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. 

A new dawn has come

Gee... it has been so long since my last posting. Time flies when you're really having fun. My procrastination is to be blamed as well. I write for fun, not for money. Many audiophiles out there are looking for the next big thing, they are largely out of my reach I must admit, unfortunately. Talking about making ends meet, that's my problem. 

The audio industry needs consumers to drive innovations. Covid pandemic for the past two years had pulled the handbrake on the audio industry, everything becomes a standstill. Without a sizeable sale, the audio innovation will die. The industry needs money to go around for innovations and developments. I know most audiophiles are concerned with the price-performance ratio, they love the high price-performance products but it's out of the question in the absolute high-end audio, you pay for the performance. Being the best is staying on top of the game. Please, keep your value and judgement to yourself given every audiophile doesn't start at the same point, at the same playing field, sonic preference and whatnot. High-end audio doesn't need all that negativity. Some can afford better things in life, some cannot. Hello, reality. A comment that without a good conscience is outright ill-minded. The relentless contempt against the high-end audiophiles by the lower end audiophiles is crazy, do you have to? Audiophiles couldn't agree upon sound is nothing new, controversy is a way of life more so in the audio community. Nothing good to say, stuff food in your mouth. 

For a long time, consumerism has taught us that high prices correlate directly to high quality. We have grown to accept it as a norm. Apart from luxurious brands, rarity, the difficulty of production, the use of exotic materials also drives the prices up, not something made up that take you for a ride. Merit is the way to go. The ever steep pricing of modern high-end equipment keeps audiophiles complaining, anyway, since when do audiophiles cease complaining? High price or low price, they complain, it's a habit. I have seen a person who complains just about everything, he would have wished that he wasn't brought to the world. I foresee audioing will soon be a luxurious passion in several years to come given the dying of the middle class. This partly explains the booming of the pre-owned equipment market. The other reason, kiam siap (unwilling to pay). If new equipment is priced out of your reach, it wasn't meant for you, the end of the story. Wait, grab them in a few years time in the pre-owned equipment market. Timing is an issue, mental is another, the devil in you couldn't resist too good a deal to pass up that derails your course of system building, eventually.

There are many ways to skin a cat. One does very little with his system set up or overdo. The devil is in the detail, I do a little too much for the anticipated butterfly effect. Continuous optimization is the key to good sound, how little wrong you commit, tireless adjustments and corrections, many good things you have going on or in any other combination that brings about the sound quality. It's the journey, not the destination, man. A progressive upgrade deepens your knowledge. To take a shot at the top at a go? You might not even be sure of what you what. Audio accessories like isolation cones, plinth and rack are bell and whistle? I don't see the point of the heated scientific against empirical evidence discussion, empirical evidence is good enough for me. Scientific measurements cost money, do you prepared to pay? A consistent repeated result on every single application is the fundamental of science.

Mistakes are inevitable, don't let that be the reason that makes you give up. Be open-minded. Mistakes promote improvements, taking you to places. A big part of mistakes comes from making hypothetical assumptions because we think we are smart and in fact, we are lazy. A high-end system owner, a better audiophile? A techie, a better audiophile? An audio dealer, a better audiophile? A reviewer, a better audiophile? A noisy audiophile, a better audiophile? I wouldn't bet on them. Stop assuming, go listen to his system and take it from there.

Audio is a personal endeavour, a personal fulfilment, a personal statement. You do your audio thing, set your personal tone, mind your own business, cherish different sounds. Sound is the last word in audio, technology is the way to get there. Going into topology, components and the circuitry layout, this is the art of voicing by carefully selecting components through relentless listening. Though the components are measured by the voltage, microfarad and operating temperature, each of them sounds different on its account. They impart a sound of their own, thing becomes more complicated when a different mix of components adds up under the hood. Don't judge a book by its cover. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense that the manufacturer streamlines and narrow the number of inventory while on the opposing end, the artisan uses a variety of components to voice his sound. Some take pride in their products, take things further by making their own components, audiophiles appreciate this.

Form follows function is the design gold standard, this is very true with speaker building. You want a tube sound, accept its downsides, go tubes, do not let its downsides deter you from it. If solid-state is your thing, go all the way. A design that mimics either character will end up neither here nor there. It's my belief that every audiophile to develop his own unique brand of sound, bear in mind that there's no perfect system, period. Each system has its pronounced strength and weaknesses, you focus on further invigorating your strength to stamp your system's uniqueness. Let's say vocal is your forte, an achievement if your fellow audiophiles regard your vocal playback as a system to beat. Dynamic, transparency, silkiness, soundstage, bass and likewise, these are some of the areas your system can stamp your system. Moving on, your system can also be instrument centric. Be it piano reproduction, drums, sax, chorale and et cetera, any system capable of one of these will shine. Less is more. 

Tone-colour as defined by Oxford is the property that distinguishes the sound of a continuous tone played on two different musical instruments or sung by two different voices at the same pitch and intensity should not be the subject of judgement. Look, the man likes what he likes, our opinions have no bearing on his preference. It's him, his money spent who will live with his system, not you. Please don't play God, the master of the universe, you're not. Tonality is the commonly accepted point of reference. The sound of a poorly and well-designed driver illustrates my point. In this regard, high price offerings always trounce low price offerings. Thankfully there's a consensus about good sound (tonality and timbre) that most mature audiophiles could agree upon. I couldn't stress audio maturity enough. 

Media today is a powerful instrument than ever in the cyberage we are in. Young adults absorb everything the media published without scrutiny is worrying, they continue on with their sharing on social media like wildfire. Media with an implicit vested interest or agenda, lending itself a mouthpiece or propaganda for a certain individual or party often time is heavily biased. We must all guard ourselves against bad media, repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. Journalism etiquette is pretty much thrown out of the window, we are now left with only a handful of credible media. Boring headlines will not attract eyeballs what more the world today is about readership and followers, the hardworking newsmen and the social influentials are rewarded for their readership and followers. Readers must exercise their due diligence to avoid being a victim of bad media.

It's always a great learning opportunity to visit an audiophile, I give those do little systems a pass. Naturally, an audiophile's approach to sound derives from his past experiences and the influences of fellow audiophiles. We regard an individual as an expert for his in-depth insights into a field of study that we could learn a thing or two from him. The equipment guy will resort to equipment upgrade as the primary remediation, the cable guy with his cable deployment, the speaker positioning guy with speaker repositioning, while the acoustics guy, does everything. Naturally, the more exposed he gets, the more complete an audiophile.

