Thanksgiving

The entire MCO is dreamlike, no work stress except income stress, my work on my system never stops. Acute audio neurosis seeing a minor tuning in three days (on the average), a major retuning in one week or two. What can I do to get sound better? I always ask. When there's a will, there's always a way. I'm delighted to have made remarkable progress in MCO+CMCO period than in six months time.

Belles, as with all single driver speakers have glaring limitations, namely restricted bandwidth, none of the pristine highs from the reputable companies, hot upper mids and premature bass rolled off. This is what you should know before jumping right in the realm of single driver speakers, within its useable frequencies they shine on simpler music at a reasonable loudness. Speakers to party, you got better options. On the flip side, transparency, articulation, phase coherency, soundstage and undoctored sound, for what they offer, they are hard to beat.  

My decision for single driver speakers is well thought out, a natural progression for the quest of natural instrument fidelity. Took a couple of months to get the grasp the demeanour of Belles as with any other speakers. Once broken in, I knew what I'm supposed to do, to nurse hot upper mids and beefing up the upper bass, adding warmth without a subwoofer. Due to the high sensitivity of single driver speakers, mating a subwoofer to single driver speakers is close to impossible. Less is more here, I ditched the super tweeters as well. To tube amplification or not to tube amplification challenges one's wisdom, tube amplification adds the dire warmth to mend single driver speakers lacks tone body and to tame the hot upper mids. Alnico magnet is thoroughly considered the lifesaver. One stone two birds but offer no help on bass control. Nay, not following the herds I'm going with a conservative power rated class AB solid-state amp. I want to squeeze as much bass from my Belles. I'm not going to lie that an articulate and transparent budget amp is difficult to find. Moreover, I want a passive pre to safeguard sonic purity, not an active pre. The more gain stage the more doctored the sound, this is no rocket science. Luck in on my side, I found that one little amp. 

As you can see, I'm a purist, I live with the inherited limitations. Next, taking no prisoners the back and forth requalification of cables and speaker positioning. We are spoilt for cable choice and cabling is an integral of a system. It's no surprise one incompatible cable ruins the final sound. This cable qualification is done concurrently with speaker positioning. So, cabling is a tone colour device, hands down. Cables are meant to be heard. They highlight and downplay some sonic attributes as all speaker designs are flawed, some are worse than the others. Neutrality in audio is only make-believe. 

My system set up picked up pace after the cables were sorted out, each and every single one of them was repeatedly verified of its place in my system. I don't believe in cable loom sale pitch for the fact that the sound coming out from each component is somewhat altered, what's the benefit of using the same interconnect make? Cable loom will only promote the cable characteristics. Resonance feet and other accessories are next. I skip the boring arduous tweaking but to say the least, the entire process took 15 gruelling months, this time, it was accomplished much sooner than my preceding speakers. 

Fast forward, the earthy tone, checked, the hot upper mids, checked, the soundstage, checked, the bass authority, checked, the standing waves, checked. Anchor up, let's my system begins the musical voyage. 

Honestly, I don't think I'll ever want to disturb my system equilibrium again. This system stays as it is until my passion dies. You know what I walked away with something from this system set up? A musical system. I believe many will find the exquisite highs of exotic tweeters found wanting, to me it's a small price to pay for overall coherency. Organic presentation is the gold standard adhering to Fletcher-Munson Curve. So, I urge you guys to explore musicality and enjoy music at a higher degree of appreciation.

A race to good sound

I regret that I've many times rerouted my audio path. Sigh! It was never a straight path from A to B but a branchy decision tree. The branches grow with audio activities. Rarely, an equipment upgrade doesn't involve a change in a system setup like speaker replacement or cable swapping. A perfect drop-in replacement is almost impossible I'm afraid. For you've disturbed the system equilibrium, it's hard to turn back or admit a wrong upgrade. The temptation of better sound is irresistible.

I'm shy to announce the number of years in this passion because the number couldn't reflect one's calibre. Instead, I ask what have I learned and done in those years? Knowledge is power, it empowers one to identify the cause of a problem, you get results faster paying less, that's rings my bell.

Listening to other systems and the popping of new ideas are the main course of my pivots. Inevitably, these exposures smashed my past audio ideology. No sonic revelations didn't involve spending, this's a part of the game. In this regard, smart learning is learning what others do best. For instance, you go find out why a system sounded incredibly well in a certain respect. What will I arrive if I do this, do that, how about this, how about that? These questions always bug me in my head. Money buys better equipment, no doubts about it. When money isn't enough, one can resort to other audio elements to up his game. The thing is this, I could discern the sonic difference tweakings bring about. Regardless of how unscientific it is, the phenomenon is solid evidence.

In the course of respective growing audio years, we quietly seed our audio values that shape our habitual sonic approach. Likewise, their in-depth knowledge in certain audio respect earns them a specialist nickname, they are nonetheless, a good guru to learn from.

With so much time to spare under the movement control order, I felt compelled to try different speaker positioning. When speaker positioning is concerned, firstly, positioning, secondly isolation feet and lastly soundstage presentation. A cold chill goes down to my spine just thinking about it.

Moving heavy objects gives me cold sweat, my back screamed even before I begin my work even though my speakers are not that heavy. Constantly bending forward can cause backache, backache is not something I can endure. The truth is I had made many placements since my speakers landed in my mancave. Even though it's an arduous task, you never subcontracting the task to others, you don't want to miss a learning opportunity.

Three positionings in three days, 8 hours per day with each positioning going back and forth. No joke. I confessed that my earlier speaker positionings carry an implicit objective to sweep the sonic problems under the carpet Amplifying the strengths and hiding the weaknesses, don't we always do?

Room is a sound barrier that isolates the external sound and facilitates room loading, it's an integral of the sound. The sonic presentation has a lot to do with the reflected sound. Soundstage could arrive at rectangular, triangular, V shape or U shape, mine is a crossover of a rectangular and a shallow V.  My soundstage depth isn't a problem, width is. I like to change up my arc shape soundstage.

Time to get my hands dirty. I ended up with slightly more than 68 inches speaker apart, slightly less than 15 inches to the sidewall, 26 inches to the front wall and 100 inches from the speaker plane. A negligible toe out. Off-axis listening produces a smoother sound, less beaming. The sonic density reaches the peak when the ear height levelled with the driver. For multiple driver speakers, your ear height could either be below the tweeter or in between the tweeter and mid/bass driver. The lower the ear height to the floor will get you to perceive more bass and thus changes the tonal balance. I need two or three days for reaffirmation going through before settling in the final positioning. We need a cool head and a good sleep definitely helps.

Listening to a concerto in this new configuration resembles a miniaturized real-life rectangular soundstage without sacrificing tonal density, very satisfying. A symphony is a perfect choice to test soundstage. The key is to space the first and second reflections for at least 4 milliseconds. My sound expands well beyond the outside of my speakers. Tonality before soundstaging. I didn't want a razor-sharp imaging but a slight knock off will yield a more organic presentation.

As with everything and anything, you weigh the pros and cons. Down to what you want and your willingness to trade, my bass volume has decreased. This is the beginning of my quest to boost my bass not through placement. Adios.