, wetness, luscious to sound appealing? We should not get in the way of music. If there is dryness, let's there be dryness. If there is coarseness, let's there be coarseness. If there is hissing, let's there be hissing. You don't have to look far to see the highest end of audio camps on the neutrality whilst the lower end cousins are happily coloured. This is a heated debate over fidelity against individual pleasing sound.

A famous quote, "You cannot possibly bluff your way through in studio industry, you certainly can in domestic audio." Typical old English houses come with white wall and black stripes, which gives English its identity. But, sure you can colour your sound like you colour your wall, it will be misrepresented.

Adios, Merry Christmas.

My thanksgiving big bird

Frequent readers know that this blog is not about state of the art audio gear. There are plenty of such reviews around if you look hard enough. I may dream one day owning them in my wildest fantasy, but, a little far-fetched for me. Slapped with high import duty, the weakening Ringgit is not helping. The cost of audioing continues to escalate. Happy for you if you one day make your buckets of gold and buy them, you will be envied by many. Anyway, this blog is about real audio for the working class. This blog is about realistic audio that most can afford. This blog is about sharing experience. This blog is about fun.

KF has been enjoying a good audio ride, decided to install the upgrade kits that he bought from GR Research some time ago. This is not an easy decision because he worries risking his good sound, that what happens when one is in a comfort zone. Wasted resources, neither go well with him too. What could possibly go wrong with the upgrade kits? Worst case scenario, revert back to the stock crossover and go on to blame me. It is only human nature.

Encores upgrade at Hifi Creations. Behind Encores is a custom project.

Alas, it is not like to perform male sterilization. I hooked him up with Victor, the speaker expert. Victor granted a me personal favour to assist. This guy is a living component bible, he knew his stuff. Quality components cost money, they will certainly brought forth changes not necessarily improvements if you mess with the value. You know, the kind that you win some here and lose some elsewhere. We shall see if the mod lives up to the expectations. Victor ran the moded Encores for 50 hours before KF picked them up and head back home. I was hijacked conveniently that afternoon to watch an episode of audio pornography. Hence, the following report is for what it is worth.

Original crossover

Upgraded crossover, drop in replacement with similar values.

The upgrade kits consist of SonicCap and Mill resistors. The crossover is simple, it explains easy current demand on the amplifier. I always like simple crossover approach. Tube or solid state, either should not have problems driving it. At this juncture, his 28" stands received new set of spikes to curb bad vibrations.

KF's audio den

A little background, KF was playing a pair of Ho's LS3/5a and Genesis sub combo and got a decent performance. Then came Encores, I enticed him to jump for them. What started as a tease, ended up with a purchase. For its asking price and satisfaction guaranteed, this is no brainer. The entire purchasing course took only two hours. Encores arrived at door step in a couple of weeks later.

Encore's bass was generous in sub 1200 cubic feet, the room helps bolster the bass loading. It makes a possible return to genuine 2 channel system from a 2.1 channel system. The cohesiveness of sound is well received and appreciated. Mind you, KF is bass nut, he will not settle with lame bass. Total cost of system is further lessened.

Pop is real music, is everyday music. They are everywhere. Media are playing them, radio stations are playing them, malls are playing them, pubs are playing them. You can't avoid them. Though, they do not received highly among audiophiles. They proved to be equally challenging to reproduce, testing your system on the ability to resolve the complexity of music and realism. Many audiophiles avoid them.

The diva from Canada

Celine Dion did a cover version of Jennifer Rush's hit, "The Power of Love". This is a big song that could possibly embarrass many systems. Ability to play loud is one thing, maintaining composure is another. It should not gets on your nerves.

Dion shines with powerful high key, her vocal dynamic is fabulous. Her ascending high notes is inviting. On this number, she starts slow, gets your adrenalin going at the chorus and intensifies at repeated chorus before a strong ending. Her voice punches through the sonic fabric with flesh and body, convincingly. Her highly recognizable high notes were both penetrative and solid. The moded Encores share the same family sound with the stock Encores. On closer listening, the tonality has been treated with a degree of refinement and civilization. The edginess has further decreased. I could hear better resolutions, cleaner, less coarseness, less congestion but at some point, however, the sound does hints some degree of restraints probably due to uncooked components. I hope for more musical ease.