YL Audio

Big sound, the enormous lateral and depth of sound-field is a real treat courtesy by a big system in a big room. Nope, can't deliver big sound without either of the two. Intuitively, James' system takes me away. By the way, I was listening to the demanding Carmina Burana not many systems can pull off if you want to know. Holographic and effortlessness were my immediate impression, I'm happy for him for he has come so far. Without dedication and resources, it will not be possible. Five years the least gets him to where he is today. 

Talking about the next big thing, this guy has gotten two. His red-hot Kronos Discovery and Echole Infinity after some time of break-ins have finally shown their true worth this time. I've been listening to this system in and out a couple times but didn't have the urge to post until now. What's a transformation! Wow! This is a real man system. A new dawn has come. Long story short, the tonality is more flesh out, denser, more substance and with more authority this time by a significant margin. Incredibly, the sonic voids in his room have mostly vanished, the sound fills up the room thoroughly. To elaborate, some systems can sound loud but never really fill the room, with noticeable sonic voids, let alone an enveloping effect with hardly anything behind the seat, the gradual fading. His timbre has largely remained identical with the micro-level detail retrieval moved up a few notches, so was his palpability. Thereness. It's a calculated risk for him to upgrade his system by moving up to the top echelon of the product line up within the brands. 

24 Nov 2018

Together (Kronos, Absolare and Echole) as a package, the sound that evening was penetrating, far-reaching (if you have experienced the power of live soprano to know what I'm talking about, we have listened to the sensational Carmina Burana live by Petronas Philharmonic Orchestra downtown, the best ever chorale from PPO in my opinion) and yet with ease, an impossible feat I never thought attainable. I just don't know how one could resist the mighty Kronos Discovery if he's an avid turntable guy. Kronos Discovery has taken up the shortcomings and improved upon Kronos Pro, it's the turntable to beat. All basis of turntable designs focuses on the cartridge to pick up only the mechanical vibrations from the vinyl groove. A dedicated rack is Kronos's answer to the challenge, going a great distance to minimize the unwanted vibes from top to toe. Vibration is energy, you cannot kill energy. This doesn't require a scientist to figure things out while others opt for mass to reduce vibration. In addition, the attribution of SPCS shouldn't be disregarded, I sensed more drive in the music, drive makes music exciting. What we have here is a turntable, phono stage and racking in a single package, making life easy leaving the analogue front end to Kronos with only amplification and speaker for you to have a crack on.

The flagship Echole Infinity banking on the proprietary metallurgy of silver, gold and palladium in a greater diameter opens yet another galactic dimension of sound. Never sounds harsh and forceful, it was gentle with the music. James has an almost full Echole Infinity loom, this guy's passion is unparalleled. From Omnia, LE to Infinity, I heard his cable progression and never ceased to amaze how far we could push the sound boundary. It's mind-blowing, so with the hefty cost of ownership. I perceived an escalating resolution and fidelity with every step up in the cable lineup. The conductor is the lifeline of a system I know many are saving some bucks here. Get rid of the bottlenecks, not create a bigger one. Get an Echole cable loan, just one cable in your system, you will know what I mean. Neutrality is non-existent, Echole is not neutral so does any other offerings in the market. Its tone colour tilts ever so slightly to the yang side but the silky highs and ethereality, not bright, brittle or glassy, not anything like a chill wind blows at your neck with low-quality silver cables. Enough said. This system stands out with big music. Oh man, turn off the lights, with only the glow of the tubes as ambient light, put the needle in the groove, let my hair down, turn off my analytical mind, what a great way to spend an evening away. I left his house with a stirred soul. 

That's it, folks. Till I write again if I will. Stay safe, Gold bless. Happy new year, may this year be a good year for you. 

How much of that knowledge you acquired put to use for livelihood? How much of audio knowledge you learned apply to your system? Reading audio knowledge merely for academic, don't want to look like a fool in a conversation? Building a presumption and top it up with assumptions, a fake guru in the making. I'm a steadfast proponent of practicality, a practitioner, I get my hands dirty. Thank you. 

The thing with the measurements, I don't need them. To me, measurements are a great protocol to ensure quality in the production but not anything outside of that. For one, frequency response conveys very little on tone quality and phase. Two-way speaker, three-way speaker, concentric speaker, open baffle speaker, panel speakers, even respective frequency response looks the same, they fail to convey the difference. Come on, you can do better than that. 

Playing loud unveils room acoustic shortcomings. Mayday mayday, the siren is heard, your audio in limbo. Two situations you don't want to find yourself in, either the amp is running out of juice, the noisy room or both. Upgrading to a more powerful amp is easy, swipe your credit card. Stop being naughty for a year, you just made your wife a happy woman seeing her hubby home every night. Room acoustics on the other hand is a totally different animal, you have no clue where to begin. Room acoustic solution is very much trial and error, cross your fingers hoping everything goes fine. You know what? In most cases, there'll a trade-off. If room treatment means nothing to you, try listening in an untreated room, your high-end system doesn't sound all that great for what it asked.

I dug deep in room acoustics, experimenting with things you wouldn't ever think of. I'm doing this purely for self-actualization. I care less of how gung ho your equipment some vow the gateway to high fidelity, only a well-treated room delivers pristine and clean sound, a decent system should at least realize this. A system in a living room or awkward room, I'm sorry to break this to you, the sound is not good enough regardless of the equipment. Yes, I'm critical. I've now gotten to a stage where my room noise still at bay cranking the volume, tempting me to step on it, to go louder. No, I don't have a single piece of absorptive panel in my room but technically, time delay. Absorption is toxic, they impede the life of music like you never know, acoustically death. If the room adds a tad of liveliness, I embrace it. Trying to eliminate room induced airiness is a puerile task, raising more questions about when to stop.

The latest affirmations of my work on a system come from not one, not two but four fellow audiophiles. The new resolution, they showed me a hole on their face. How could the little unassuming objects improve sound so dramatically? Make no sense I know, the truth is in the listening. If you choose to believe in measurements and reject hearing, you've no business in audio. Rarely I tune other's system unless close friend. At almost zero cost, I used whatever I can lay my hand on. To be honest, there's more to be done but I just stopped there. Speaker positioning alone, many don't get passed speaker positioning. While many endorse the rule of the third or the fifth, I don't. What's this? An engineering or rational generalization? Applicable to all speakers? Think before you answer. It's like a 10%, 15% or 20% cable allotment rationale. The ultimate speaker placement depends on how much you leverage on room gain, we listen to direct and reflected sound for goodness sake. Don't rationalize sound.

Every room poses different room modes requiring different tuning approaches. Listening is the first line of tuning. If you can't detect the subtle changes in sound, your sonic road ends here. Pack up and go. Now you see, the showroom decorated room has no sonic merit particularly those pre-decorated rooms,  they were pre-tuned, look good and presumed to sound good. I'm not going to lie, even my room isn't 100% after rigorously tuned. 

