Christmas carols fill the air, it's the best time of the year. There isn't a single day that goes by I'm not working on my system, more precisely, acoustic. My friend texts me one day, "I don't want to find you die next to your speakers". "O man, I didn't see it coming. I have passed 50, do whatever makes me happy."
My evening with "Ella live with MPO" on Dec 2 was electric. Third-row center seat, about 15 feet up close with Ella. Honestly, I'm not familiar with her works but a career span of 30 years for a performing artist in the entertainment business is a long-long time, the art of keeping oneself relevant with time is something extraordinary while falling stars only managed a short-lived brilliance and AWOL. Going in not knowing what to expect, I was treated with familiar tunes, tunes that I didn't know are hers.
Her band comprises of two guitarists, a Fender guitar, a piano, and a drum, backed by Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestra. Hit after hit, she rocks us for two hours. On my way home with her tunes playing in my head, I'm glad to hear her live. Yes, she used a mic, her band used a mic, the orchestra uses none. Not surprisingly, the amplified sound was dominated, the orchestra added a touch of elegance, by no means, it was standing in the way of the music.
A powerful voice, vocal dynamics and the ability to hit the high notes on a whim propelled her to becomes one of the leading rock stars. It was her fans night, but I enjoyed her performance throughout. Live offers second to none charge, intensity and directness that our systems fail miserably to making the connection, not at the magnitude. The sound quality is vastly more consistent in a controlled acoustic environment than in the open field that subjects to wind and noise. Listen and feel the ambiance breathed by the sing-along crowd (the fans seated near to me too), I was living in a time capsule (time and space) as when I in music hall and listening to my system. Good seats, ones that don't stray far off from the center will accord a more balanced sound and less of the wall effect. Good seat matters.
The amplified sound came at the expense of depth to the sound and transparency, an infertile sound as I coined it. Lifeless. The highs were veiled, they are short of the extended and the radiance quality. Moreover, you can't miss the electric fuzz tainting the sound, none of the diverging energies best exemplified by the plucking of acoustic guitar.
Pardon my blatancy, learn the ropes of music first before audioing. Knowledge empowers, you gain the power to determine the right and wrong. With that knowledge, you work on system building up from there, determining which is the keeper and which is the spoiler or incompatible. The real sound can be pleasing and harsh. If your definition of pleasing sound is midrange-centric, fractionally roll-off highs and useful bass up to 70Hz, BBC monitor right at your sweetspot. The kind of system many would bring to the desert island. On the other hand, you can rock the house down with 110dB SPL or the outstanding finesse of ribbon speakers that breathe incredible amount of details in a narrow frequency range, you're spoilt for choice. Not forgetting the hair-raising horn speakers. But all high-end systems are unanimously endeavoring the natural and accurate sound. This goes without saying things have moved on for the better without no prejudice to nostalgia.
Buying equipment is as easy as chicken feet, so easy, getting them to sound right is not. Having a limited budget on audio hardware, I turned to acoustic. Meddling with acoustic doesn't cost you an arm and a leg like upgrading hardware. It was a humble beginning, getting rid of booming. Soon enough, I discovered a lot more is possible with acoustic, sculpturing the sound properties. Week in week out, compounded improvements, most notably in transparency, bigger soundstage and extreme frequency extension are adding fuel to fire. Madness. One tweak after another, some new tweaks out to replace the old ones, I absorb the sonic improvements faster than I thought I would. Not before long, I started losing interest going out listening to others' systems, I realised that I have made notable advancement.
To sum up what I have journeyed, the room is a big sonic contaminant. Start overhauling your thought, the better equipment merely makes it better, good acoustic brings out the best in your system. And such, the best room configuration, in my opinion, is a room in a room where the equipment sits in a room next to the media, pre amp and speakers in another room. So, you get a neat looking room listening room doing away with the cold industriousness electronics.
Make a hell of sense to keep your system simple, don't introduce anything more than required in the link. Concentrate on getting the sound quality up via acoustic, equipment upgrade will not get you there. Furthermore, the law of diminishing value sucks. You don't need to mortgage a house to attain high fidelity. On the contrary, you need the right attitude, paying attention to detail and plenty of work and drop the ego, will you, you'll get there. Lastly, I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas, be happy and stay healthy.