At where it is now, I found no murkiness. The drum strokes accorded "The Power of Love" with a chest pounding sensation. A bass authority seldom heard from bookshelf system without subwoofer. It was a pleasant shake up. Realistic has spoken. The magnitude of drum and the dynamic of hard hitting were again evidenced. No, Encores could not reproduce the level of scale the top dogs which is largely an unfair comparo. They have the PRaT to sound involving, make your feet tap.

Drum stroke gives an insight to a system's heart beat. Softening is no good, rolled off is no good, slow and dull is no good. If there is hard hitting, let the hard hitting be heard. This system has a big heart. You cannot bend the laws of physics but you'd have taken them as floorstanding speakers if blind folded. The beaming of highs bestow the precise locality of images make following the drum stroke a breeze. Encores are very sensitive to placement and only opens the window of music at the specific tiny sweet spot.

Over to Mariah Carey, Carey could sing in 5 octave range and masters whistle register. She does more runs and riffs more than anyone I know, rendering a strong R&B influence. "Dreamlover" is the first track from "Music Box" album released in 1993. Her huge diagram enables her to dig deep and rise violently. Her ability to reach whistling is ethereally unique and out of this world. This number gets difficult when the drummer joins the jamming at the interlude.

The bass has never gotten this tight and cohesive in KF's room. I got to be honest here, the stands work wonder. So much so, the tonal weight was satisfying, KF did not miss the sub. Speaker stand is an important component that you should pay attention to it.

Moving on to audiophile recording, Joe Pass is a guitar legend. Holly molly, you can easily see his finger works as if Joe is playing his guitar with three hands. The Gypsy influence is clearly present in his play, as inspired by Django Reinhardt. The most striking virtue of the playback was physical presence. He bends, plucks and strums with terrific hand-brain coordination. Timing was impeccable, the magic.

I could again noticed less graininess at upper treble, but felt that the extension could have been more which itself already good. There is a degree of analogue-ness to the vocal. Micro dynamics could be more effortlessly, guitar could be more exciting with more subtlety and overtones. The upgrade makes Encores sound expensive. Suffice to say KF's system has no major flaws, coherent, quite neutral and realistic. They would not hinder you from a pleasant listening, that's alone is a compliment.

"Better components for better sound" has never rung more true, a lesson learned. KF is a happy man, his system outgrew his room. Unstoppable orgasm.

Conclusion

Strike while the iron is hot, Victor incited KF to custom build a MTM configured speaker with premium Scanspeak drivers and premium passive parts. Finishing at his choice, wood veneer or high gloss coating with specific speaker voicing, man, this is a sexy project. Think high quality sound, think exclusivity, think three fold the performance. Go check what drivers they employ in mass produced speaker, go check what passive components they give, all those crossover hype are purely marketing. There are thousands speakers in the market, but you will like a few of them end of the day. Take middle man and distributions away, that's your saving. In my day dream, I would give my project a cool name, Grand Emperor Concert Reference if I get tired with my resident speakers. A worthy note, speaker is your number one high fidelity gatekeeper, and is the most distorted link in a system. And they sound vastly different.

I'm now starting to envy KF. So much quality for so little money. Moded Encores are good but still a gap from what top notch speakers can deliver. Tonality, the blooming around the tone (vocals and instruments), the effortless rise from ppp to fff  and the tranquility of sound (during adagio), are the areas you can't cheat with clever tweaking. This is high end sound of higher order.

Santa had delivered KF a present early this year. And, I am coming to get my thanksgiving 9kg kampung (outdoor bred) bird, eat one at the restaurant, bring one home. Bill to KF.


Hifi Creations, Victor Pheh 0122962799