A vicious cycle

Oh dear! A lot was going on in the few past weeks, a lot. It didn't happen without a reason, a compulsion of a philharmonic concert. I've grown melancholy with my sound each passing minute. I realised that I shoot myself in the foot, I've had committed an uncharismatic "vocal trap" after a vocal stint for a couple of weeks. My sound had veered toward a warmer, denser and juicer side of sound.

Voices evoke emotions, it's the most fascinating instrument which produces incredibly complex harmonics. It's a sound we are so familiar with since birth unless of course, the unfortunate hearing impairment. Voices are an implicit emotion catalyst! Boy, I got to tell you guys, a late evening vocal is a perfect relaxation to wind down a long day. A guy nailed it in a forum, he said that there are two camps of sound, modern and vintage sound. Like water and oil, both will not mix. If one is going towards vocal extreme, the accompanying instrument will be subdued while vocal will sound a little lean and two dimensional at the other end. This is a deadlock of audio, you can have a cake and eat it too.

The young aspiring audiophiles wanted more, wider bandwidth and some bells and whistles to trend set their taste. Online reviews sell the ideas, it's a learning process that they'll soon be sure of what they want. Can't blame them, they are well exposed and well-read, they're technology-driven, what more the stuff they are listening to is quite different from the tired audiophile uncles. People call me uncle these days I can't remember since when. The lines on the face, the white hairs, ummm, the teeth still around, the chicken are not spared as yet. This uncle still got bite. Pretty soon I'm going to enjoy the privilege as a senior citizen. No more queue, the seat for senior citizen at half price. Music is constant, it is perceived differently by different people. But when the dust settles, classical music will prevail.

Long story short, I break my back working my sound. This exercise is so intense that it took me weeks which is rather unusual. Just when I thought I could sign off, something come up and reject my sloppy work. So, it's not uncommon you will find a system not sounding better than before when come at the wrong time. Work In Progress. To get 90% is not that tough but the following 5% is steep, you stumble just like playing the snake ladder game if out of luck. Tuning sometimes is a lucky strike. A vicious cycle tail chasing, it will exhaust even iron will. Stop and come back to work in the next few days after you clear your mind. I must congratulate you when your assessment is constant for most of the time.

Without further ado, I rolled up my sleeves, brought along my measurement tape and spirit level with me just any handy guy does. These are the basic tools to calibrate a system. A good in-room airflow dynamic is essential to good sound. A major part of my acoustic work is based on this. My upper mids shouty-ness, hollowness and a somewhat deflated bass, these discernible weaknesses on my table. No more qing-cha does it, not taking thing lightly, all lined up to near perfection leaving no stone unturned. The main agenda, to get the "right frame of sound". This tops the to-do list if you don't want to beat around the bush. Speaker placement, a skill audiophiles must master. It's not a few lessons could not help, keep working on it if that few lessons don't work out. Burn more calories, you find the best placement eventually by trying out a few placements to pin down your preferred presentation. Never a boring job doing the thing you, you enjoy every single minute of it. In my case, I've not only the main speakers to contend with but super tweeters too. Super tweeters are hypersensitive to placement! I usually ended my speaker placement with a few light tap on the side of the speaker for adjustment.

All not wasted, work rewards, you'll learn new things. Crunch time, pop in a vocal, not any vocal you like but the one with a dead centre imaging and hope the perfect storm never comes. Alamak! Sway slightly to one side? Going back and forth with speaker placement and level spirit. Once done, mark the placement and introduce isolation footers. Try different footers. Once finalised, goback to speaker placement again to sign off. never let others go near. To be honest, I wasn't prepared a well-proportioned sound, a sound that redefines sound. Nothing is "out of place", everything is so knitted together like an expensive English fabric. Nothing out to grab you. Dead honest. To my surprise, I discern some nuances arranged slightly different in the sound-field and the expansiveness of the sound. The imaging is spot on, less fat with distinctive delineation. Besides, the spatial imaging, the see-through overwhelms me with the instrument colour and texture is preserved. Excuse me for jumping forward, precise speaker placement is last on the list after you've sorted out cables. Cables are for the desired colour and texture.