Why do we always see audio discussions ended up with long faces, I blame the exposure. The big boys will tell you have not even played enough with high-end stuff to know what you really talking about while the lower fi boys say you don't spend insane money to attain the sound. Both parties standby their argument, unfortunately, there's no middle ground. 

I don't deny the goodness of technology. Technology is what keep audio going on. Is technology matters? Of course, it matters. The improved parts have largely accounted for the improvement in sound. Everything is down to implementation and execution. To be on top of the game, in my opinion, one requires the mind of an artisan because equipment voicing is very subjective. Anything and everything that has got to with human is subjective, isn't it right? By repetition, you accumulate experience even though electrical and electronic is not your speciality, you want to grasp as much knowledge as you can. I never say audio a cheap adventure as with any other passions. Passion is the single element that drives us to achieve a greater thing and therefore passion gets us going, we're driven to learning. 

Conclusively, the sound is a personal preference but then again we all know how realistic sound is like. I wouldn't want an imaginative sound that unreal. Hence, I want my system to take all genre of music until my system runs out of juice, my system limitation. That's ok. The middle of the road sound. Not hard to come across a system skewed towards one extreme and fare poorly on the other music genre, a picky system is not what I have in mind since I listen to many music genres.

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.

Seize your moment

Just when audiophiles care very much about the brand and where their equipment is made, this stigma is cast in stone in the back of Asian audiophile mindset. Western audiophiles are more receptive in this regard, they get directly to the sound to see the true worth. Come on, talents are everywhere. I can't stress enough on the value proposition. Everything has a price, there's a point where a willing seller and willing buyer meets. Unless you're under a desperate situation, like a kidney transplant, something like that. You're left with no choice!

Things are taking a twist in Asia, audio is more than audio. Face is a part of audio when a status symbol is a concern. Don't have a million in the bank, I'm sorry, my thinking probably is different until I make my first bucket of gold. Sigh! It's still nowhere in sight.

Audio has not been and will not be a viable investment tool, that's final. As with all things, there're some exceptions. Look around, there are better investment opportunities out there you can take a plunge into and make a quick buck, highly liquid in case you decide to dispose of your investments. High risk, high gain, if that's your risk appetite. There's no Rolex in audio. Want a Rolex? Go buy a Rolex, buy the sport models because they hold value well. In spite of all that, I can't help echoing "Seize your moment of musical pleasure while your ears still serving you faithfully", your hearing progressively deteriorates over time. What's gone is forever gone. I don't know about you, I love having sound in the background.

The issue of skyrocketing prices of audio equipment is pretty much covered by Stereophile. It's overhead driven, the survival of an enterprise depends on profitability. The market shrunk, the decline in sales, the bottom line is in red. Overhead is uncovered, the company will eventually go bust. Second-hand market booms but it'll be shortlived because the spending on new equipment stops, so will the second-hand equipment supply. The rising living cost is real, it chips away the audio budget, high fidelity slowly becomes a luxurious hobby. For the riches are getting richer, they're not affected in any way. You see, it's better for the manufacturers to move up their product line to upmarket where the market is.

"Buy why what pleases you" is a common phenomenon in audio consumerism, further fueled by a plethora of different sounding products. The danger lies in the pairing. You buy a source because it syncs to your belief, so are the amp and the speaker, kaboom! You thin you score a system, a consequential mismatch awaits. Everybody hears differently. Given the performance is constant, comes individual audibility, then what? Do we do compensation on our listening deficiency by having a hand in our sound? Food for thought.

The question remains which do you serve first, music or your interest? Are you over tangling your sound to resort to a cult of your own? The fact remained to be seen, most audiophiles fall into the sensual camp of sound, camping in pleasing sound camp. Going forward, they all come with the predetermined sound in their head. Naturally, they go to the stores to find something that matches their wants. A change of mind flashes if you played the right track, a track that he is emotionally attached to. The longer he stays in the store, the more likely he will be preconditioned into something different from what he initially wants. In this case, he's serving own interest than music. It does enough to change his course of mind over time, if he doesn't buy, the seed is planted in the mind at the least. He will bring that experience back into his dream, he will come back. An experienced dealer will quickly read his body language.

Never in my mind, branding itself is an imposing factor. The dealers have a less convincing task to sell mainstream equipment. They sell by themselves. The manufacturers know it. Then comes the order commitment. They will look out for the next dealer if the existing dealer didn't achieve what it's expected of. Much like a luxurious watch, branding rides above all things. When a tagline says a watch is the only men's jewellery, that my friends, is a powerful marketing propaganda. Women have tons of things to accessorise themselves, men don't. Since it's the only men's jewellery, the thought of spending a little more for your watch is perfectly acceptable.

With little regard to tonal accuracy and no cross-reference what so ever, you bank on the pedigree of the manufacturer. However, you still remained unlearned about tonal accuracy. Hyper detail, wide frequency bandwidth and ability to play loud without compression, these are a wishlist of audiophiles. What's missing? Don't disregard the recording engineer's hand in the sonic editorial. Regrettably, organic, transparency, articulation, transient and openness are not in their sonic checklist. These in my opinion ride above the former traits. If these are not important to you, I must congratulate you because you are free of audio agony. Live your life happy. You don't spend crazy money on audio to live miserably as an audiophile. As a genuine audiophile, we live and sleep thinking of ways and means to improve our sound, not to mention pawning our family trip for audio. Women, housewives, in particular, they're happy because their man stays home at night. Sounds like me! Going forward, I couldn't stress enough the emphasis of "well-proportionated", once the balance is achieved, everything falls into place. Even a novice can tell.

As with a good orchestra, the key lies in the balance too. If "well-proportionated" is taken care of, you have your tonal accuracy work cuts half. I say this because of your room acoustics and even as some consider setup skill is inconsequential, these are the last straw that breaks the camel's back. It isn't an isolated case where a world-class system is ruined by poor set up skill. If someone comes up to tell me that he has more than 50 years of high-end equipment under his belt, fuyoh. Dear friends, how's your sound, you need to convince me of the sound your system produces, not your expensive toys.

Knowing what to listen is important. A respectable audio guru has already coined it as listening intelligence. I couldn't agree more. To clear things up, I'm not in audio business. I sell nothing in audio. I hold back making an enthusiastic recommendation, I'd not like you to be liable for my words. And you decide to listen to others' opinion, the risk is all yours. Don't blame them for a wrong purchasing decision, blame yourself instead. Adios.

Castle in the air

When I decide to write, I didn't want to write something common, boring, me-too nor to please anyone. It just not my style. Not just another review, please, the world isn't short of reviews of this sort. Succumb to no pressure, I write what pleases me. I want to write something brutally honest that soul-stirring, to self-reflect. Leave if you can't take it.

