Ray Of Sunshine

Time stands still. They told us to stay home until 14th Apr or locked behind bars. I'm socially responsible, doing my part of social distancing. Another two weeks to go and hopefully, it will not be further extended. I started to miss Klang Bak Kut Teh. Yes, it has got to be the authentic Klang Bak Kut Teh, not anywhere else. They just don't taste right, isn't sound share the similarity? With so much to spare, I'm bored to hell. From daybreak, I watch the time goes by. Lunch follows and a lazy afternoon nap, dinner, music time and hitting the sack, day in day out. Naturally, my mind can't turn away from "What can I do to make my sound better?". Good sound is my core value. Coronavirus and audio virus makes double jeopardy, I need masks and audio ideas.

My wife works from home since the order, she turns the house into a war zone. Busy phone calls and paper rush, I think twice before I turn up the volume of my system. Stress arises when you don't get what you wanted to do. To confront head-on, it's down to things going whose way, one party will have to give in. Men always give in, don't they? That's why liquor and friends are men's best friend, two glasses down the throat and with companies, tension gone just like that. How I wish life back to normal.

So, I learned that some have got good results on shielding fabric. I responded, why not since it's not expensive. Order placed a few days into the "Stay at Home" order, even by air freight, the shipping time took two week time. Though it was a long wait, I'm not a patient man. Anyhow, I'm glad to receive my parcel given a difficult time like this, these courier guys risk their health doing their job. Salute.

My shielding fabric is feathery light in the form of thin lamination of nickel and copper on PET sheet. PET is the kind of plastic making 1.5-litre soda drink bottles. Technically speaking, it's a piece of engineering plastic sheet. It was developed for military use to fend off high-frequency interferences. Long before that, I knew the benefits of shielding. I have had wrapped copper foil on the power cord IEC male and female connector plugs, it provides a slightly quiet background. Nothing really to shout about. Anyway, most power cords are shielded. On certain occasions, braided interconnect without shielding, for example, noise self-cancelling without shielding sounds more open. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

To test what shielding fabric claims, I made calls to my handphone wrapped with shielding fabric, no call picked up, it worked. To hit the nail on its head, I had my eye on Power Bank, two units in my listening room. Judging by its weight, close to 40kg apiece, my educated guess is a 2kVA transformer inside. No rocket science, big transformers generate an enormous amount of radiofrequency, along with external telecommunication radio frequency, high-speed internet network, lightings and electronic devices, these are harmful to sound. The highspeed 5G network will be even severe, the radiowaves are even more rampant.

Now, taking the measurements and scissor works. Correct me if I'm wrong, radiofrequency radiates in all directions. No concrete walls can hold them back but distance and shielding. Covering all sides is ideal, I could manage only 5 sides. One thing is clear, radiofrequency doesn't discriminate. Precut the fabric to Frank Power Bank, no ventilation holes are closed, overheating is absolutely not what I have in mind.

Everything was nice and easy when no timeline, I've had a productive afternoon. A few hours system warm-up, anticipation builds up for the eventual evening to see if my efforts go to waste. Not one layer of shielding but two, I've had the respective power bank covered and subsequently the other power supply, I take no chances. One after one, CD player, buffer and lastly amplifier in a sequence is treated with shielding.

Listened to the same CD left in the tray yesterday, at the same volume, all variables were the same except the shielding. New against fresh yesterday impression, Wow! Wow! Wow! I was dumbfounded, my mind was blank. Thoughtless.

Slide the curtain and allow the morning sun to burst through the window, you see boundless dust particles in abundance doing the sundance. Get an air purifier, breathe in better air, you feel good. Similarly, the shielding fabric accords peaceful sound, free of electrical buzzes. An eerie moment that had me stunned. Words are inadequate, I have to say it takes a personal experience to apprehend. Flashed back to my friend's first-ever philharmonic attendance, he stole the line that evening with "The sound is free of electrical-ness". I wish to tell him I have got a similar state of serenity amidst the bustling city.

Now in the interest of many, what does free of electrical buzzes brings to the table? Lower noise floor, giving a boost in transparency department. The images all leapt forward. The sound has got less fuzzy. The clean top end nursed the woolliness, the edginess, nervousness, dry, brittle and fray that often occur towards the end of the note. I'm not sure if analogue-ness can be applied here, but one thing for sure, it has gotten less digital. No more frizzy hairs. So, guys who stay near to high tension cables will expose themselves to higher rate radiofrequency, your health and sound are under threat.

Snare drums, hit hat, sax and any other instruments with ascending frequency overtones predominantly, satisfying. Well extended. You know what, we're dealing with high-frequency noise, a form of harmonic distortions. The false bloom is one of the byproducts of high-frequency noise that has misled us as warmth. With high-frequency noise out of the way, the note is compact and densified that ushers articulate. It's not lean.

Ground box, ground cable and the shielding fabric, they contribute from their own perspectives, I couldn't have without them. I'm a ray of sunshine. The shielding fabric is the least expensive of the three is worth trying. Heartily recommended.

Free time

Effective 18th March, "Movement Restriction Order" comes full enforced. We are asked to stay home and not to social. We are allowed to leave the house for only essential goods and services. This order is to cripple the spread and not to stress the medical resources at a given time. I look at it as a price to avoid Corona virus, it's a cheap price to pay. But some have other thoughts. The liability is his or her alone, I'm fine with that. Spreading the virus, that's utterly irresponsible. It might lead to fatality and the loss of the loved ones. This is ignorance.

Nothing is worse than psychological impacts during this difficult time, the feeling of our freedom is taken away despite no shortage of food, entertainment and sleep. The halted business activities have nevertheless caused a strain on the breadwinners. Young stubborn adults have little to worry about, they wanted to go down the streets. Perhaps, you don't get to meet friends, go to your favourite restaurants and live a normal life is depressing. This is a time for reflection, a time for family bonding, a time to be with yourself for a good cause.

I turned my freed time to writing because it makes me thinking. To think about where I can go with my audio. Free time is the mother of all problems, transforming a thought to action. Great ideas come from this way. Now, I've received a new inspiration, I never run out of funny ideas. Placed my order and expect it to arrive within a week. You know what they say, no pain, no gain. We shall see.

Of listening intelligence, Kees Bakels conducts Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra 2005 recording reveals to me that MPO's string section is pale comparably to top orchestras. I don't hear the silkiness and those of others. But MPO has much improved from 2005, 15 years later. I admired Kees Bakels's masterful conducting, his imposing an iron grip on the orchestra. None of the loose and hollow organization I get from younger conductors, the eventful flow and concise content spells the calibre of the conductor's. I learn new things with each listening.

I must confess my guilt of misjudging old recordings. I thought they're undetailed. But it turns out it's my past incapable of producing more detail than desired. A good system can churn out a vast quantity of details out from old recordings. I like AAD and ADD recording format for the analogue-ness, the continuity of sound even in digital format. Detail is not everything. 

Many audiophiles love female voices, I found comfort in James Taylor, Don Williams, Elton John, Simon Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens and the likes. Their voices packed with emotions, it's their voices we listen, not songs. not sure if you agreed with me on this. Artists like Sting and Rod Stewart have a very recognizable voice, their die-hard fans follow them where ever they go. Very little surprises with their works, I mean their songs are rather similar in delivery. Expect no surprises.

    

A tiger or a cat?

I had a bowl of curry noodle for breakfast one morning. A meal that wake you up but as I grow older, I prefer something mild. Curry noodle is a twist of flavors, only in Malaysia and Singapore, I think. From India, comes curry powder while Chinese with their noodles, that you get when two mixed together. The rich culture of Malaysia gives thanks to the British who brought the Chinese and Indians in the early 19th century over here to work the mine and rubber plantation. Along with them, they brought their ethnicity and food, a cultural melting pot have come to pass. What exactly makes this bowl of delicacy different? A distinctive lemongrass aroma, going along with a rich and thick flavor. The best is relative. Its uniqueness draws patrons, likewise in audio too.