The room can mess up the sound more than you know. Time to add some tonewood to smoothen the sound a bit. I could tell a happy and a not so happy sound listening to one. I'm talking about compression that impedes expressiveness. Go sort out the standing waves and turbulences, the key to acoustic wonderland. The hard work is worth it. Imsymmerical room is a room acoustics nightmare, it's almost impossible to get an equal balance of both channel, the best possible situation is to minimise its deficiency. I don't care much for DSP room correction, not another go of signal pollution. Thank God, I don't have to face this obstacle. My main obstacle is my room size, how I wish to have a bigger room. This is a problem I will never ever able to resolve unless I build my room from the ground up.

 A glass of victory champagne please, I drink to that not before I find fault somewhere else, again. It's my clinical assessment and pushing boundaries attitude, never say satisfied. "I think I should place my speakers there, it looks nice in the room." "This cable is good because the reviews say so." "Oh! Snake oil!" Get out of here. Empirical findings rule, your fellow audiophiles will not lie, they just don't you the truth!

Check and balance

My audio karma sees my convert to full-range speaker is sort of going back to fundamental of repro sound: the perfect phase and point source. You must audition to comprehend the quality of full-range speaker despite some full-range speakers show relative flat frequency response but not really the case in listening. The possibly worst-case scenario is nasal at mids and shouty at the lower treble range. At the risk of looking stupid, I will not at the top of my lungs neutrality or linearity. What does flat frequency response mean to you if it doesn't introduce aura, it's merely a meaningless soundwave. On the contrary, I seek emotions in sound, sound that draws you into music that keep you listening. I think it's not out of this world that, you're struggling with some fine systems, the sound somewhat doesn't tickle your senses, furthermore it sounds no wrong. A sad story, a disappointment nevertheless. Fidelity without musicality, devoids of the richness and depth of sound, perfectly measured, your brand of sound? How measurement read hollowness? I like to know. An engineer's perspective of sound, DSP sound correction is a joke to me, I'm sorry. Does anyone know piano tuning is done electronically? Probably Artificial Intelligence will one day.

In the meantime, loudness altogether is a different animal. Loudness gives rise to sensory stimulation, not necessary good sound. The sound of the rock concert is about loudness and dynamic, it's about attitude, it's about social grievances and discontentment. Rock music is an avenue to release displeasure. The crash of cymbals and the kick drum heighten the drama.

As we grow in age, our taste in music changes. We inclined to an intimate vocal and classical music as we grow old, so does our sonic perspectives, we even prefer the mild flavour. Sonic purity cream rises to the top. As opposed, a wannabe wanted super tweeter to launch the highs to the moon and subwoofer to power pile to the deepest abyss, all in the expense of phase coherency. He then crashes you with a heavy truck of sound pressure while he stands aside with a cheeky smile to see you tap out since no normal systems can play that loud. His peer give a round of applause.

Those days were far behind me now, I banked on my Belle's strength, the design strength of full-range speaker; phase coherency, immediacy and directness. These qualities are in the wheelhouse of full-range speaker. No constant crossing over to different driver membranes that sing to a different tune and smearing of the passive components on the crossover. And if these don't turn you on, there are no reasons for you to consider full-range speaker whatmore with a restricted frequency range for your disposal.

We are lucky to be able to enjoy live classical music for a little money albeit second class performers. How many musicians made it to the philharmonic orchestra? It takes about 80 musicians to give you a symphonic piece, to balance the book, no orchestras in the world could survive without the sponsorship! Anyway, you don't like classical means you don't like classical, enough said.

It has been quite a while now since my last classical concert, I'm really looking forward to my coming classical concert this month, my soul food. The sound, what can I say? So pure and right, some flashes of the electric-like audible buzz of the violins not even captured in the recording. My collection of classical, never one present me this. What say you?

Upgrading is like candy, highly irresistible even to the senior audiophiles. The better components and conductor brings about a new playing field though the circuit is more or less the same. Sure, they will improve sound quality. From 4K to 8K flat-screen TV is a natural progression, but the reverse is a struggle, so many things are missing. This is where your listening ability is gauged, knowingly or not knowingly. Without mercy, you will be labelled if your listening ability or your system falls short of expectation. In point of fact, upgrading is a big part of audioing, your main source of knowledge and experience. My take is the sound of any audio products carries a certain standard unless it is a matching issue. With equipment out of the way, your room could mess up the sound more than you ever know. Mind you, the sound opens up by simply rearranging the furniture and fixing, not something equipment upgrade could do. A pandora box, of course, a good sound requires more than moving your furniture and fixing.

One plus one is two, really? To excel in any passion, you must be crazy, being usual is out of the question.