Foolish pride, I can't help taking a swipe at people's over-assertiveness. It is in sound we compete, not anything else. It is in the sound we compete, not a tastefully designed room. It is in the sound we compete, not state of the art equipment. It is in sound and sound alone we judge and determine which system is a nose ahead. If you can't get over equipment paranoia that you believe equipment and equipment alone will bring home glory, consumerism will eat you alive. You will end up with a closet full of equipment and still long for the perfect equipment. Castle in the air, I got to tell you here we have no shared value here. On hindsight, audioing is about you stringing equipment, cables and room acoustics together to produce a sound, that satisfies your musical sensual and of the highest fidelity you can. The sound of our system is, without a single doubt, up to the player to lose. Ignorance tops the rank, heading in the wrong direction. Not only the sound doesn't measure up in tandem to the cost of the system, but it also sounds like no other, nothing like what we all accustomed to. Why is it difficult to find a good sounding system? Some say the know don't have the money. Not entirely wrong though, I got to say. What more, no system sounds alike, that's the hard fact.

A friend gave me a tinkle says my recent FB posting on seniority and competency was stirring the hornet's nest. You know what they say about the parable of ginger. The older it gets, the more pungent it gets, corresponding to the older you get, the wiser you become. My argument; does one puts the time to good use or just merely passing time. A lacklustre effort is as good as hot air, seniority is hollow but another meaningless number. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that. What more with disparagement, to my dazzlement you're assassinating your character openly. Pretty stupid thing if you asked me. On the contrary, a person with compassion gets a lot of respects from me. Always be mindful, be self-less and wary of your actions that may affect others in a bad way, I keep reminding myself.

Not hard to notice that audiophiles are generally not pragmatic and unbelievably self-opinionated. For instance, I got snubbed for sharing a live performance experience, I was told so and so performance is better. Instead of confronting head to head, I went on to do research on reputable and reliable sites and my findings concluded that his mentioned artist isn't well regarded for that particular repertoire. Isn't that sounds a little too familiar? Has he listened enough to draw a conclusion? I think not. Furthermore, listening live and playback represents two different standards, what more I listened live from a perfect spot. I regular live performance that I know which seat to get. I get the goosebumps listening live every single time, not so with playback. For playback, recording quality weigh in here.

With a little short of 30 years in this hobby, I must admit the last few years of work has been more educational and productive than my first 20 years combined. What can I say, it is my learning curve. Wasted time and money in the early years, I am now in a better position to figure the audio jigsaw out. By constantly asking why, what, where and how confronting issuance, I reduce my chances of taking a wrong turn. Time and time, you addressed a problem, you have one less problem.

So, trying to make up for the lost time, I need to double effort. To learn quick, I need to be a sharpshooter. Relying on people for spoon feeding will be too slow, furthermore, people might not want to teach stuff. Roll up your sleeves, go on an on the job training. You get the hang of it before long. System scrutiny is my habit to determine the secrets of good sound. Most audio secrets are laid out in the open, I will decode and employ it on my system. Common sense sadly some have little, a little too little, answers most of the questions. What I have learned, I inclined to add a twist of my own things to it. And that's not enough, I expand and explore it to develop new applications. As of today, I got some tweaks I can proudly claim that they are original (not shared out openly). Most tweaks are a zero-sum game and as always with some exceptions, some tweaks you never figure their magic, I take them as it is anyway.

I know this sounds arrogant, a picture tells a system a lot, coming from experience. However, video clips are far from the truth since it is your device that is playing, your device electronic, your device speakers. Even on the same performance, on the same seating, the audiences perceive different sound since the performance remains a constant. Even the pro guys don't listen the same way. So, what do we have here, an opening to a diversity of sound? It corresponds to sound equipment with a vast diversity of sound in the marketplace. The irony is audiophiles could immediately recognize sonic colouration, a call for multilateralism perhaps?

A better audiophile

I want to get this off my chest, I'm a player, not a politician. Neither do I affiliate with any audio dealers nor any interest group. My main and only concern is pushing the limit of my system, doing my favourite things, that's all.

I'm going to tell you that audiophile top topics don't get much away from the reproduction of sound and the value proposition. We are spoil for choice and yes we do. Because we don't have a deep pocket, we can't have all but right down to make our choice that best serve us. For the rich, no time wasted and go straight after SOTA equipment. End of the story. But for the most of us, a high value is coveted and struggles to absorb high diminishing value. There are, some of us, in pursuit of pleasing sound that altogether a different topic. I'd like to make myself clear that I'm not an advocator of high priced audio that built on marketing perception.

Not resting on my laurel, I put up the sound up against live performance. It's the best reference I know, you can't go wrong with it. With a caveat, I'm well aware of the sound during the recording session differs from live performance but the premise is to produce the natural and believable sound. I simply cannot get past a fake sound or to expect an accurate sound from the playback. How could you know the discrepancy? Just how could you? Not many have the privilege of being presence during the recording session. I'm biting a bullet to admit the idea of accurate sound is flawed and unsubstantiated, a belief I once hold steadfast to. OK, shoot me!

The end justifies the means is the key to unlocking the sound/value of the system in most of the occasions. For instance, a high-end amp and a set of cheapo cables don't serve each other that well. At the end of the day, we must ask how real does it get. Similarly, take-home pay that undermines our spending power and the freedom where you want to spend it on. Furthermore, I don't see how you can allocate equal budget on audio component, one-third budget to the source, amp and speaker respectively.

If the measure of success is peace of mind, then, the measure of sound is how it moves you. A system evokes your emotions is a better system? Not so fast, partially correct. If only you know the truth of timbre, a struggle to convince myself of the sound is not a good sounding system. It isn't what it is! A luscious sound, sweeter and smoother than thou is liken to portrait over-editing, presents an unnatural hue of sound. It isn't what it is!

Not having my chip on my shoulder, my system responds to my tweaking fascinates me. Therein lies an opportunity that I could kind of reconcile my sound to a realistic sound, that's something to get excited about; a sound artisan. I feel great in self-realization. It drives me crazy hours of fine tuning and listening. My inspirations come from everywhere, it has become a world of my own. Keeping the worldliness of troubles and worries out, just me and my sound.

I found great joy in fine tuning, realizing the truth value of the audio components. Every cloud has a silver lining, wrong turns are inevitable. Time and time again, I found myself ditching the sound detrimental tweaks, reset and settle on a new matrix of tweaking. Am I going on a wild goose chase, I hope I'm not. Time will tell. Right at this moment, I'm at a place in my life right now feeling contented. Sound first before music, I confessed with reluctance but the distinction becomes blurred at times when the magic of music prevails, the sound takes the backseat. It has become less of the bother, draws no attention to itself.

