Less is more

Given most audio enthusiasts will defend their belief over their dead body, to openly sell your sound ideology is making enemy. Audio is religion, very rigid. Closed minded is not a wise thing. First and foremost, what is your motive of selling your ideology? I can't think of anything else except you want more people to stand on your side, the master and follower kind.

Admittedly, I had flip flopped my ideology a few times. First, I champion charming tones, then soundstage, then transparency, and then accuracy and now charming tones. A slap on my face, indeed. I was intolerable and now become tolerable. Age has made me wiser and open to ideas. Above everything else, his audio system must first please the owner unless he cares about what others think or want to make a statement. Secondly, our thoughts evolved through time and exposure, and this is inevitable. The bottom is if the sound gets into your favor or not, there is no right or wrong sound for no one know the sound during the recording. What we arrive is at best, guesswork.

What we are today is recording is a guilty in first-degree murder. Good recordings can make a mediocre system sounds good. Right recording meets a right system will sound heavenly. I'm not a fan of audiophile recordings. They consist too many editorials, too fake, too unrealistic, sounded too good to be music with all the presence, resolution, transparency and separation. We often got into too much techno with sound. Etched sound invites listening fatigue. 

A good system supposedly allows us to enjoy music, not sound. As with the booming of high-end audio phenomenon, many are chasing after sci-fi sound with out of the world resolution, transparency and separation driven by digital evolution. Unworldly. Software becomes the playing field. I think these hinder us from the music. They are diving in the craft of sound, extracting greater resolution and cleaner presentation that unfortunately leads to segregation of frequency bandwidth. 

You can probably see now, it is a pivot for me. Music to me is organic, cut from the same cloth. How can you tell if the recording itself carries booming and imperfections? As much as I can, I preserve the micro and macro dynamic by doing less on the system. Less is more applies. Room mode is inevitable, room correction will certainly curtail the power of music. I'm not a believer in software approach to deal with room acoustics. I have heard systems with room corrected and non room corrected ones, I prefer the latter for its rightness, by a far margin. This, you have to experience by yourself.

With this being said, I see myself more like a cult now. 

Horny listening impression

Loudspeakers have the most influence in sound in any system and given a heterogeneous in how the loudspeakers sound far more than any electronics, it is wiser to build your system around the loudspeakers. 

In my opinion, loudspeakers can be loosely classified to two families namely, highly revealing loudspeakers and musical loudspeakers. The former is right up to technology aspired while the latter is music lovers' obvious choice.

Put it blatantly, horn is not my type of loudspeaker. Colorations and shouty characters have long given horn a bad name. The shout and in your face sound bother me. 

A new kid on the block in a crowded market, I came to know Ø Audio through Facebook feed months ago. I was pleasantly surprised to find that A&L Audio Station have them in store on my CD hunt in  Amcorp Mall. My CD hunting activity is rare these days as I go online. Thick skinned, I asked if I could have a listen to them. Frigg 02s and Icon 12s sang, I left with good impression and couldn't hold my enthusiasm to share my experience with my friend. Weeks later, me and my friend revisited Frigg 02s and Icon 12s. We listened to for two hours on that afternoon and neither one of us are a horn lover. 

Ø Audio Icon 12s

My friend was fresh from the recent Jacky Cheung concert, I played a Jacky's number to see if it connects. "This incredibly resembling the sound of a concert!" my intuition spoke to me. What taken me by surprise is the midband magic, an uncommon trait from horn design loudspeakers. My friend commented the sound was big and lively with effortless dynamism. Icon 12s threw a spooky room filling sound unlike any loudspeaker. Jacky Chueng's voice came through a palpable image, with a believable ambiance, cheering, coughing and crowd interactions. In your face effect was evident with nearfield, on axis listening or both. The sound was laid upon a healthy bass foundation. I have fallen to its bass, apart from the coherency. I'm critical of the natural midband, Icon 12s demonstrated a relax midrange as opposed to the tight midrange of 6.5" midwoofer driver.

Moving on to Rebecca Pidgeon's Spanish Harlem, her voice through Icon 12s was articulate, not as delineated as its cousin, Frigg 02s. Icon 12s' highs were not as silky and airy comparably. Not as etched or refined. The midband magic reappeared again. Icon 12s are kind of like Vincent Van Gogh broader stroke of painting, carefree and lifelikeness. The marry between the compression tweeter-midwoofer was admirable. 