Every system is unique. I go as far to say you won't find two systems sounding identical. Hence, audio will never short of stories, gossip if you looked at the bad side. Without stories, the audio community will sick to death. Audiophiles like to express their individuality through sonic differentiation, let it be known of their taste. We love surprises, we long for surprises, we want to be surprised. One thing we ought to do, embrace sonic diversity even we may not like one's sound. Sonic homogeneity is a bad thing, thank goodness that's not happening.

Each listening opportunity offers implicit knowledge provided you know where and what to look for, period. Sometimes, the mistakes at the host's place give us the needed knock on the head that we should repeat the mistakes in our home turf. Time to reset, readjust and proceed. One ugly fact is that we sometimes undermine others via verbal or behavior unwittingly. My apology. To make your visit worthwhile, suck in new ideas and incorporates them into your system where you find fit. Ditch the stereotype of fault-finding mentality, uncalled self-esteem and big boy's attitude, you make yourself a bad name. Being tactful is score high in emotional quotient, you ought to know how to carry yourself. Integrity is doing the right thing even if no one is watching.

Confidence must have come from somewhere, mine comes from the efforts and time I devoted to my system. It is undeniable, high priced equipment possess a definite edge in sound quality, the devil is in the detail. Make your high priced equipment justified, they require a set of conditions to perform to its promise. For a start, pay attention to the interlink components, cables and resonance. Resonance is the devil to audio, no system will pull through. And my ears told me the right power cord does wonder to the sound. If you haven't look into this matter, procrastinate no more. What I derived from listening matters than what science trying to convince me otherwise, I care less what science says.

I know of no other ways to attain audio excellence than a series of refinements through critical listening, it helps to be a little creative. My exploration has been seeking the best synergy, power, acoustics and resonance, and of late EMI reduction in that particular order. I might show a sign of jaded, but the progress is never halted. An audio visit, a good one can instantly fire up my enthusiasm.

The EMI effects on sound is pronounceable, it introduces mask, muddy, fog and et cetera. The revelation comes only upon an execution. I have fought my acoustic uphill battle, time and time again, my new implementations dumbfounded me. Not until the addition of ground box, my system's transparency started to shows its fangs.

Often, transparency is misrepresented by leanness, lightweight and brittleness of which is obviously not the case. The half past six reviewers and the users share the blame for the fallacy. We used to listen to some hot shots with high-end system and take what they say without a second thought. time has passed, we have got wiser. In my view, transparency is better experienced than explained by attending a live unamplified music event at a close range. Word is inadequate. Attack, bite, lightness, decay, realism and etc are bundled in a low noise floor package. Transparency is a good thing, I can't have enough of it in my system. Absolute transparency is heaven. Seriously, this is a reality, not fiction and not something made up. Your job at least, to go find out. In our playback, I know the recording as a variable but don't let it becomes a hindrance. Too many doubts invite negativity. You stayed put with grand excuses.

Noise in the form of distortion shut out transparency. It can come from the equipment, power or the room. Now you know the stumbling blocks, get to work. You do what is necessary, transparency has its way to shine through.

The grid noise is a bad thing. There is no shortage of power filtration products in the market, don't you just love capitalism? They heard you. Grid noise asides, EMI imposes a lot of damages. I got to tell you, Schnerzinger Room Protector in one demo, blew me away. Dollar per dollar, the money on this thing makes more sound that high-end equipment! A pin drop is discernible, everything is laid bare before you. The detail comes so effortlessly as if you don't have to look out for it. A window of music has opened. An event like this casts a long-lasting impression. I tried to understand what Room Protector does what it does. It has lightened my idea light bulb, perhaps, this line of work would improve my transparency. Never try, never know. Seeking refuge in shielding, ground box and grounding wire, the sound improves at a various degree respectively. Not until the addition of some crystals, quite a lot of them, my transparency raises to new height. You bet I'm delighted.

To illustrate, take Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall, it is a fantastic live recording. Organic came into my mind, a proprietary of one take recording that maintain the music intact. Same music fabric, no stitching and joining. The performance is great and the sound equally is electrifying. The improved transparency accorded an abundance of nuances and air, so much more things heard. In audio terminology, more is better than less. His voice is husky and not smoothed, permeates through the noise from the crowd. The realistic depictions of drums and guitars, the crowd interactions have come together to conjure a "thereness". It was as if I was transported to the venue. I was spooked.

On Joshua Bell with the academy Saint Martins in-the-field, conducted by Neville Marriner under Decca record, the sound of the violin stands out as a powered instrument. The glorious sound of Stradivari was further enhanced through the f-holes radiation, to give a penetrative sound that cuts through the air with commanding authority. The superlative high beat sound of Stradivari was phenomenon. Tone purity comes forward, the virtuosity of Bell lingers on in my head. I caved into the finest hour of musical realm. Hear it to believe. No, my system could not come close to the live sound phenomenon. But I figure my resolution (of my system) is no slouch, not overly tone make-up and bleaching. On the other two accounts, density and edge delineation, transparency explicit them in a grand way. Warm sound does not correlate to density, another common fallacy, it could be of "loose cotton", coarse and murmured while edge delineation shows none of the broad brushwork.

You can't separate the twins, transparency and spatiality, one way or the other. Spatiality introduces air around the images, the private space of respective images. No cramped stage, no suffocation, entering an enormous depth, width and height of the soundscape the recording has in store. The breathing of vocalist captivates every audiophile, even the non-audiophiles. On choral works, spatiality defines the meaning of grandiose (of the choral), especially in lateral and height dimension. Big sound is magically intriguing, an element that pulls you into the music.

A tiger or a cat? A tiger from the system hardware perspective, a cat in delivery or vice versa. I would go as far to say transparency is the single element that spells the quality across the entire bandwidth, it mercilessly highlights system fault too. The other being the effortlessness. A double edged sword. Handle with care.

Right angles

The largely unexpected rain brought forth a cooler climate, it has always been freaking warm around this time of the year in the past. The heat is annoying and I can't remember the last wet new year. The true spirit of the lunar new year is in the villages. Lunar new year reunites the family members from afar over a reunion dinner, it strengthens family ties. Sadly, this traditional custom is slowly eroded among the younger generations due to job commitments. Their livelihood is at stake, and the Chinese are the pragmatic ethnic. Spending a few days in hometown is ok, any more days you will be begging to return to the city. Fortunately, I'm a local and don't have to spend the time crawling on the congested expressway getting home like the rest. 

With free time to spare after the spring cleaning, I took a long hard look at my room. An idea flashed into my mind and wonder why it didn't occur to me earlier - addressing more right angles. Intolerant of patience, I wasted no time to get my hands on the problems. Having dealt with the room acoustics in the past, I have my doubts on DSP preserving the signal integrity. You just can't get away with bad acoustics. Makes little sense paying so much attentions to hardware and disregarding room acoustics. From what I have gathered, room acoustics is equally important if not the most important element in the sound reproduction. I thump my chest that your sound is as good as your room acoustics. I had addressed 95% of right angles in my room, the remaining is negligible. The ceiling, the floor, the walls and even the heat sinks, all had been duly treated. I give no excuses.

