Bottomless pit

 Audio is bottomless pit, hands down. Changes in taste, music genre, advancement in technology and the influence of your circle of audio peers among many are the primary reason for your financial loss. But all is not loss, you learn what is not working. At the same time, you want to share your progress, findings and excitement. I know your frustrations when your invitations meet silence, your peers are not showing any interest. 

Be careful of your audio peers, purge your toxic audio peers out. They seem to possess a philosopher's stone but they are no good for you. I regard them as Mr Know-It-All or Shin Kar Lan. If you are new, I suggest you to a music school to learn a musical instrument for the truth of timbre. That way, you will not be drifted by the waves of sound. But if you are too old to learn anything like me, go listen to philharmonic concert to grasp what real world sound is like instead of visiting audio stores meeting strangers of the same interest if you want to avoid the blind leading a blind. This is true when you are new into audio, you wanted to learn from the "guru" and there are many passionate gurus who would be happy to take you as a disciple. 

Strange that musicians do not listen like audio enthusiasts, they stress more on the emo and the flow. They can live with sonic crudity while audio enthusiast disgust even with slightest blemish. Similarly, the retro audio enthusiasts show more tolerance with imprecise sound. Me? I stand in between. 

I am amazed with streaming Youtube music through my LED TV, the voice is so smooth and devoid of edginess. On the other hand, the sound lacks dimension and ambiance, this I will not deny. I do not want to reinvent the wheel. 

A double edged sword

Imaging is synonymous with precision, I don't think it many will disagree. The spookiness of imaging is intoxicating, it is quietly changing the way we listen to music, perhaps the way we see music will be more appropriate. This is a quiet double-edged sword.

There is no denying that bookshelf loudspeakers beat big loudspeakers in this regard. On the downside, you will sense the missing textural properties, the necessary drive for the listening pleasure especially on pops and rock. 

Hence, the highs centric is the trending these days. It leads us to an analytical presentation and projects higher fidelity. Higher fidelity means atasness. Anything less spectacular in this regard will not be well received. This is a real problem with many audio enthusiasts, their perceptions derived from their cognitive beliefs. It is fascinating to learn from a professor that how people perceive/listen from their expectation. In audio, our sight has already predetermined the outcome that deriving from our past experiences and experimentation. What is your first thought seeing a plate of blue rice aka nasi kerabu? So, our mind has already predetermined before our other senses. It's a norm for Kelantanese, weird for non-Kelantanese.

This is a bad thing as we are at risk of missing the mark. To dig further, how good is your expectation? Does it build upon a solid foundation or personal subjectivity or past experience? The engineers can build speakers through measurements, the end product is acoustic energy. Coming from the mouth of an audio DIYer, it is easy to draw a schematic that works but it takes months to tune it right. Mathematically, input equals to output minus losses. The objective here is optimum output, for instance lower driver mechanical losses and inert enclosure. Where is the musicality? Is musicality itself is a subjective?

Flat frequency response

Measurements are king today, literally measuring flat frequency response in your room. An approach to eliminate the influence of the room with the assumption of your speakers measured flat frequency response. 

AI reveals that philharmonic halls are generally designed to have a perfectly flat frequency response, but for a balanced and natural acoustics. Philharmonic halls inclined to have a lift in low-mids for extra warmth citing philharmonic halls like Vienna Musikverein, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Boston Symphony Hall, they all share this character. Particularly with the latter where all famous RCA Living Stereo Recording are recorded in Boston Symphony Hall. AI further points out that flat frequency response leads to dry, less immersive, lacking warmth and bloom and poor orchestral blending. 

I had heard in-room flat frequency response and non-flat frequency response in a same system and same room. Absolutely neutrality or listening pleasure, kamu sendiri pilihlah.

 

Texture - the name of the game

Audio community in general accepts two systems approach, one for the voices and the other for instruments. A single system that does well on both is still far reaching. I don't know, maybe technology will one day able to realize this objective but for now, absolutely no. 

As what it is today with audio, I felt we were taken for a ride. Yes, another audio conspiracy. We have had this over and over again. At the meantime, I don't think that Hi Res is better sound. Be careful what you wish for. High resolution equates to high fidelity, it sounds nothing wrong, in fact it is logically correct. But there is a big but. Listen for yourself, the sound oozes colossus details but it sounds not quite right. The mids and lows sound like a drag to the highs, there are too many details that wears my brain down. Power is amiss, even the mids have power. I ended up distracted by the highs and suffered a listening fatigue over a prolonged listening.

I know, I know, organic sounds boring. It is righteous. Texture is king. Texture tells the skin of the substance, realism. It separates a Strad from the pack of violins, a Steinway & Son from the pack of pianos, voices and emotion. So, details are only skin deep. 