Let's not be fooled by our conscious, all audiophiles are sound first. By that I mean they're critical with how the sound. And when an audiophile has done his time, he will appreciate the truth of timbre a little more. Being caught up with "the next big thing" has been a thing of the past. The promise of technology to radically raise the bar of sound is behind me. Audio advancement is progressive. Plug and play? Weighing specs than listening is a plain ignorance. Your mental block undermining the essence of fine-tuning.

Constraints, welcome to the world if you're not in the top 5%. Not only with a limited budget, a small room to boot, these are what I have to contend with. I shouldn't complain too much knowing some don't even have room to play. On the other side of the fence, I know some build their room to a golden ratio from the ground up. Sweet. Does it negate the need for room treatment? I guess not.

Small room renders a small soundstage, compromised bass extension and loudness limitation, that's the hard fact. No electronics can reverse these shortcomings, don't count on DSP. To some, DSP is cancerous. Notwithstanding, small room rewards you differently. Interestingly, near-field listening is a natural choice (in a small room). You capture the most direct sound, words, pure, detail and intimate.

Nonetheless, the inseparable time delay of direct and reflected sound in a small room takes a toll on the clarity of the sound. Standing waves masks clarity. To get good sound, combating standing waves becomes a primary vocation. Your sound reflects your approach with your acoustics. On the other hand, big boys with big room confront a different type of problems, yearning for bigger amps, bigger speakers and subwoofers to room filled with sound. Standing waves are not deluded either. For the sake of room-shaking sound, think big, they couldn't energise the room as effortless as do small room could. Big speakers are lazy by nature, they need volume to wake up from sleeping mode, particularly the bass drivers. To resolve this issue, an active bass driver gets the unanimous nod of approval.

However, loudness could be a nuisance because some music doesn't require to play loud. Space constraint in a small room is definitely adding insult to injury. Excessive loudness invites distortions and promotes tinnitus, the ringing in the ears potentially induces hearing loss over a period of time. Multidriver speakers better tasked to coupe with high SPL and minimise distortions because the workload is well distributed. It is all well and good but the design invites another problem; coherency. The talent of the designer is determined by his work on the crossover design. I believe that every system performs optimally at a magic volume where all drivers sing in perfect harmony. Beyond the volume, you know that the sound begins to go bizarre, namely the harden highs and incoherency. To cut the chase, I opined that a flawless 40Hz to 10kHz frequency range makes or breaks music integrity. Do not mess around with it.

Small room enjoys two clear advantages, power by leveraging on the room reinforcement, a 6dB gain and lesser distortions from playing softer. The sound receives a smidge thickening, courtesy of room colouration. Serious attention is required to counter this ill effect via a compensation order.

Presence, texture and intimacy. Presence is the "tangible-ability" of sound while the texture is the conveyance of the truth of timbre. Intimacy is the agent of emotional evocation. Small room did it a little better than a big room in regard to "reach out and touch" devoid of distanced sound as with big room. Intimacy develops a sound that speaks to the heart. For most of the audiophiles, they are sold on a system that does well on intimacy, they care less about the accuracy of sound reproduction.

Apart from intimacy, the dire enveloping effect is on every audiophile wish list. Small room does this in spades. Imagine submerged in a musical capsule at a greater scale. Intoxicating! You will be misled to into a larger room though the physical room accord an otherwise cognitive dissonance. In a vast musical landscape, you are treated with a sanctuary of musical realm. Picture this, an Atmos Dolby effect from a 2 channel system, cool. If there's anything big room couldn't produce, big room produces scale. If that doesn't excite you, I can't see any reasons you want a big system in a big room. Money talks, to hit fortissimo effortlessly serving rock and classical music without compression.

In reality, a system is judged by the court of public opinion. Even black can be ruled as white if the public thinks so, that's the tyranny of the majority. Live with it or isolate yourself from the audio society. In sound reproduction, our heart must be won over first. Room acoustics may prove to be the most difficult aspect of audio, not so. You will get the hang of it as time goes by. Start working on first reflection points, you'll be ended up a better audiophile. Cheers.

Happy days

Happy days are eats well, sleeps well. Oh my God, sounds like a pig except for you know, being the butchered part. Happy days are everything goes according to plan. No surprises, I don't like surprises. Surprises give me the uncertainty, my heart isn't strong to take the shocks. Happy days are you're in good health. You're free from sickness and you're agile. You lose health, you lose everything in life. Long life without health is a torture. All hard earned money, years of saving goes to medical treatment, just like that. It's ok if you're treated, what if you aren't. Commercial hospitals have been known to milk the patients dry. Happy days are a happy marriage, to co-exist under the one roof.

Happy days are you have attained the desired sound for you had been working on it for so long. Tears of joy. I asked myself to describe my dream sound, specifically. I'm sorry (for you) if you couldn't make your description because chances are you either don't know or self-deceiving. And I don't pick the description from the air, I got inspired by the unamplified sound of classical music.

Thereafter, I go down to fine-tuning. I opined that two aspects (of sound) will irk you, there're highs, specifically lower treble and bass around 60 to100Hz. The former shouts at you while the latter smears the critical mids.

I'm going to touch on the lower treble today. Reaping the benefits from my classical music exposure, the highs from the real thing possess that feathery lightness and godspeed immediacy. They never sounded heavy and draggy. Sadly, this exquisite quality has been eluded me either I wasn't aware of it or I was caught up in other aspects of sound. In light of this awakening, I wasted no time to work on it.

Firstly, I revisited the tweaks that work for me well in the past, took them down and listened critically. True as I suspected, some of them attenuated the echo, nevertheless, they also sucked the life out of the music. They staged unnatural highs with a degree of curtailment. Out they go. I tuned it with a carefully selected precious wood. These wood are hard to come by, they enhanced the ambience beautifully. The sound was delightfully light, I tried them at a few positions and settled down.

On to the crunch test, I played Best of Kokua Festival by Jack Johnson and Friends under Bushfire Records. This is a fantastic live recording, the recording quality is commendable; sounded as natural as can be. Wonderful airspace audible around the guitar, the playing is nimble, the plucking is snappy but what's more enticing is the quality of the highs, I get the sense of relaxed and absolute freedom. The tones last with an extended decay of hundreds of millisecond.

To affirm to my findings, I pop in Maria Joao Pires plays Frederic Chopin Nocturnes under DG Records, this is considered a reference recording by many critics I soon understand why. She plays them with an unbelievable sense of sensuality and lightness. Again, I heard the piano notes exhibiting a similar relaxed and free quality I got from the earlier CD. It renders the realism of piano I wouldn't dare to dream of a couple months ago. Her rendition of Chopin affords a cognitive room to reflect the feelings and the moods so driven by the composition. I'm beginning to understand the critics' approval of The Poet of the piano, a style so sharply contrasts to Franz List which a rivalry at the time between both pianists.