A wise one says you reap what you sow. Time for truth, let's hear what my room treatment had installed. The first grasp of the sounds, refreshing, clean and stretch free. Promising signs! "Violin Showpieces" under RCA recording label requires no further introduction, is highly sought after. Erick Friedman, the American-born violinist's virtuosity is highly commendable. The box resonance travels through the f-holes resembles horn amplification. Apart from the start-stop, his violin artistry stirs the soul. His bowing techniques share the similarities with the likes of Jascha Heifetz and Ruggiero Ricci is magnificent. The articulate and preciseness on the strings is as good as it gets. Hearing the sheen A and E notes, Erick Friedman's bowing was as visible as in broad daylight. If your string turns rope, vocal with added chestiness, time to reexamine your room acoustics. Do not misconceive the pseudo warmth from the in-room rumbles as natural warmth.

Transparency is the synonym of the sound of the twenty-first century. The thinning is noticeable, there are areas you can look at getting around the minor setback. A careful selection of hardware and cables should suffice to maintain a bodied texture. Miles Davis's sharp notes serve a good illustration, his trumpet renders a fairly excruciating but lean texture. It sounds musically correct, it should be brassy. His trumpet overtones open to a new dimension of space in the sound field, this chills. My sonic lens is cleaned, I could see greater musical insights through it. 

Beethoven's most romantic work, Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral" 5th movement in music lingo tells the serenity reappears after the storm had subsided. The coda paints the tranquility of the countryside with quiet pauses in between the passage and down to the whispering wind of my air conditioning unit, the lessened in-room rumbles are telling. The battle is not over until you hear the interactions and see the grandiose of a full orchestra. You will not look back once you attain the realization of left to right and front to back sound field. My effort pays a handsome dividend.

Elgar Meyer's brilliance could not be contained. His compositions, in any variations or forms, broke out of the classicism. Unlike Yo-Yo Ma, Mstislav Rostropovich or Mischa Maisky, his cello has less of the mysterious dark G note and slow paralytic ripples of the masters. Elgar's work is experimental and light-hearted. Credits to the recording engineer for capturing a colossal amount of detail.

The audio spell - "Hard to go back once you are up there" has been the case for me. I believe this applies universally to all audio enthusiasts. Symbolic aspirations need not applied, audio enthusiasts have only fidelity in mind. Room acoustics sculpture my tonality, period. Administrating right angles is the real deal, it is my ticket to sonic utopia. It should be yours too. Happy Chinese New Year.

Small steps

Twenty five years in this exciting audio quest, with a few years lapse in between, I never grew tired from audio until the day I am deaf. All because of music, a driving force that keep audioing alive. Without strong interest in music, it will be like a drought, your audio day is numbered.

What is good sound anyway? Each and every one of us has different idea about good sound. There is no other subject that garners so much polarized opinions. I had in the past champion neutrality, I'm kind of feeling apologetic now. I'd say now go where your heart takes you and not wander far off from the "truth". In the course of nursing your system deficiency, we all tend to overlook the balance of the system. Just don't, just don't promulgate your audio ideology, for the audio folks are not that forgiving. That's why the obvious audio great division. You got burn if you crossed the line.

Regrettably, my first twenty years is a waste of time with impulsive upgrades and drown in vanity. Wisdom grows with age, so does temperament, like antique car taking time to fire up. Absorb it, think before you say, you don't want confrontation. I think I'm getting better at dealing with situation. Bear in mind, audio magistrate is not welcome in audio community.

If you are not passionate about audio, quit. Performance is the absolute audio merit, not any other things else. Trust me, audio folks recognize that quality, they just might not tell you. But if folks found evasive or started talking things not related to sound, you know something is rotting. Not a good feeling. Refrain from commenting high end system, you'll live peacefully. Audio holds the connotations of scorn and snobbishness if you are not careful. Audio is about how many wrong you committed, sin of omission, truly. We should all devote to high performing audio, not high priced audio! Off the record, I look for soul in a system, the talk about pristine highs, dense mids and punchy bass. All these narrative will need to correspond with the balance of the system and not separately.

The room is another speaker, the bigger one, your speakers are playing in. A good sized room beats everything! Room acoustics is the real deal, consider it as speaker in speaker. It provides the least problematic acoustics to begin with, instead of summoning acoustic correction after correction. Sadly, a nice sized room today is a luxury that most folks are dying to have. Making thing worst, the real estate prices are rather resilient, prices in prime areas are not coming down any sooner despite gloomy economy.

Ice lemon tea

The line between warmth and muddiness as blur as 500/500 vision. Are you with me? It is sometimes difficult to determine the two. Piano is an excellent instrument to demonstrate low registers. Alas, liken a glass of ice lemon tea, the bottom is murky while the top is clear as the ice melts away. The pianist often applies multiple keys to generate the desirable sound, the mixture of multiple principles and after tones creates a unique sound. The sound board started off murky, plateau then and moments later the resounding of strings shines through, gradually ascending into the dark, it depicts space!

Hypothetically speaking, the effect of tone wood would be fully exploited if allow maximum surface exposure. Besides, I also played around with mixture of tone woods. I started experimenting different placement and configurations to attain specific flavour. So, some asked how could I manage tuning alone repetitively since short sonic memory doesn't permit that. No secret here, I only listen to specific section that able to give me a glimpse of a bigger picture. It is important not to tune when you caught a flu, rushed and stressed, the result will always disappointing. Incidentally, someone is at my door, my wife was back home from work noticed the piano was different and asked,

"What did you do? The (piano) notes are better defined."
"You heard that too... my hearing is still usable (boleh pakai)" cheekily

Wonderful piano of Schumann

Schumann Carnaval Kinderszenen Waldszenen by Claudio Arrau under Philips Silver Line Classics is a great piano CD. The articulation of piano notes was unbelievable, at least from my system. Not cold and mechanical. The murkiness duration is significantly shortened, not quite a clear blue sky which then will sound rather unsubstantiated and hollow. This alone suffice to send me cloud nine, I get the hint of a better thing to come.

Snake oil? There are many angles to look at a thing, as some say. Tuning is need based, what works for me might not work for you, because we have different set of problems. But the underlying principles are largely the same. More music shall we? I continued with Andrew Rieu Masstricht Salon Orchestra Op6 by Philips records. This track needs no introduction, the recording revealed that it was recorded in a room with an opened window. The gushing of wind followed by a vehicle cruising at the first break and amazingly four vehicles vroomed passed at a fast pace at the end of the track were clearly audible. Look, I played with a mid-priced CD player.

Keeping my volume under 70dB mostly, I enjoyed my music collection without glaring problems, and I never look back since then. I looked passed images smacked on the front wall, laid back and delicately layered sound. The communication in space and time accorded by the audio is what excites me. The chemistry, the sound that moves me to tears, the rightness in a package produce magic. Still, I knew that I'm not quite there, there is some missing puzzle I think I know what it is, lacking in warmth and weight. You take a bigger step and then take smaller step when you are close. That story is to be told in my next posting.

Mad about tone wood

Pardon me if I have audioly abused you. Come on, all work no play makes Jack a dull boy. And what else to expect here? Progressive audio refining, I'm not sure about you, do whatever makes you happy. No head start if you don't know what and where is the problem. Knowing my problem and I find ways to fix it.

As such, heavy orchestral works could not be manifested in a reasonable manner in my system, lacking the final punch to win a convincing accolade. My low registers is my Achilles heel, period. I blame my speakers for bass shy demeanor. The concentric driver serves as waveguide point source is smashing, it is hard to go back to tweeter and mid driver configuration which have a tendency to sing their own tune at crossover point. Smooth integration at those frequency range is a noble design. Alas, upgrading power amp isn't my option because I love the sound of my precious puny power amp for unsolid state like sound and delicacy. Yes, the delicacy is something special. No one want to be a poor audiophile who doesn't have the financial might to upgrade.