Secondly, today's sound demonstrates a clear distinction between highs, mids and lows, they work as a separate entity. Never sounding big. The ambitious goal of a mega system to reproduce a philharmonic sound is futile, I'm sorry. Otherwise, why bother with a mega system. As such, I love to attend philharmonic concert, to be mesmerized by the sound, a real-world sound. If I have to convert the sound to dollar and cent, priceless. This is the sound mega systems hope to attain but the performance gap is still huge. They may have attain the tone, the scale and the power is still mile apart. And this is the reference I compare when listening to mega systems, not by their price tag. You owe yourself a treat to listen to philharmonic sound if you're serious about sound. Not once in the blue moon, but on a periodic basis, we are easily accustomed to sound.

Let me break this to you. The most expensive a system get, the more skewed sound it arrives. Uniqueness sells, generalization doesn't. 

To measure a system by its price tag as most audio enthusiasts do is wrong. Audio enthusiasts often get carried away by high-endness. This is shallow. System synergy and acoustics play a bigger role than audio hardware. I don't go gung-ho with mega systems, I listen to them and judge how they sound. 

Without acoustic effort, your system is as good as a beautiful messy sound. You hear detail, you hear the mess as well, hand in hand. Improper acoustic applications land you a peculiar sound and this is a learning curve you will have to embark by your own. You will only get better (with acoustic) with time. The same with speaker placement. Keep working your system, you will eventually get to places.

Good sound is...

What is good sound? I have asked myself many times and on each period of time I came up with different realization, as audio progresses. New horizons accord new wisdom, I only have my naive to blame. Tonality, refinement, texture, dynamics, transparency, neutrality so on and so forth, you see, I was led by the media, reviews and audio gurus. 

Good sound to me on this day is about sound that moves you, the rest is irrelevant. Digging down, the absence of digital glare, restrained dynamics and pinpoint imaging, on digital playback, these are an outright impediment to good sound. Vinyl playback reigns king only with analogue recording, the digital recorded vinyl is sitting near to digital flavor. Furthermore, good vinyl playback is costly. It is me, value proposition is important unless you are top 1% income earner who care less about value but only the best. You buy the best system, the end of the story and let the rest envy.

Digital glare is a digital playback nightmare particularly on human voices, I can't stand the ear piercing with a metallic tailing sibilance. Taming this is priority number one. Restrained dynamics needless to say rob the life of music, the recording quality is part to be blame. Choose a dynamic sounding system, this is easy solution. Now, pinpoint imaging will be controversial. It often relates to small scale sound where everything is downsized. It will be pinpoint if you listened to big system.

The other quality should not go unnoticed is the ease of sound. Welcome to the realm of big drivers. You may now notice that big subwoofers are a part of the package fill the bottom void. Big scale is a lot of fun. The sonic fabric changes with the introduction of big subwoofers, how can one explain the expansive highs and the free-er mids given the segregation lower octaves? Anyone? The stretched sonic fabric nevertheless introduces anxiety.

Phase coherence too is another issue. Do you ever notice that most speakers with exotic tweeters inclined to "shout". They present a forwardness where the female voices are running ahead leaving her band behind. Not from the same fabric if I may put it this way though many are sworn by it.

The pursuant of sound

Vintage audio, I know many audio enthusiasts do not care much about for a sound, inoffensive and "nothing in it". I now eat humble pie. Things change when there is an adequate detail. Never deny physics, you will never win. Big drivers are capable to move a lot of air, effortlessly. They do it with such ease and produce a big sound that multiple smaller drivers never get close to. I am sorry, we are taken a ride by audio manufacturers suggesting narrow baffle with multiple smaller drivers to the task.

I learned about membrane material effect to the sound, lightweight, rigidity and damping, this matrix is complicated as they inversely correlated. Lightweight and rigidity introduce ringing that you and I would not like to hear. Overdamped hampers dynamics and detail. Slow and muddy, you and I neither like them too. There are many speaker design philosophies, measure perfect or pleasant sound have their followings, a fine line that separates both. Hence, loudspeakers are a compromised design, and they are the major influencing factor to the sound. Given the vast sonic diversity of speaker, the magnitude of the electronic and amplification sonic profile are much less varied. 

Decades into this passion, I have learned and walked away with some valuable lessons. Every audio enthusiast wanted his own signature sound, to be reckoned with. This is self-actualization. This explains audio enthusiasts' senseless audio spending. Sitting outside the fence, some wiser audio enthusiasts ridicule the audio madness, but most of their system sound not spectacular. 

Recording is the king maker if you agree with me. All recordings are not recorded equal. Therefore, no matter how you dislike a sound from who and who's system, there will always be some tracks their systems shine. The horn quirkiness for instance, no system can beat them on brass, similarly voices on tubes. No one system can do all things well. So, our music genre to decide what sound to build.

Kidlin's law says, if you can write your problem down clearly, the matter is half solved. Good sound is always about the acoustics a system sings in a particular room, regardless how good is your system. People mock me on my acoustics madness, I have the last laugh. No matter difficult room acoustics may be, you only have to do once. The only sacrifice is your room aesthetic. Look, you can't have a cake and not eat it, sound or aesthetic, you decide. 