In tandem with the highs rejuvenation, I noticed that the soundstage in lateral, width and height dimensional noticeably expanded on the highly popular George Bizet's Habanera, a beloved aria from Carmen opera. I have grown to love Grace Bumbry, the American African mezzo-soprano flirting. She has a creamy grain-free voice to boot. The sound has flanked both speakers caught me unprepared for it. With the expanded width, the spatial localisation has never been more "stand alone" to allow blooming, a magnificent air surrounding an object. We know that the singing, strings, brass and woodwinds exhibit the exhaling characteristics that give that distinctive airiness. Audibly, singing and woodwinds present a more point source properties. In addition, the backstage was also lighted up to present a sizeable performance stage making an opera a wonderful aural treat.

I know an idiotic audiophile who uses movie sound effects to calibrate the sound of his system. At one point, cranked a cello play at 100dB and guess what, distortions. I know my lines. His sarcasm doesn't reflect himself an educated individual, I carry no balls because my livelihood doesn't depend on him. His recent attack on me, shooting down others' opinions of all sorts. Can you believe it? Even Mr Trump, the most powerful man on earth listens to his advisors and think tank. I have caught him self-contradictory in many occasions, like seeking out opinions from his buddies and dealers. He seems to have all the answers to hardware, he knows it all. If not getting opinions from others, how the hell he knows if he hasn't owned them, what do you think? Your guess is as good as mine.

The irony of the situation, the visitors recognise my works on his system during a home audition. That's my not opinion anyway. As he proves to be funny with me, I challenged him to remove all my tweaks from his system if he has that little dignity in him to do so. In actual fact, I doubt that he will. Shame on him. He who knows who I'm talking about feels the pinch. My works there generate no profit so to speak of, for a friend sake. When a grape turns sour, you throw it into a dustbin. As wealthy as he is, a person who makes big money, took him three months to pay three hundred ringgit for my tweaks.

Therefore, take my advice, stop being a good sport. High-end system gets to pay more, that's how it should be. Because these people take thing for granted. Appreciative? Think again. I hold back giving out the secrets of my tweaks. Those who know me know my character. Don't do it for free, if you want to, get them pay for your intellectual works or otherwise don't bother. They wouldn't have called you if they know. Make them spend, it helps the retail industry anyway.

Recording format

You sow what you plant pretty sums up everything in audio. Your attention to power and cabling will be highly rewarded in the quality of playback, most audiophiles will not go the extra mile after power and acoustics, they stop short at the media dynamic compression that hampers the joy of listening.

An uncompressed media is all worthwhile. I go afar that the reissue is a pain in the neck. If care is not taken to obtain the uncompressed media, you stand to lose the detail of the recording. No matter what you do, you will never recover what is lost in the signal. Burnt copy from an original copy is cheap but suffer a loss of detail, of course, if you care about the quality of playback. Thus, it is worth your effort to search for the uncompressed particularly those tracks you're emotionally connected to.

Often, I'm caught in a dilemma between performance and recording. On one hand, I wanted a good performance, but on the other hand, I wanted a clean and natural recording. But if push comes to shove, the performance will come on top. It's a love-hate thing. Granted, there are quite a significant number of good performance, poor recording particularly classical recordings in the early era.

Chinese recordings? Unnaturally equalised, with a noticeable boost in the lower treble to highlight presence and details. This has lent me to assume that this trick would work great on the low-resolution systems on the mediocre system, given their relatively low income per capita. However, this will throw off the balance of the sound and if you used these recording to tune your system, your system stands to go terribly wrong. The other issue I often encounter with the recordings, the western recordings are not excluded, are the phase issue. This is something the recording industry has to do a little more on standardizations, phase and loudness where some recordings are way over to top in loudness while others went to opposite polar. In addition, we, the listener is being screwed with the loudness war since the early 90s. Wiki explains that modern recordings that use extreme dynamic range compression and other measures to increase loudness, therefore, can sacrifice sound quality to loudness. The extreme dynamic and details have been clipped. See the video below.

This is the ugly side of digitals. Take a look at http://dr.loudness-war.info, key in your search album. Take Michael Jackson's Thriller, for example, the world's best selling album by a far margin. It recorded 47.3 million copies sold worldwide. http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=michael+jackson&album=thriller shows that the list of reissues of horrible dynamic compression indicated with red and yellow ratings. Vinyl of the same title is superior. So, do your check before you buy even though some claimed that some remastered vinyl is better than first pressing vinyl.

The tone is all that much better if the digital recording is done with AAD or ADD, I could discern the difference. A is the acronym for Analog and D is digital. The first alphabet represents the master format, mixing format follows and the last is digital transfer. Modern recordings now are digitally recorded due to low cost and irony that we, the audiophiles on the receiving end trying to squeeze every musical information out from the recording.

In general, it is so easy to be misled that the same-titled CDs produce an identical sound, it is not. Just key in your favourite artist and album title, you will see the result. Ironically, see what Wiki says "Despite the lower dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratios a vinyl or tape record can achieve in theory (>60-80 dB versus 90-96 dB for CD recordings), vinyl records may still be preferred for their greater dynamic. 

We are being screwed for the promise of new technologies time and time again. The audio industry is constantly looking for new growth to reap a profit. Vinyl had returned, R2R has returned, CD transport has returned, what say you?

Getting to the bottom of it

Readers love to read stories with flair of writing, top stories like new state of the art (SOTA), the typical A vs B bout, David versus Goliath and a new component breaking new ground are a seller. These stories underlines audio consumerism, consistently sending a message your audio system is not good enough. Fanning audio fantasies, one upgrade after another opening cans of worms. This is not what you'll get here, I'm done with all that.

I approach audio from overall system package, the intelligence of putting up a system and acoustic solutions, how little sonic anomalies. Paying attention to details. Your efforts will bring your system to its true value.

Optimisation of sound is the essence of the game. This has since been my endeavor after my attainment of system synergy. No such thing as drop in replacement. Audio in many occasions abides to the principle of "here and there", you add here by subtracting from somewhere. Extending upper frequency extreme, the sound becomes lightweight. Doing the opposite, the sound becomes heavy. Protruding the lower mids will add warmth, protruding the lower treble will intensify the sense of space. This is textbook. Beware, sonic attractiveness is always blinding. When in doubt, go back to basic, tonal balance. This is where experience comes handy, hasten upgrade should be keep at bay.