Incidentally, a friend swung by and listened, "You've cleaned up the frequency bandwidth." Now, I'm counting on my educated guess; curtailed edginess. We need outsiders' feedback for reaffirmation if we are on the right track, sometimes. Let's see what I did. The changes I made were a power cord change, foot rest rearrangement and new tone wood. Actions bring forth changes. The occasional grainy tailing is slowly become a nuisance, particularly the very last breath/bow of sax/violin. Though it is not offensive but the uneasiness grows by the day. Power cord change fixes that. This is the day, as in any other days of a typically chronic disease of an audiophile! The day you get cure is the day you quit this hobby.

Foot rest sucks life out of the music especially when it occupies the reflection hot spot. Removing the foot rest to a non critical spot opened the sound. So, you be aware of what you put in your room. Bass loves to creep underneath the furniture and sofa. Lived long enough with my system to pick up the differences fairly easily, power cord and rearrangement of foot rest could not have contributed this magnitude of performance elevation, tone wood deserves the credit.

How is it possible to make your system "grow" without adding active components? Let's alone a passive component. Pretty impossible, a?

Tone wood A

The effect of tone wood is mind blowing. I'm a big subscriber of all things in the room influence the sound. It is like a religion and the room tells a lot about the sound. Given ceramic, you get the ceramic thingy, marble with marbly, glass with glassy, wood with woody and et cetera. The challenging part is how to balance up these attributes to achieve a harmonious sound. Anyhow, talk is rubbish, truth lies in the listening.

Five shok zhi

Took me hours to figure out to optimize the tone wood. The data is stored in my memory. I should have gotten a log book to record my findings since the very beginning. First impression always correct, the subsequent impressions somewhat realign to what you wanted you to believe. In my case, it ended up with five shok zhi mahjong placement, a basic placement to begin with in any system. By the time this post sees the daylight, I'm sure the placement will vary.

Like beta agoinst, tone wood grows meat at the lower registers. Miraculously, the bass got bigger, more resounding, more echoing. Double bass, drums and timpani texture received a make over, if you will, more realistic with a fluffier feel to it. No more of that hollowness that comes with low quality speakers, one note bass. Voices are fuller with added chestiness to male voices. I was careful to have midbass intrusion to the minimum to avoid Tom Boy voices.

Tone wood exhibits predominantly wood element of Wu Xing, benign rounded sound and warmth. Pseudo tubbiness without the expense of tubes, for me, it's a good thing. Aggressive highs is a turn off, tone wood nullified the nasty digital glares.

Tone wood B

Being inquisitive in nature, I replaced the center tone wood A with another tone wood just for the sake of fun, in come tone wood B. Both tone wood possess different structure of grain and density. Wow! I experienced a knee jerk hearing the difference. The saxophone popped with greater dimensionality. Protruding images not only within the plane of the speakers but both flanks. My friend and I instantly recognized a sense of rightness lay bare before our eyes. As I was going to re-AB replacing the tone wood, "Put it back, leave it alone." The reaffirmation was not necessary. The congealing images, blooming and layering vow us something special. Tone wood A was warmer, rounded and pale by comparison. The following listening impressions thereof are based upon tone wood B.

Weird enough, the added weight promotes rhythm. The swing receives a charged "velocity" in micro dynamic, lasted some milliseconds longer. The breathing, strings, brass and woodwind exhibit a longer exhale! Overall, music is dense and heavy. Too much of low bass grouchiness is a drag and takes its toll on marco dynamic. Determining the adequate bass is time consuming, you certainly do not want to overblown the bass. Likewise, Europeans feel American bass is overwhelming whilst Americans feel European offerings are too civilized. Right between the two should be okay. The double bass is deemed more correct in this composure whilst cello as some called violincello, the glissando and portamento is silkily elegance through 150hz and onward. The bass, occasional paralytic sensations on certain playing material, I could feel the energies through my chair. 

The stretched soundstage accorded greater separation, more distance apart from individual instruments. Tone wood could really alter the soundstage! More headroom, I suppose? Background gets blacker, tailing is extended. Sensational, it illustrates a virtual reality.

Two sides of coins, I could happily live with the new equilibrium. This is the single biggest improvement I have ever experienced. I have got Gabon Ebony, Makassar Ebony, tone wood A and tone wood B for my disposal. To compliment tone wood A and B, readjusting all other tweaks is absolutely necessary. Classical music is spun to check on the tone accuracy, I don't mess around with tonal accuracy. There's no such thing as drop in tweaking!

For a month already my excitement shot over the roof to have rediscovered revelations of sound. The versatility of tone wood supersedes my past tweaking experience and I have no intention commercializing it. Today, my audio room is intensively tuned with these tone wood, well, it might just be my last tweaking.

MacGyver

If there is someone who going to save you from falling for audio fallacies, it will be you. Smarter out smarts the smart, get it? The only way to avoid this is to be a learned. Nobody fools a learned.

Everybody has a big day in their life. April 21 marks a special day in my audio calendar. I had achieved an important audio break, which triggers a butterfly effect. Though there may have been many mini breaks along the way, and this crucial break leads to another.

Tuning is attention to detail, it is even more difficult than opening a safe.  Like alpha numeric code, you seek the right code. Some tweaks work along with some and some against some, some require some to reduce, some require realignment, that's one. Some tweaks make you wonder if you need them at all. Some left you clueless why they are there. That's the difficult one. Many acoustic related mysteries remain a mystery.

I'm do not tweak blindly. Some tweaks do not last a month. Knowing what and when is enough is important. Room is the biggest element in audio. Having said that do you need to tweak even you have a perfect golden ratio room? Food for thought. The Taiwanese guru's Creative Tuning inspires me, a tuning technique amplifying positive energies or curtailing the negative one. By altering frequency peak and valley, you turn these energies into your sonic advantage. Honestly, I have not fully acquired the skills, it requires extraordinary abilities, a gifted sensorial organ to feel the energies. For instance, some can feel the presence of 30 khz even it is out of our hearing range. So, mine considered pseudo version.

Voices are never my sound check. If you have a penchant for warm, succulent voices, the temptation to more succulent voices is inevitable, hence, tend to turn a violin to a viola. Sonic roundness in trade of dynamic is never my agenda! My friends were intrigued by my tireless tuning, the right word is meticulosity and fact is there is so much work. Each tuning is a routine of test and verification via a variety of familiar music, this is to ensure the sound is of honest sonic intent across the board. How do you know the sound is correct? This opens a big debate, individual interpretation. Even different seat in a hall grants a different sound, what more different music hall. Doing so, our "feel right" mind is always quick to make presumption ahead of our hearing. We must always keep presumption in check, and I had been a victim in many past occasions. Listening on the next occasion only to find my presumption is a false. Knowing what to listen helps too.

In his very own words, the guru says "the bass must have the capabilities to dig deep, not coming right at you. Tight bass, not bloated. Mids must possess the balance of density, body, huskiness, and far from thin and dry. Graceful, with sheen and relaxed highs." Sounds alright to me. He achieves his end via four techniques, harvesting the energies, resonance coefficients employment, power management and cable matching. His supernatural hearing and years of field tuning experience are his priceless tool.

His teachings taught me sonic linearity, no bumps and dips. And classical music is the way to go for reviewing purpose. My focus now is sound linearity and coherency from 30 hz to 12 khz frequency response range, well within our hearing range. If there is a presence of boominess, the bass will be bloated and excessive energies. Presence of midrange bloom will induce masking, eats up details and airiness. This instigates dullness and robs music life. Without the right mids to substantiate, highs will be bright and over the top. Believe me, you don't stand a chance to survive 30 minutes of listening! Butterflies in the stomach.