Room acoustics relates to in-room reverberation time, semi anechoic room is not my thing. Technocrats want sound that emits from the speaker alone, this kind of sound only attainable from headphone, the end of the story. This is anti-nature. Sound in real world situation has some degree of reflection even in a philharmonic hall. They go on to argue that the reverberations are also captured in the recording, so we do not need the real-world reverberations. This argument is valid too but listening test tells a different story. What will happen if a system sings in an anechoic room? I have been in an anechoic room, you will get crazy. The lifelessness will drive you crazy, a great fear creeps in, psychoacoustics is one field less understood by many. Just like the sun, people in countries with less sunlight suffer depression.

Back to basics whenever you in doubt. I have exercised this many times. You want, at the end, a sound that is big and immersive. 

Wave Audio Show afterthought

Wave Audio Show 2025 has drawn its curtains, however, the number of the visitors and exhibitors, based on my observation has declined. The crowds are gone. It was a stark contrast to the famous Hong Kong High End show 2025 with record breaking number of visitor year after year. The loss of interest among the younger crowd, could this be the decline of audio? Audio needs newcomers to sustain the health of the industry. Is the economic hardship becoming burdensome? Or audio has priced themselves beyond the reach of the consumers? Even the familiar faces are not to be seen. Things are not all that bad because I see some affordable products too.

The highlight of the show was Marten Coltrane Quintet and Mingus Septet speakers. Every visitor wanted a sip of a RM4 million system, a system out of the reach of most audio enthusiasts, including me. I'm a cheap audio enthusiast, value proposition is important to me. Of course, how can I not mention the debut of Sonus Faber Amati Supreme with Nagra electronics. Sadly, I missed out the Audiovector Trapeze and Manger. 

The quality of the show overall is good. All rooms performed without severe acoustic issue. Resolution continues to be the trend of audio, with a touch of musicality. This is an improvement over the last few years with bright sound. 

My spouse tagged along with me to the show after a nice lunch. We spent as much time in each room whenever we possible to really "capture" the sound. She has good ears and favors tonality, purity and musicality. We agreed on many systems, but a system that clearly won our hearts is the Lumin-Phasemation-Devore Orangutan system. The tone was spot on though the bass was lightweight. 

T+A-Mofi V10 and Monitor Gold gets our vote too for its natural sound albeit thinner sound, I wish it could be a bit meatier. Praises to the Acoustic Energy, for a lively demeanor. Monitor Gold was good too. Now, the ones we disagreed is retro looking Vestlyd, ha ha ha. She thought it was not emotional but the bottom end won my heart. They stretched your money and they do music. 

It was nice to spend an afternoon to see what the market has to offer.

Metaphysics, ha!

So often audio enthusiasts slap something they don't understand and how it works, metaphysics. Doing so, they maintain killing two birds with one stone. Preserving a high degree of intelligence and hiding their knowledge gap. Nobody want to be looked unlearned, more so among the audio friends. Science always used for their defense. For instance, how a simple network cable can have a significant impact on sound, a convincing reply, anyone if you have gone through this path? 

Science works around with a few assumptions, sensibly and from some perspectives. There is a great possibility that some assumptions are missing the mark. Break through always come about thinking outside of the box. And unfortunately, engineers are too rigid thinking.

Science or snake oil, I care less. I reap the sonic benefits, enjoy the improvements and leave the debate opens to the scholars. I have no time for this. In short, there is so little audio enthusiasts understand about physics and what more relate it to acoustics. The first that come to the mind is speaker placement. Audio enthusiasts give the weird face when one claim he can hear 1mm deviation effect on the sound. A non-audio enthusiast heard it and guessed what will happen if you, a long-time audio enthusiast doesn't. Are you serious? Where to bury the face? 

Practice makes perfect, I found gold in this quote. You might be one time lucky, two time lucky, strike three? Very unlikely. Continuous trials and errors get you close to the sound you want to attain, talk is cheap.

Music or sound

I'll be honest, I never find favor in delta sigma digital conversation. Despite the superiority in dynamic range and resolution, my ears go with my heart. Once I heard a true 16 bits, there is no turning back. The wonderful texture and presence are priceless. In comparison, the texture of delta sigma is washed out, it has gone even worse on a higher oversampling rate. In this account, you are right that I'm biased since I mainly listen to redbook.

For Gen Z, they are brought up in the digital age. Everything, their lifestyle is computer related, work, social media, entertainment and online shopping. Everything is revolved on their fingertip. They are living in a higher pace than their parent and the world will only get faster. 

Music is feed by AI in accordance with your preference. No physical thing. 

Even then, something will never change. The quality of sound and the good old yesterday's taste, they stayed in your memory. The sound of vinyl still has its charm. 

My goal of my system is playing music, not resolution or sound because music resonates. The selling point of modern audio equates resolution to music, this is a big-time fallacy. And this probably the only selling point high-end audio is promoting. Theoretically, it makes perfect sense but in reality, this is something else. I once loaned a higher revealing cables to a friend, he returned back to me citing too many details to absorb, calling too much attention and inducing listening fatigue. OK, the modern recordings will have to share the blame too. There is another aspect of sound, psychoacoustics. Music listening at the finest hour is at the right music, at the time and at the right mood.

Don't be quick to point a gun at me, digest my thought and find if there any truth.

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.