I know there are folks who resist to tweaking, preferring neat looking system. And often, a room with amber space don't sound good. Well, what ever makes them happy. Any system regardless of price benefits from tweaking, that's my opinion. Mind you, over-tweaking is neither a good thing. I'm reluctant to show you my room for one obvious reason, controversial tweaking. Even my audio components don't line up straight, but unorthodoxly zig zag. The sound profoundly improved. Sight can in many ways form a preconception. Never a good thing. My one and only merit is sonic performance and sonic performance alone.

There are tool to help you on audio course liken compass to sea voyager expeditions. Establish a reference before tweaking. Unamplified classical music is the best there is as reference. Many like to use personal favorite CDs as reference in which the idea isn't a good one unless you have participated the recording process. You know too little about the sound during the recording. Don't pawn away your tonal accuracy. Each instrument carries a distinctive sound to it. It is those signatures we want to hear.

The day you aren't managed to nail down tonal accuracy, high fidelity is still very much implausible. Texture deficiency follows. They don't sound anything at all but restricted to personal liking. Under these circumstances, the system will arguably go down well with audio folks. The pricier the system attracts harsher critic. It's just human nature. Go out and hear the real thing if you are serious with your system.

DIY products are mostly at the mercy of going off track without a control sample. Reputable manufacturers are using competitors' products to keep check on its tonal balance. Calibrate your system once, you are good to run your victory lap.

Unamplified music

Gustav Mahler quotes "If a composer could say what he had to say in words, he would not bother saying it in music". Words sometimes do seem inadequate. When a chick addresses a thirty years old "Hello! uncle", he might feel a sense of maturity but to a fifty years old, dudes, it sounds like an old hog. Take a hike, uncle. Unless the old hog riding a Ferrari, ha ha ha... 

Worry not. There is no end to worries. We all should live life by the day, blessing Lord for each new day. The thought came to me that I should go get a ticket to Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO), with or without buddies. I picked up the phone and book my ticket. My distance to MPO is manageable and I don't have to put up a night in the city the least. I could hit home in 45 minutes after the show. No sweat.

MPO is a world class auditorium designed by Cesar Pelli. You will be greeted by the majestic of the hall upon entering. Wow! The lushness of Asian hardwood decorated the hall, wooden hard floor, the majestic of the pipes, tall ceiling, hidden diffusers and the circular lighting mimicking the stars of the universe is the highlight of the hall. The hall air ventilation is also noteworthy, quiet as a mouse. Pictures paints a thousand words, need I say more? The seats are showing signs of wear though. All in all, this is one acoustically very good hall.

"A superb 885-seat shoebox-shaped auditorium, it has a 2,997 pipe Klais concert organ with 44 stop tracker action and a state-of-the-art recording studio designed in Britain by Abbey Road Studios. The hall has two large rehearsal rooms, a third for section rehearsals, eleven individual practice rooms, two suites for conductors, a dressing room for the orchestra leader, two for soloists, and provision for ensembles". John Robert Brown.

Mahler Symphony Nine, conducted by Yoel Gamzou. He is a young conductor specializes in Mahler's works. The dramatic performance with romantic ending, the performance under his baton lasted approximately ninety minutes. I couldn't comment how good his performance but would agree it was a good performance. Yoel's music background was impressive and perhaps will get better with age. All conductors do. My ears were served with a great variety of timbre goodness, my cognitive was busy impregnating the experience in my tired brain. Not before long, my memory was full. It is a tiring endeavour performing long critical listening. Used to complain why with all the coughing, I couldn't resist the itchy throat as well! I was wore down and submitted to the kaleidoscope of sound. Quite an ear "bashing" when great variety of instrument plays simultaneously and consequentially at the peak of drama. Well, not to the extreme of discotheque though. When the music pause, deafening silence follows, the kind of silence like you are exhaling your last breath.

Third row center seat, approximately ten feet from the stage, this a close emulation of near-field listening in my room. Not to be self fulfilling, I got to admit my system could not come close to emulate the atmospheric details. There is a whole lot of information missing! If there is one word I may want to use, sterile. Of course, front three rows tickets are cheap. Constant looking up to the stage contributes to sore neck. You got to pay for better seats. Furthermore, no full visual of the orchestra particularly, woodwinds and percussion sections. You do get a good look at the conductor's back, the hysterical intensity. The orchestra members maintain a close watch on the whipping of his baton, little do I know, his baton now regulates the pressure of my bloodstream too.

A couple of things become apparent upon comparison. First, dynamics is on a whim without hesitation. Accelerate and stop liken road runner, bing bing. This is where most box speakers failed miserably. Hello horn speakers, you don't get any impeccable rise time other than horns. Timing is without question spot on. Secondly, the priceless effortless. It comes only with large diameter driver. Thirdly, overhang bass. Ill-designed boxed speaker and room acoustics are largely account for these. A great amount of turbulence generated inside the speaker box in dire straits, self regulating the air pressure. Seal box designed speakers control the aggression of driver excursion in the expense of sensitivity. A good amount of power is necessary to move the high Qts driver to produce weightier sound. Bad room acoustics aggravate the problem. All box designed speakers exhibit bass overhang to some degree, period. The best bass I heard is from open baffle speaker!  Open baffle speaker bass comes really close to the real thing in this regard. Box-less designed speakers in nature will not have to deal with box induced colourations.

Next, the unparalleled directness of sound, "in yer face" is how audio community says it. This directness diminishes in correspond to the distance from the stage, somewhat homogenized from row thirteen onward, premium seats. You get full view from premium seats in which they also charge you premium for the seats. I now know which row I wanted to be seated.

Lastly, harmonic purity. Without amplification and minimum room influence, harmonic is presented in its truest form. In my humble view, I break harmonic down to two namely, harmonic hue and density. These two virtues fundamentally responsible for tonality. I couldn't help some recollections flashes in my mind, some speakers innately sounded overly rich and denser than reality and vice versa. Most home speakers are tuned to be ear pleasing, anyway.

Watching and listening concurrently brings forth information explosion where your two primary sensors are working their ass off feeding information to the brain. Your brain may caught in buffering mode. Your attention most likely moving around all sections, you could barely cover the orchestra on certain passages. The experience differs from listening playback through a system, you simply let your imagination go wild. MPO, thanks for the experience, I will return for more for the musical extravaganza.

音响の母 - 基音

"Seek, ye shall find" a borrowed quote from the Holy Bible. We must always take efforts to make ourselves happy, legitimately. Come on, you live only once. Don't let life brings you down. I would care less if there is a life after death because you can't do anything about it. People die every day. Anyway, be nice to yourselves, and not worry too much about your children for they will have to make their living on their own like we do. Welcome to reality.

