A dreamy sound

Hey, hey, hey.... Boy! Am I having a good run of good luck or not? Counting the minutes until my tone wood arrived, to be honest, this is the extension of AGS. Right away, I moved them into my room and by the way there're no less than 5 tone wood, each to nail specific issue. 

These tone woods are specifically to enhance sustain, to add some shades of glittering to my already a bit dark sound. Just want a little extension in the highs, it will a great help. No back breaking maneuver moving heavy equipment, this ageing body can't take any punishment. And so, experimenting them with some placements which I will not bore you with the details, within minutes, no break in time, to my ear to my system and to my room only, they astonished me.

For the most part, the taste of rosin on the strings captured me. Holy moly, this is a jackpot. The sillage of rosin is most evident with the gentle descending low note. An essence and rarely found for strings lovers. With it, the strings convey more emotions, with a greater depth of tone to be reckon with. Surreal.

Secondly, these tone woods introduce air. With air, come sustain, come space with improved imaging. My objective is met. They enrich vibrancy my piano playback which posts a very challenging task. My attendance to Makato Ozone fabulous live performance on a Steinway's and son grand concert piano serves me a good check and balance. Bravo to his brilliant virtuosity, awesome. I'm happy with my piano playback.

Thirdly, the drag of my sound is offloaded. PPP to FFF  with ease, carrying little murkiness that we sometimes perceive as body. With that out of the way, the sound is lighter, speedier and more transparent. This is more than I bargained for, thank you very much. My sound punches way more above its weight. A sub RM100k system has no right to sound like this! I have proven that acoustics is the undisputed kingpin.

Seriously, my playback is now at in a state of dreamy sound I don't have a reason to complain.

A turn of event

Helplessly, I'm still drumming fingers for my tweaking materials. I'm not a patient person. 

Hanging tight, I can't sit still doing nothing. Though idling about all day my, mind is active. When passion is concern, work becomes a joy. Win some, lose some, it's a norm. Three steps forward, two steps back, as I take tweaking up to next level, hence, my nick charlatan. To those who can hear, they call me a magician. Two sides of the same coin.

Hate it or love it, room acoustics is a subject people taken lightly, definitely subpar to equipment. A deep-seated affinity of tangibility that things we can see and touch has a greater impact, for sure. The matter-of-fact acoustics is a boring subject, serving as a complementary role to a greater thing. Any system that doesn't leverage on acoustics will be mediocre at its best. Nothing comes from nothing, real results demand real actions. Your sound will speak for itself. 

Good sound is never easy peasy. Make matter worse if you don't have a room. Windows, asymmetrical walls, corridor, openings, decorated paster ceiling work against you, what will be will be. If my attention is drawn to fluency and flow of music, it's now on specificity.

My recent audio undertaking uncovers the drag I never know exist. I refined the focus of the imaging. My violin is now sensational on this unexpected turn of event with a small tweak, by incident. My highs gain the featheriness, an uncommon trait. As opposed to dark and roundish, I bag the very much welcomed swiftness. Overall, this brings forth a more detailed and lightweight presentation. I also noticed the upshift of tonal balance, it works well with my darker sound. 

I can't explain how this inconspicuous tweak work, a cut back on comb filter effect came to my mind. Miraculous on the bass, the woolliness is now a thing of the past. The sound exhibits skeletal architecture layering upon the existing analogue-ness. Voices for instance, more see through quality on hitting the high note with more facial depiction. And piano, steely notes shine through, sharp and discrete, nimble and quick with the improved resolution. Captivating. 

Heads over heels, this old man is going strong.

After the excitement settles

Helloooo... there! The high is gradually subsiding; it's ought to come. The bright side is I'm on a higher ground never before, the not so bright side is continued optimization. At the time of this posting, my stuff has already on its way to my home. This will not be revolutionary, to me, a self-fulfillment. I'm in my own race. One race with only me in the race.

It's all started with if I could have a little more sustain. This is not difficult for me, I know exactly where is broken and what I need to patch. Incidentally, over a conversation with my inner circle, some are itchy wanting to clone AGS and they have gotten the taste of its goodness. AGS inventor mummed when asked what wood is used. Anyway, their project is still on the drawing board, they don't know that I already have had them, six of them in my listening room. And I used hardwood. Ok, I leak my secret. I had ordered some tonewood to compliment my AGS copy.

So, I'm not joking when I say everything in your listening room and how you place them influence the sound. Things like most people will ignore, the door, especially the flimsy one. This one is definitely inimical. And windows.... are cancerous. And the type of settee and its form factor.... not even mentioning the distance your settee from the central of loudspeakers. In addition to inch by inch toward and backward listening out for the optimum sound? Or by convenience. This is laborious but if you considered it's trivial, everyone has his opinion on sound but let us talk about something else.

When music plays in my room, words become superfluous, at least to me. Obviously, you cannot learn sound without listening. Similarly, you cannot learn to play a music instrument without playing it. Sound is not one size fits all given we hear differently. But sound does have a standard. You listen to philharmonic sound, at the most, you will talk about the hall whether the hall granted the warm sound and et cetera. If you talk about the conducting, then I'd listen to you attentively. But you say live philharmonic sound is less stellar than the sound of your system, I'd have total disregard for you, you have gone too far down the rabbit hole. Excuse me, the philharmonic sound is what our systems strive to replicate, and none succeed. 110dB in a philharmonic hall doesn't cause ringing but tinnitus in a listening room, all hell breaks loose.

Musicality is my primary objective and I know some placed very little value on musicality. Instead, they prioritize resolution to be technicality and politically correct. Less loss is so divine. Well, I'm not going near to argue. On the contrary, I wanted a sound infused with a soul even though it might sound a little colored. Warmth is important. When resolution hits the roof, you will have to give up warmth and midbass. Midbass masks clarity. Without midbass, you're basically giving up pops, jazz and blues. There is no two ways about it. 

The other very important element of sound is continuity. This is the very reason vinyl captures the hearts of many, vinyl doesn't produce super resolution, it draws you to music. Hyper resolution naturally draws you away. Resolution itself is addictive and a trending, unfortunately.