Next up, big Chinese orchestral pieces. This is where 12" woofer prowess came to life. The drums were well extended, these woofers get a lot of air moving. The music flows naturally. We hit the volume that shook the entire showroom glasses. Holy mackerel! Icon 12s present a relatively small package to me belie what they were capable of. They were well engineered. Listening is believing. I'd be happy to bring them home if I have the room for them and live happily ever after.

On a last note, I'd say these are not for the audio enthusiasts who want highly revealing transducers. On the contrary, forget about audio mumbo jumbo they are made for the music lover. I'm a new convert.

Shaking head in disbelief

Today's sound, errr..... is over clinical for my taste. While audio enthusiasts welcome the promise of new technologies as we always believe it is a betterment, we want technologies to serve the music. While most audio enthusiasts seek higher fidelity, they lose sight of musicality and how music should sound.  Woodwind with rosin flavor, brass with metallic-ness, strings with silkiness and percussion with grandeur, you get what I mean. Voices are more complicated due to complexity and diversity but we can almost identify its rightness if you are familiar with the piece. Emotional connection is hard to explain and it is very individual. For instance, I played Elvis Presley to an individual, he wasn't moved.

Let me bring down to you, transparency when it is overdone, voice becomes thin and flat. What happens is tone and texture are somewhat watered down. We are listening to soul-less hi-fi fireworks, not music. You will be hard pressed not to be amazed by the resolution on first listening, the overwhelming micro-detail, the openness, the transparency and what not that led you to think higher order of sound. This is sound, not music. Worst is tempered dynamics, music loses its electricity. The drag kills the music. Ok, recordings are to share the blame for the compression. There is no turning back once you heard real dynamisms.

Good sound is about realism and when you listen to it, it never cast any doubts that you are listening to a playback.  

Noises are, to me, a part of realism as long it is not standing waves. Far too often, people behind the recording add or remove this. However, total absence of noise is the primary desire and goal of audio enthusiast, a dire want. They damp the room in hope to listen more but the truth is they pawn away soundstage. The argument of wanting to listen to what is being recorded is a castle in the air because you don't really know what is on the it in the first place. I'm not in this school of thought, I want the pleasure listening to music but never losing sight of tone, texture and dynamics. I must make this very clear because some take this to the other extreme with sugar coated sound.

Lastly, build your system to your music library. Forget about one system fits all because it doesn't. 

My relection

Doc said "Rest, you will be out for at least three weeks." This is a blow to me, to feel helpless losing my mobility. Every stride meets with a sharp pain; I realized that my knee starts to show its age. Hence, the thought of penning.... my reflection on audio.

Audio is my passion. Looking back, my passion spans more than three decades with some intermittent breaks. But what I want to stress is that number of years has no bearing in audio capability, but the depth of trying things out. These senseless and crazy things your peers ridiculed and laugh at you. Feeling jaded now, admittedly, the day of crazy tweaking is now behind me. I have had my share of success. At the end of the day, you learn what work and what not, and thus solutions to alleviate problems in most situations. At one glance of the system, I know where to work is needed.

While audio upgrade is the quick fix, for most part, it mitigates the problems. You learn about respective house sound. Further spending leads to a vicious cycle of doubts and anxiety as it introduces a new set of problems, until the day you find your senses. Perfect sound never exists, and good sound does not cost a lot. 

Sound is like water. It is formless, it has power. Tone and dynamics are your first audio commandment, hands down. A system that doesn't do tone is a failed system nor another boom box. But no, many audiophiles have funny idea of sound derive from their creativity likewise a painter who uses colors at his will. Things get worst from there when they judge others from their narrow perspective when both could not agree to disagree. For instance, the mischievous noble sound as they coined, with unheard of silky highs with astounding clarity. Inviting as it may get, many falls for this attribute. The question I would ask if this level of silky highs real or a fabricated sound. Let's check the gain and loss, the mids and upper bass is thinned out for the sake this protrusion. While it may get away with classical and jazz music, pop music will sound ... unfulfilling and unrealistic. Lean meat without the adequate fat.

Henceforth, without steadfast clench on righteous sound, you will be a headless chicken. Soon enough, frustrated and quit. I ask of you not to take my words lightly; filter and digest them to decide their worthiness.