My neighbour renovation works, the drilling and the hacking have not been conducive for audio time. And the pollutants, dust and noise, I retreated to a sabbatical audio break, house cleaning, and some repair works whilst waiting for my audio purchases. The audioing time was spent on reading and researching, the mover and shaker, the latest buzz and knowledge to inject new thoughts. Audio makes me happy, so do readers here that what I like to believe.

How do you define good sound? Good Lord, you get many answers from audio pundits.

Some say honest reproduction, 360 degree dispersion emulating the real thing, I smell the dollar.
Some say sound to maintain in order when cranking the volume, it is a tough act.
Some say a communicative vocal reigns supreme, go get some tubes in here.
Some say a balanced system can ride any storms, I wish it will be easier.
Some say a border-less soundstage is captivating, nothing a big room could not do.
Some say awesome midbass rocks, a genuine treat. You don't have to be a punk.
Some say the relax presentation from vintage gear is priceless, a feeling of nostalgic sentiment. Old is gold?

System setting starts with bass. Build your house on the rock, does it rings your bell? 音响极至要紧的是扎稳基音; No bass, no glory. Bass is the foundation that the mids and highs rest upon, I couldn't agree more. Adequate bass quality and quantity forms the spine of the sound, a strong spine gets everything right. Do that, you have a special thing going on there. This is exemplary in great sounding audio.

Ironically, audio has become sort of religion. It has been said the number people die for religion is greater than World War I and II combined. Religion has zero tolerance. Locking in a confrontation, I'll flee away as I don't see the need to get caught in a spat. It doesn't build anyone up. Let's just agree to disagree, if not, stay in respective borders. Going further, I write my thought freely here because I own the space.

Snake out

The long awaited day had finally arrived, the day my room refills with music. Successively, my audio purchases had arrived at my doorstep, comprised of a pre, a cord and an interconnect. Their arrivals throw my mood to work out the window, I "snake" out naturally. Work can wait.

The acquired pre amp is identical to the loaned pre amp, no risk there. This is one hell of pre amp, transparent, fast, punchy, wide band and grippy notes. Though it has character, and which is not? It fits my sonic prescription, that's my enthusiasm.

Why would I need a power distribution since I have 16 wall outlets at my disposal? Noise rejection, the custom power distribution via its proprietary internal wiring suppresses the current pollutant effectively. I know this doesn't add up, each socket sounds a little different. This power distribution has been the maker's star product, customers have to bear a fairly long waiting time. I got mine early due to I'm a foreigner.

The cord that links the power distribution from the wall socket is the king maker. The downstream will be sonically "assimilated". I assigned my most neutral and most powerful cord there. The weight of this cord is substantial, ensuring good dose of conductivity goodness. The earlier cord is very musical albeit restricted bandwidth, with a mids to die for but didn't quite match the effortless and bass energies of the replacement cord.

To further streamline my system sonic prescription, I need also to weed out an interconnect which is deemed a hindrance, that happened to be the interconnect linking pre to power amp.  Zu Mission was called for duty in tandem with its bigger brother, Varial was called for duty at the upper chain. These are great interconnect, its performance worth every penny.

Coax out problem, really pik chek.

Though, the new pre amp and interconnect are far from break in. I can't wait to post my listening impression. I'm eager to know whether I'm on the right track and my investment payback. Sigh! The player coax out mishap prohibited my system from full strength. Hence, the following impression as it is without a DAC, I connected the player straight to the pre and power.

Sound impression
My bass has always been my Pioneer S1-EX based system Achilles' heel, I know. I singled out bass as the biggest challenge. The aramid and carbon layer driver cone needed some serious work out to sound its best, which usually takes a year or two for cones to loosen up. In my case, two and a half year! I was gentle with them. Lacking the necessary bass quantity tipped the tonal balance and DAC/pre was also blamed for lacklustre performance due to insufficient gain.

Amazing Wonder Board

Moving forward, the pre and the cord were instrumental, my bass has recouped some lost ground. A thought suddenly flashed through my mind, I rouse from my chair and rearranged the Wonder Boards. For a year, I had been figuring out how to capitalise Wonder Board for the results are less than staggering. It does seem that Wonder Board works well in a particular formation, and they have finally revealed a glimpse of magic that night. After industrious trials, depending on configurations, Wonder Boards shed profound effects on the highs, bass, imaging and soundstage. I think I have come up with a winning configuration. Throatiness has never been this clear and premature vocal softened tailings were remedied. The way Wonder Boards lock the images in space is mind boggling. I hope you still keep up with me. Wonder Board is a non-commercial item, I have reasons to believe that I am the only local who toy them. Peace.

Let's those with ears hear. The chewy and fluffy bass texture is a godsend. I discerned an increased in bass volume as if my bass drivers have grown in inch. The timid and shy bass in the past, it has now been given a new leash of life with more gravitas and effortless-ness. Voices also benefited from the cleaner bass, males voices with more body and never run out of breath whilst female with lesser chicken screeching delivery.

Started simple, I spun Alison Krauss's Now That I've Found You compilation. The mids is surprisingly good, low fat nothing like the full cream and rounded of a typical 300B. Yup, there is a presence of skeletal body which I think it is more correct.

Next up, Jackie Evancho's Dream With Me In Concert. Her angelical vocal was mesmerizing. Fluid and grain-less, like flowing honey. No problems there.

Playing Bernstein, Symphonic Dances from West Side Story from Allegretto to Molto Allegro, the gradual drama build up, ascending to the climax, finishing with the ferocious percussion. Fast, furious, clear, decisive, never draggy and no gluey notes, encore and curtain down. Thank you for coming out for the night.

On the well recorded noisy Jeff Buckley's Grace album, guitars and drums interplay took center stage. The kick drum through my system was well articulate, with plenty of body and air around the instrument. I was able to follow the actions. On noisy passages with heavy jamming, my system maintained composure. The drum skin resonance was clearly audible. "Hallelujah" is the hit recorded in this album, I like Jeff's rock expressiveness better than Leonard Cohen dark and melancholic rendition.

Last but not least, The Turtle Creek Chorale by Reference Recordings to wrap thing up. Wonderful recording, the chorale accorded a rich gothic-ness, somewhat dark and melancholic. I grasped the singing heads afloat in a spooky holographic time and space. The front to back projection is nice, layered, the sense of being enveloped has never been so real.

Conclusion
Though, the occasional presence of hardness and congestion are troubling. A clear sign of unbroken equipment and cable, nothing time can't cure. Bandwidth is widen. I have no doubt it will only get better with time, my bet is paying off handsomely. Strangely, my system now sounded less hi-fish, sounded natural with no attention grabbing highs. I'd rather be good all round than be exceptional in an area or two. Return of investment is awesome, the sense of fulfilment has never been so satisfying.