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.