Initially, I was receiving his teachings with a pinch of salt. However, it doesn't take long for me to submit to his teachings. He is truly Audio MacGyver in my book and the very reason that draw me to Taiwan. Some of his teachings are against common audio wisdom but then again, all roads lead to Rome. I have to retrieved some of my old thoughts to make way for his wisdom. He has proven himself in many occasions, winning accolades from his friends and customers. One even goes as far saying, anything he lays his hands on will sound great! Big word. Many agreed that he has the extraordinary ability to feel the energy which is difficult for us to emulate. My friends can't wait to meet him when he told that he will come on a sponsored trip in hope that he can pass down the tuning knowledge to me. Jokingly, they will whack me if I exclude them! Barbaric friends.

Back to tuning work, since unknown when, my intuition tells that there is an imbalance energies in my room. Everyone does. This can be easily gone unnoticed, I had been trying to remedy it without much success. It is like a mini black hole. It sucks everything you throw at them, a hindrance to the next level of audio performance.

Despite all that, music takes centre stage. Pioneer S1EX is a mid size floorstand speaker, they are at the most behave like a big stand mount speaker, nothing their imposing physique suggest. I need to change the resonance coefficient in my room a bit. My attention diverted to the back wall, the arrangement of my seating, leg rest, side chair, bookshelves, sort out the CDs, the stuff I placed at the back wall to see if these make a difference. No luck.

Out of the sudden, I noticed a change in sound by moving my side chair away. Little did I know, I had opened an energy valve in my room, a new flow of energies. The "suffocating" feeling somewhat vanished, I had myself perplexed!

Jumping for joy, I pulled out Cantate Domino by Proprius record, my all time test disc from the shelve. This CD is known for its complex but beautifully arranged composition, harmonic richness, spatiality, awesome spectral bottom end and ambiance abundance. Over cranking the volume, the cramped soundstage is inevitable. At a right volume, every audiophile virtue you ever want to hear from this CD is fully manifested. I sat there amazed, I was transported to the scene. The ambiance filled the room, spellbound. This church atmospheric experience was like none before in this room.

The challenging exuberant pipe organ is never easy to reproduce. Albeit at a smaller scale, S1EX could honestly reproduce the pipe organ with top to bottom transparency (this is a week after the break). Gentle rolled off without any strange anomalies are a blessing in disguise indeed for midsize speaker. The bass rolled off sooner, that's to be expected. I'm happy that the pipe organ retained its intact within S1EX audible frequencies.

Ironically, the Power Brick charm shone even more. Caution, Power Bricks can drive you crazy. In a good room, they speaks up even more. And tuning becomes increasingly addictive because the result motivates. I am excited with the new found. When things go smoothly, expect a pitfall.

Months ago, my system got tripped by Eva Cassidy's Kathy's Song. The plucking of strings invites the unwelcome boominess, my room goes banana. Hence, you can say that Kathy's Song sort of haunt me even though Eva Cassidy is one of my favorite artists. I was embarrassed and I got to stand where I fell.

Today, I declare that I have vanquished this drawback, whew.... Everything is under control. Eva had a powerful voice and her upper register was strong and bold. You need a pair of good tweeters to reproduce her expressive highs, suppressive on mediocre tweeters. You know, going all the way. In this regard, I am happy that my Beryllium tweeters did not disappoint, no splashy reverb and hollowness.

Eva's works have simple arrangement and with plenty of guitar plucking, I could hear the steely strings and rich overtones as it was a closed microphone placement. Definitely not nylon strings. I couldn't tell if the guitar was a Gibson, Taylor or whatever but it was a Guild Songbird acoustic guitar after I checked on the net. The strings are always crisp and guitar body resonance is clearly rendered. I heard the sound hole, soundboard and guitar body. No much of bass in her works.

Truth to be told, I did a lot of things to arrive where I am now. The dynamic reached a new height, for the first time, I get to feel the music. Yes, my skin feels the music. Opsss.... silly me, I forgot to remove a tweak. It robs the liveliness and energies of my system upon second listen. My friend comment reminded me of the tweak. I shall keep mum about the tweak because it will give negative impact to the company.

As many things in life, you do not go overboard. My music experience have me realized that I am coming to an end of tweaking business. I am really starting to enjoy the music.

Power Brick

World's second tallest building

Hey folks, I had just returned from the beautiful Taiwan. 7 days 6 nights, a gruelling tour covering Taichung, Cingjing, Hualian and Taipei on free and easy. Wallet became lighter and I lost 3kg of body mass in a week! I couldn't loose that much of weight in six months in homeland. Lots of walking. I happened to be lucky to find a good car for hire company and she helped to arrange everything for us. The journey was smooth. On the surface, I promised my wife a fully sponsored overseas trip but deep down, audio is the secret agenda. Since I am paying, I get to decide the destinations. I choose Taiwan to meet and learn from this low key audio sinshe. I am his 5th Malaysia customer, I was told.

To be an audio tweaker, you need to have ears like a bat. You must first be able to discern the differences to be relevant. Boy! Given his age, 60s +, I was in awe with the sinshe hearing capabilities, he notices changes of sound with merely 1-2 mm of misalignment of his tweak. Coincidentally, we share the same ideology that room acoustic is the single most important ingredient in audio playback. I got away with audiophile approved tweaking, they always cost a bomb. That's goes without saying that everything in a room changes the sound, some are friendly and some are hostile, some are obvious and some are negligible. Therefore, be alert how you play your cards.

There are certain rules about achieving a good sounding room. Foremost, the room size matters the most. 1:1:1 and 1:1:2, you are doomed. No matter how hard you pray, your prayer will not be unanswered. You may get the professionals to fix the room acoustics or you may do it electronically, the room correction software route. Not getting your hands dirty, you will never learn room acoustics. Nobody can cheat learning, there is no short cut to it. Don't give me the fish but teach me to fish. Nothing remains constant forever, especially audio room. As time goes by, you might change here and there in your room. 

Topic today, Power Brick, my Taiwanese prize. No detail is spared. All I know, it is of paper pulp, very hard brick indeed. The dimension is 11cm x 11cm x 3cm, weights 525gram a piece. The sinshe warned that Power Brick is a double edged sword, it will take some trials and errors to find the right spot to trigger "butterfly effect". This is where the bat like hearing comes in.

For the ease of understanding, grid your room into sectors. Some hot sectors are first reflection spots will deem to produce the most impact if you tweak there. Beware, too many diffusers make the room dead. Some tweaks are bound to work against this rule though. If this is too tough, worry not. Divide your room to left and right, feel the energies of the room. In most circumstances, you tend to feel an imbalance energies. The air cond flow, the door and the window have different coefficiency of sound reflections. Imagine some spots as air pocket in air space, any plane will free fall when entering in. Your duty is to balance up the energies as much as possible, harmonizing the energies. This is where Power Brick becomes handy and that's the easy part.

Now, the difficult part is to identify exactly where to place them. Having identified the weaker side, it narrows down your search for Power Brick placement. Start from front wall, I found Power Brick effect would be amplified placing not more than one meter from the wall. Once identified the location, you got to experiment different surfaces and angles of the Power Brick to obtain best result because Power Brick has directions, and there isn't any marking on it. Worst still, you can't tell which is which. Each surface do has a slightly different sound to it. I choose the most vibrant sound as the best surface.

There is no mention of how many Power Brick is required or the coverage area either, your ears determine the quantity. Now, I' shall come to the effect of Power Brick, an issue that you all eager to know. On the beautifully recorded piano concerto suite from the ballet "The Nutcracker" Op. 71 by Melodiya record, the piano notes were very noticeable well separated, note perrrrrrrr..... note. Russian school pianists hit the keyboard harder than anything else, this is exemplary here. These effects accorded by Power Brick are unanimous. There is a picosecond pause between the notes due the smearing was reduced to minimum. Without Power Brick, the notes sounded glued. This is magical. On top of that, I noticed the notes were polished, leaving a layer of sheen. Consistently, I heard less jarring, this itself is very inviting. At times, I also feel the notes get hardened a lit bit, a slight tilting of Power Brick angle could fix it. Seemingly, the notes were enjoying an unprecedented freedom of expression, throwing a deep and wide soundstage.

