You never try, you never know

Time will do it's part, it breaks in equipment. Doesn't time always do? Most audiophiles knew the goodness of breaking in, it diminishes sonic hardness and nervousness. But I'm still not completely satisfied. The toothiness was still audible at large, I knew that. Personally, I like some degree of toothiness at the leading edge, it injects life and presence into the music. Just like chili, not only it adds a dimension to the taste, it accentuates the ingredient. Match made in heaven, like lamb and mint goes well together, chicken and soy sauce, black coffee and cheesecake. Yum.

Overly toothy is the straw that breaks the camel's back. There's always a threshold for everything. Eve Cassidy's Field of Gold is an acid test, she is incredible attacking the high notes. Well. it didn't take long playing the track to send shivers down my spine. It warns me about magic volume, it could not be any truer in my system. She told me to tone it down or she screams. Thus, dampening on the phase plugs seems to be the obvious option in the interim, this unfinished work was still at the back of my head until I find a viable solution. Inevitably, transparency and note wholeness took a hit. I somehow feel that the overtones were short lived than supposedly.

Alas, time can only do so much. The toothiness was still there, albeit at a more acceptable level. Unrest, I was not about to call a quit on fine-tuning, not yet. Precisely, my zero tolerance to sonic imperfection drives me nut, I don't even remember when I was like that. So much into sound and my impatience didn't help at all. When it seems like I wasn't making any headway, it's good to quit doing what you're doing, sit back and take a close look at my system. That was exactly what I do. My light bulb suddenly lightened, I spotted one opening; the isolation feet. To being with, it was a long shot. In the first place, my rigs were well isolated, my Paduak isolation feet were more than enough to handle the job. They did a marvellous job on my past system. Well, I guessed wrong. It turned out Paduak accentuates a wrong sound on Belle. How dreadful!

Albert Einstein once quotes "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." A closed mind doesn't help learning. Some overthink. They think that if they do this, they will arrive at certain thing. One plus one is two, that's usually not the case when you come to unfamiliar water. You never know what you're going to get if you don't try, you never know.

Once you make a gigantic step forward, you then make small steps for finer adjustments to arrive at a sound you're contended with. These small steps are vital. The sweet thing is my African pitch black Gabon Ebony saved me from embarrassment. Before long, I have got a grin on my face. My oh my. It puts me where I wanted to be. You seldom hit the nail on the head in audio, I do this time. African wood is definitely the icing on the cake, it takes out the right amount of toothiness.

Soon, the missing air bothers me. Nothing an interconnect swapping couldn't fix, this one I'm sure because I had been playing around them. Keep trying, the rewards await for those who cross the finishing line. With that last nail in the coffin, I announced that the critical path of my system is accomplished. How ironic that I have to throw out my expensive cables out from my system.

You see, I'm not hiding my ambitious goal to attain best sound. I'm being honest. It's immaterial whether or not I achieve best sound. What it does is it sets my attitude. You come with a carefree attitude, you get an average result. That how things were and how things are.