The effect of Power Brick in a very good sounding system could not be undermined. Everything is laid bare, good becomes better. Normally, you do not expect too much a difference in a very good sounding system. Wrong again, Power Brick hauled the sound to next level. On Sound of China, the pipa playing was exemplary. Power Brick brought out the essence of pipa, the punching notes were so mercilessly separated, distinctive. There is a degree of "gua hei" 貴氣 exhibited, a rightful proprietary virtue of top notch front end electronics. The subterranean bass shook pants with no sign of slowing pace. In the contrary, the pace actually picked up, heart pumping experience. The musicians got more upbeat playing their thing to produce a thrilling performance.

Bingo, I was lucky to have placed the right spot for Power Brick in my maiden touch. This was only an effect of one Power Brick, buddy! My confidence rocketed. My beta testers all fallen for it. I brought back 10 pieces and with the intention to give a piece each to my buddies, but decidedly to keep the remaining 8 for my own use. Sorry! They aren't going anywhere . Now, imagine I use 8 Power Bricks in my system!

On Antonin Dvorak's Sonata for violin and piano in F major under Suprahon label, the violin has some lightness to it. Greater transparency gives an insight to the precise locality of the instruments. My speakers emanates the sound of violin two and a half feet higher than the piano. The texture and tone of the strings constantly remind me of the live violin play at opening of Meridian boutique store downtown late March. Live vs playback, that's not very fair comparison. My violin rendition is slightly less bloom, less fluffy, drier, a little less density, less nuances but I guess it is acceptable. There are many influencing factors, the play, the violin and mainly the digital conversion shaping the sound. The last thing I need is a sound that mask up inner details.

This is an outstanding double CD Mandarin unplugged lullabies, I praised its musicality. Simple arrangement, simple music, no hyper technical, non offensive, but rather a story telling like music transport the listeners en route to the remote mountain side. Given a Chinese recording, the recording quality is a big surprise. None of the etched brightness and glare commonly associated with Chinese pressing.

Here is the clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piZDQvbp7lE&feature=youtube_gdata_player titled "Go and marry a girl, my favorite track". An ethereal voice, with a challenging bass tenacity to reproduce. Power Brick sails my system through with ease. The images pin on my wall, removing Power Brick, the images somewhat collapse. Clean bass with good continuity and clear visual seeing the bass go deep is so cool. Top to bottom increased transparency, man. At times, the bloated bass were not as bloated anymore. Power Brick also accord some serious bass kick to the stomach too! My brain keep telling me Power Brick boosted the power, my conscious rejects the thoughts.

Truth is I love this tweak especially passive unconventional tweaks. These Power Bricks will keep me busy for weeks finding the right order. I am hearing my system receiving a new blessing, my wife could not agree more, nodded her head. This tweak can not be copied. I could not think of anything that comes close to Power Brick. Spike? Ball bearing? Their improvement does not come close. Only a genius can figure this thing out! On this account alone, I salute the sinshe! Power Bricks received my unreserved recommendation.

Operation "Listen to bass"

Building a foundation

It is absolutely no sin to dream of world class bass, but you got to hear one first to know where you are heading. May I say good bass reproduction is a rare commodity these days, even in high end system. I had heard of a bass from a Wilson based system that set apart from the rest of the pack. The bass has low bass ripples of overtones, coming in descending order at you, unhurriedly. 寬鬆. Bass definition, bass weight and bass tenacity in a single package, even extra-terrestrial would concur to that! Bass provides a foundation for the music, bag it. Inadequate bass, little substance below the neck of imaginary images is as if a regular photo on your passport. Well, I am not suggesting that only Wilson speakers can do that. Absolutely not, sir! I do not advertise for Wilson Audio. Many can achieve that too and it is a big mistake to disregard the room reaction.

I called it operation "listening to the bass". This comes as the most exciting tweak ever for me. No details to be revealed as yet because I do not have the permission from the guru to share this with you all. Shared only among selected friends with sharp ears, I am delighted all were at least concurring with me. It is totally up to the individual how they tune the bass with them. Naturally, if they were not effective, this post would not exist.

It would take hours and hours to get the bass specificity right if you are fanatical. Only one week into experimenting this tweak, I had managed to tighten and clean up the bass. Week two, I could feel the energies creeping up through my listening chair. Week three, I had found a new land - singing walls. You too will be proud of yourself if you get the bass you want. A house wife was complaining that despite many calls, his husband still not back home for the Lunar Year eve. The husband was madly indulging in his new found bass. He couldn't thank me enough, says that it is the most enjoyable year as far.

Fly me to the moon

Be it like impactful mid bass or natural gentle decay of low bass, hello brethren! You must first have a system capable of producing the bass first. How effective you may ask? I found that it is nevertheless hallucinative if one does not have a system that capable of producing decent bass talk about bass similarly, Africans talk about flying to the moon. That is baseless.

If not, you can start cash out your system while still fetch some monies and do something else. However, timing of this tweak is off, the New Year business closure did nothing to help but compound to further suspense, I can't get the ideal material for the tweak. Mind you, I mostly indulged in home made tweak, using household stuffs to align room reaction. They may not have WAF though.

Credits must be accorded to the guru whom I borrow his ideas from. His unique ideas rock, 堅! My audio philosophy had taken a different perspective under his influence. I had quietly verifying his tweaks and I must say that I was thoroughly humbled. What I did, I improvised it a bit for greater applications. Fortunately, the results shine and certainly not those pseudo psychological feel good. Forty years of field experience in his bag, he possesses many rabbits in his hat that I intended hop on a plane to pay a learning visit. Wrote to him, thank God, he had accepted my visit. Passion is the driving force.

Here's a teaser, is your room ambiance evenly distributed? Almost all dedicated audio share one common problem, stuffiness. Airiness that resembling live atmospheric event, as of to date, three had heard it in my place. Two give a consensus of opinion, presence of real air. Sorry, this is altogether another tweak.

Why a system sounded marvelous in a showroom but not in homes? Room reaction is the determinant. 聰明的玩法是借房發力，單靠器材發力非上策。Harvesting the good energy of the room is smart move, than relying on audio equipment alone. You must first sector your shoe box room into 3 x 5 or 5 x 7 in to cubic and learn the nodes and anti nodes, nodes are highly responsive to tweaking. You may want to energize or diffuse them depending on your preference. Whatever you do, maintaining the balance yin and yang is the utmost priority and you simply do not want to overblown certain departments. To illustrate, subwoofer works on the reinforced energies of the walls, then again, emphasizing the existence of subwoofer is the last thing you wanted to do.

Of 90 per cent of the systems I have heard showed bass deficiencies. Telling hurts relationship. Most bass start off with a pack of punch and descend with incomplete and choppy harmonic, premature rolled off. Bass wholeness is largely not preserved, diffused and confused. This is the listening room fault. Go listen a live band in a pub, the bass is always full and many times intruding the mids regardless how noisy is the environment. End of the day, you still hear and feel the wholeness of bass. Reproduced music, we are listening the music through the ears of mixing engineer where the music is cleverly edited.

My take on bass, double bass must possess tenacious properties and big drum with rumbling characteristics. The earlier must float and hop like "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee", the later must nosedive and roll. Excuse me, cinematic bass excluded because these are synthesized and exaggerated. "Pirate of Caribbean" soundtrack is not exactly the type of bass you would want your system to be judged on.

Are we there yet?

With twenty years audio experience but frankly, the last eighteen years was crap. OK, I admitted it. So, never never ever try to convince people with number of years you had, but the quality of audioing and the influence of the people around you. Meeting the right people, you never have to the very least, walk into a maze. They will be audio Samaritan, loaning equipment to assist make the wisest decisions, like your audio GPS. Friendship is to cherish but not to exploit. They who read this know.

Brush off eye pleasing tweaks, they are merely symbolic and nothing more than to impress your guests. There are always principles of physics behind every tweak, go figure.

Bass can be influenced by type of cable, cable management, seating distance which I had covered earlier. I get thrilled when I heard layers of papery skin onion bass, depicting space between layers. Goosebumps. Achieve this, everything else will be like cup cake. Beware, too much dampening is detrimental to the sound, as if high cholesterol content that narrow your system arteries.

Practically, everything in a room changes the sound, some are more distinctive than the other. Start with an empty room, you move in your carpet, shelves, seating, audio equipment etc, it will change the sound. No voodoo, but pure physics and it does not take a genius to figure this out. Having said that, the real audiophiles are the one that optimize the potential of their system. Optimizing these nodes generates butterfly effects and hence sonic improvement.

Tweaking sharpen your listening skills. I reiterate everybody can acquire good listening skills, it is a learned skill. And lastly, get a CD worthy of reference to tune the sound, not just any CD for God's sake.

OK, you can get back to work now.

Game enough?

No matter how many time you wash your car, your bucket of water still murky, only that the water gets less murkier than the one before. We, fi thirst for transparency. With each layer of haze removed, details prevail. I was all soak up with the spatial thing. The nuance decaying into the deeper soundfield thrills me, goosebumps. Little did I know, I have less tolerance with sonic haze. This is evidenced when listen to others.

What is life anyway? The routine eat, work and sleep? Long before the birth of toy, men busy make babies. Hobby induces nonsensical behavior. Give me my toy and I will stop harassing you. We have property bubbles but how come no audio bubbles? Audio prices rise way beyond our salary, this indeed is a sad story. Smell of troubles? Let tomorrow worry for itself. I could not spend lavishly as some could but I can tweak, I tweak like no tomorrow.

Resonance control is one area not to be neglected. It's role is bigger than we could have ever imagined. Speaker stand is a very good example and do not play down the importance of audio rack too. Good audio racks do not come cheap, you get what you pay. ET spider rack serves me well, it is versatile too. It allows me to mix and match with different hardness coefficient, rather than the supplied rubber footers. Moving forward, power cord resonance control is a game changer. Virtual Dynamic adds sands in their power cord line up, Accustic Arts with ferrite beads to curb vibrations, EFI and RFI, what more cotton fiber filling, cable jacket and cable sleeve. That's how garden hose power cords come about.

Long before that, all plugs sit on a support for the sake of minimising resonance. You know it too, in some cases, the sagging connections are not tight fit. These are eye sore to me, don't they to you? A steady connectivity is vital to any system. Taking a twist, I sit my power cords on PU foam (fruit packaging) and egg crates.

Egg crate is a cost effective resonance control. I see many hawkers place their chopping board on egg crates for cushioning, each chop receives less feedback. I am using plastic egg crate presently until I get some paper egg crates. You can savage these things from your kitchen. Unless you have amber space to afford the luxury of placing your rigs on the floor, that would be ideal. The best that I can come up with is partial resonance control on the power cords.

Now, the most intriguing things about power cord resonance control, it brings different results with where the resonance control at. This, I had been told. You will have to get your hands dirty and bend your back a bit. A tip, fine tune at both ends of power cord by moving the supports. If that not satisfactory, you may want to sag the power cord at certain point for tuning. Transparency and tonal balance are what you get at the end of the day, experience the off loading effect. Ideally, you might want your power cords to be less coiled/less stressed and leveled. This is easier said than done.

Holy cow! My eyes pop for my system responds to the slightest things I do, it speaks up. Slap me, somebody! Constant tuning sort of sharpen my listening skills. I do not believe the golden ear theory. Your listening abilities are as good as mine but knowing what to listen is another matter. With the resonance control in place, the upper bass muddiness has been offloading, phenomenal. The sound gets lighter and swifter.

Ruggiero Ricci playing Wieniawski under Dynamic label, wow! The bow actions and the nuances and subtleties are crazy. Dynamic label is known for transparency and clean recording, all hifi attributes you ever asked for are there. Ruggiero recorded this album at 65, for many couldn't ever hold a glass steady at that age. Remarkable hand-mind coordination at 65, I just hope that I won't be needing a walking stick then. The pesticide in our vegetation, the beta agonists in our livestock, the food chemical ... are taxing our bodies.

This CD will reveal the shortcoming of ill balanced sounding system. Ruggiero's playing is fiery and explosive, working the strings like modern violinist. Great technical command, he is a violin tactician. He plays with Guaneri De Gesus, a violin known for its dark G tone, powerful perfectly complimenting his aggressive play. Now, every violinist has a playing signature, some are more distinct than the others. Ruggiero camps on Heifetz side, technical prowess and fast. Sounded a little cold, oppose to David Oistrakh or Itzhak Perlman, they fiddle the violin with tone color.

You have got to be careful with this CD, it will sound dry and agitated like not getting paid for his performance.  With the wrong power cord, I can't help feeling the violin virtuoso is rushing his performance to get off the stage for his beer.

The complexity of piano harmonic can not be duplicated, the intermittent sub harmonics of keyboard, hammer, strings, sound board and pedals, all in one harmonic. The microphone could not capture the abundance of information of piano, in close distance, the nuances of piano is overwhelming. This effect fades when distance comes into play. Hence, listening from 10 feet away will not be better than what is reproduced from the CD unless you have Elf hearing ability. One of the measures of a system is how much rightness of piano reproduction and the overtones preservation.

Richter plays Debussy is one of my treasured CDs. Richter first live recording on CD, how about that! Sviatoslav Richter was a difficult pianist, he was reported walking out of a performance for no valid reasons. But his piano artistry is truly amazing, he is right there with the greatest there is. Far out weight his difficult personality, but we all forgive him when the maestro started to play. The CD is under a Russian label? I was skeptical about the recording nevertheless. Boy! The recording turned out to be sssu....perb.

The reverberations were everywhere. The wooden floor, the wobbling mike, the ventilation, scary realism. The ringing of the strings is forever, tide after tide. You do not get any better imperfection than this and the imperfection renders realistic. With power cord resonance control on, nuances become tangible as if I was on stage with him.

In short, we can not kill resonance but we can control it. The reward is transparency. Transparency allows us to count head in choral works, greater tangibility and spatial separation. This underlies a balancing act, transparency/density trade off. Mom used to say, you can't have your cake and eat it too. So, pandai pandai lah sendiri. The resonance control will dilute the character of power cord. My DIY WE power cord sounded as if had shed off some fat. I am happy to hear the overtones wholeness, that's to me is gold. And isn't this fidelity we all strive to achieve? Try this and tell me if I am wrong.

Walking tall

Lunar New Year is around the corner, it is the start of spring. Most activities will stand still in this part of the world during the festive, sort of freezing in time. Lunar New Year is an occasion to celebrate, we visit friends and we feast, an occasion to meet "long lost" family members. People get laid back, looking forward to yet another long holiday. Time to put our audio to sleeping mode though there will be some private audio parties and I am so consumed with audio, audio 365.

Traffic was bad, some came out for shopping while others were leaving the city to join with their family, the bustling KL will morph to a foreign city with imported labourers come flocking into the city. They make KL their meet up venue.

Conducive environment enhances the joy of audioing, period. Noise free, room temperature, seating comfort, lighting are the factors that determine the degree of conducive environment. I fell in love with Lazy Boys, snug myself into the seat, sort of like baby in a cradle. Why do women always stand against men? Shoot, I did not get the approval from my wife to get a Lazy Boys for my audio room. She will nag me in my sleep and she always wins.

So, I figure the best thing next to Lazy Boys is a footstool. Cost effective and practical. So, my hunt for a footstool was on. My wife and I did some leg works, we managed to find one footstool with matching upholstery, paid 120MYR and I am happy with the find.

The footstool cum storage is a pleasure to use, my old knees take quite a bit beating due to my body load. Do we agree here on weight shedding is like a condemnation. Look what's on the table, change diet or stand to frequent hospital in years to come. Thus, I have made a tough decision, to commit to work out, 30 minutes cardio per day. Guys, there is always a "buy out" clause? Much like in audio, one will attract challenges for careless remarks. Better to stay low key to enjoy peaceful audio. I am not out to make a statement but to share my audio adventure with a few close friends and blogging, peaceful audioing.

OK, let's rock n roll, happy legs came in the expense of depressing bass notes. My damn footstool is a living bass trap. The bass is thoroughly sick, like a deflated ball, it had lost its vibrancy, bounciness and definition. I lost my foot tapping.

                                   

Torn between with and without footstool, I hate to see my blood and sweat cash goes down the drain, my money isn't easy to make like some business tycoons, lawyers and doctors. Dr Mimosa advised me to take off the footers of the footstool. I thought that was not cool. I sealed the opening instead. Bass improved slightly, only marginal. The idea of removing the footstool from my audio room is as if shooting myself in the foot, be a man, I bite my own bullet. The footstool stays.

My past experience taught me that when you are troubled and couldn't figure a way out, don't give too much thought about it, concentrate on other issue and the solution will eventually surface. A cool head makes wise decisions. Leaving thing as it is, I waged war against the nasty omnipresent EMI and RFI. I knew there are some unfinished works there. My usual audio route is research, research and research, I'm no genius, could not pick ideas from thin air. Pricey tweak, I can't afford but the cheap and cheerful ferrite rings fit my bill. It will be interesting to know how they turn out to be.

I drove to old Pasar Road, a local renowned electrical and electronic parts marketplace down town. Traffic was as bad as I could remember, did not change a bit. This place is changing though not as at the speed of our economy might suggest. New buildings are up, it is sad to see an increasing number of street stall selling non electrical and electronic merchandise, like hardware, bag, and clothing and even sex enhancement pill. These changes dilute the image once Pasar Road known for. One thing does not change, parking is always a hassle.

You are running a risk if you park your car on the yellow line, the officers were relentlessly issuing summons and towing cars.

As much as I hate to go to Pasar Road, a Chinese proverb says "To get tiger cubs, you need to go to the tiger." The guy who said this probably did not come back, serving up himself a tiger's meal. Laugh out loud. Crowds were as usual, I bought two shallow large diameter ferrite rings and bracelet them in parallel at DAC power cable IEC connector. I figured DAC would benefit most from EMI and RFI free. Horse faced, lifeless sums up the story.

CD transport and DAC received power cable braceletting treatment. Too much of a good thing, I reduced to one ferrite braceletting instead. The single ferrite bracelet was a show stopper, the sound became sort of mist free and still lively. With the ferrite bracelets come greater articulation and intensify tone density. Bingo!  It a sign of a good thing!  Getting a little cute, I clamped the coaxial cable with ferrite clamp. Big flop! Ferrite clamp sucks all the life there is in the sound. Dustbin is where they belong. There seems to be an unestablished correlation between the size of ferrite bracelet and audio performance. Don't be greedy.

With growing confidence in ferrite bracelet, I was eager to return to Pasar Road to get a few more ferrite bracelets the next morning. Impatience drives me nut, I can not stand half done job. I wasted no time putting the ferrite bracelets on M5 sine wave corrector and power amp LMos 150 power cable. Holy cow! The whole ferrite braceletting works wonder, the improvement was greater than CD transport and DAC, what a kick at my face! No burn in, no waiting time, transparency gets an instant boost, detail permeates through the sonic fabric like never before, power and control too showed improvement too, yahooooo.... I was walking tall.

All above findings are substantiated by the following repeated CD listening. Erik Satie's piano work is under the shadow of Liszt and Chopin, I felt that he is under rated. His 3 gymnopedies by Pascal Roge under Decca label, West Germany pressing was beautifully recorded. I heard the  pristine steel strings reverberations with each hammer strike and some unknown background noises at the intervals which I could not put my finger to it. It sounded like ventilation induced noise. These imperfections make the sound realistic.  The transparency of this recording is magnificent. If I were to demonstrate see through quality, this CD will be it. The ferrite braceletting put these through a magnifying glass.  In total darkness, I see a naked piano in front of me and nothing stands in between me and the piano. No ill note, no mist, no guesswork. The intimate relationship is indescribable. The transparency conveys detail, detail conveys emotion, emotion runs deep.

My favorite CD, Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder collaboration, Talking Timbuktu is a fusion folk with a strong African influence. I must say this is the best Ry Cooder's work for me, a strong chemistry between Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder was evident. Most fusion sounded out of place, they do not blend all that seamlessly. Mind you, this is not an audiophile approved CD, I find that the recording is more than decent and the music is unique. It is either love or hate kind of music. Track 2, 7, 8 and 10 are highly recommended. The bass lays the foundation, the Malian singer do his magic, and his earthy vocal is so magnetic and inviting. African music are particularly strong on vocal harmonisation, no fancy technique, no complicated composition,  no falsetto nor vibrato, they sing from the heart. The flow of music was awesome and the stage was beyond walls. Bass was taut and authoritative, I could literally feel the play of the instruments. The  timbre  has that resounding  quality, exhibiting the wonderful individuality, the guitar, the bass and the congas were so tuneful. I prefer this to Hugh Masekela, this is an album that will grow on you, it will grow on me.

How about big scale music? The pirate of the Caribbean soundtrack : On Stranger Tides is one of the most challenging CDs that I ever have. The cinematic sound shakes and tears walls. The bass on track 3 is awesome and equally demanding. The layer upon layer of bass Ooooooo, to reproduce the full grandeur and scale of this track requires no fainted hearted system, and certainly no bookshelf speakers could pull this off. My system was struggling with the bass having their own slapstick during the complex passages, I was infuriated. The ferrite bracelets rescued me from shame. Presence, power, quietness and 3D soundstage, the new found bass control, interwoven the stage together from crumbling. Imagine man on man acrobatic. Credits goes to LMos 150, its control is crucial to keep the composure. I can forgo the extreme frequencies but will not compromise on separation and definition. As the volume turned up, my room quickly became my liability. Some noises uncalled for. The outcry for further room treatment is resounding clear. "OK, OK, I heard ya! I heard ya!" I am happy to report that with the noises been taking care of, I am pleased with the outcomes. 

TBM is my tonal balance reference CD to check, we all know how meticulous the Japs are with tonal balance. The quality of the recording gives me goose bumps. It will sound marvellous on any system, no doubt about it. Better system extracts more subtleties and definitions. The ferrite bracelets turned my system a better system, more like planar speaker like quality. The reverberations float in the air a wee bit longer, the spatial resolution was breathtaking. Microscopic detail retrieval was like cup cake, no need to look hard for them. TBM recording has a special way of capturing the truth of timbre, we get to hear subtleties the musicians hear. My audio room receives a 360 degree presence like in a live musical event. If my description is a little too abstract, the qi or energy fills the room.

When quietness/cleanliness is attained, everything prevails. I checked and edited this post to reaffirm if I am living in my own audio fantasy. Pinch me. The ferrite bracelets compensated the inferior bass inflicted by the cute footstool. They are a reminiscent of mini dCS Puccini :-} and mini Power Bank. No, I am not blowing my trumpet, says 10-15% will be right. Some one had just tried one ferrite bracelet, he can't wait for more .........