ST's hifi system

To build up the readers' enthusiasm as
I progress along with the write up, I
thought I will start off with a 1st
impression: the emperor's throne!!!!
(The sweet listening spot) Majestic looking
isn't it? The all important listening position
in the hifi room! Lighting was subtly warm
with a tint of yellow. The entrance to the
sound room is a double doored feature with
double walls. Well I thought the sound
will be kept well 'sealed in' and all
extraneous external noise will be unable
to enter the room! Marvelous design for
a hifi listen room!


The side wall featured a combination of
reflective and deflection type wall
treatments. Height and size of which
have been determined by calculations
confirmed with sound measurement
via a purpose made microphone and
recorded & analyzed with computer
software!


The initial construction of the room size,
the height, width and length of which have
been carefully planned out with the assistance
of a friend who understood the working
of room acoustics and know enough about
concert hall sound performance aspects.
The ceiling treatments included a build
in foams and rock wool combination in
a recessed ceiling design. And computer
generated reflection and deflection
panels were used at specific positions
determined after careful measurements
and listening tests that followed.
This's one room where the reverberation
time (RT) have been carefully worked
out in order to suit the listening
behaviour of not only listeners in
their prime age of 40 plus but also
catered for the listening patterns
of aged or elderly persons probably
up the the age of 70 perhaps, I
reckoned. As I'm already approaching
my 60's and I do find the listening
experience very comfortable & lack the
usual extraneous noises that I heard in
so many other sound rooms, where the
RT have seemingly behaved much longer
& had caused muddling and overlapping
of sound especially of the low hz areas!
That's 1 bass notes overlapped into the
next bass notes gave me the impression
of a much longer bass note! And I
thought this always happened to me.
This do not(did not) happen here in
this sound room!!!!! A marvelous
piece of work done, and worth
every effort put in by the owner!
In one simple sentence: Bass Boom
was completely not heard in this
sound room!!!!


All right then, let's look at the main hifi
system. The speakers were a pair of Harbeth
HL5 Super with a pair of ribbon super
tweeters wired up too! The speakers sat
on open frame stands that came purpose
build by Harbeth's local dealer Sam Chan of
Tropical Audio, Setapak, Kuala Lumpur.

The electronic equipments were placed
in the middle spaces between the 2 speakers,
and seated on racks with isolation from
air borne and structural vibrations, all
round and wire cables were kept apart
and from the ground suspended by
rubberised cables. Computer generated
designed foams (diyed) were placed
strategically where the disturbances
in the sound were kept to the minimum!
And confirmed by measurements with
sound picked up microphones and
analysed on charts and graphs!


The source, a Marantz SACD player the SA11S2



The main power came from a Classe Audio
twenty five and the digital to analogue duties
by a Theta DSPro Gen III



Preamplifier: The Chardonnay valve pre amp unit
from Supratek


During the visit, 2 acoustic panels were used on
the floor area, under controlled condition for
experimentation & fact finding purposes!

The overall sound was pleasing and comfortable
with slam on tracks such as Fleetwood Mac's
Dream track. However with tracks such as
from Gorillaz and Blues pop group, the
music punch/slam wasn't sufficient to
bring up the blood pressure, not that
I wanted to burst a few blood vessels!
On classical music replay of Leonard
Berstein's Music at an Exhibition, The
Great Gates of Kiev, from Crystal Cable's
Arabesque Album, I could perceived the
Grand presentation of the whole orchestra
works! With Chinese Music with drums,
the low hz came thru very nicely & with
enough realism of the drum sound
provided by the recent addition
of a Rythmik Audio F12 SE subwoofer!
However, vocals still needed some
work, probably some fine tuning
here and there which is not a
serious issue, and could be
worked out given some time
to work on the setup. Overall the
sound is commendable irrespective
of those minor issues mentioned.
It's a hifi system worth your time
to go listen and to pick up some
good pointers from the owner.
Those who already have the Rythmik
subwoofer and looking into
taming the subwoofer presentation
would well benefit from a listen
to this system. And those who
have bass boom problems
will also benefit from a 1st
hand study and listen to this
setup!!!


The above pictures provided,
courtesy of the owner.
Leica 4/3 system.

H's diyed setup

It was a rare treat indeed, an opportunity to
listen to a pair of vintage speakers. I've to
thank H's generosity for the listening session,
& also the refreshing drink upon arrival, as the
afternoon was a rather dry and very hot weather
that we are experiencing now in the Klang
Valley.

The speakers were placed in the living hall
area, the sight of the speakers were very
eye catching and ever attractive, but never
imposing that some audiophiles may think
otherwise. The lighting from the garden
next to the listening area provided the
diffused lighting that provided the right
speaker with shades of hue, form and
shape! A beautiful sight to behold, and
kept my eyes on it for a full minute!




Basically it's a 288-8L compression driver (sensitivity
of 119db/m 30w) attached to a Jabo exponential horn
sitting on top of large speaker cabinets designed after
the altec 828 cabinet, that house a Altec Lansing driver,
the Voice of Theatre driver, the altec woofer 416-8c
with a 99db/m compression driver in each cabinet
enclosures. The Altec n501-8b cross-over placed
externally on top of the speaker cabinets.




The horn tweeters at the moment placed temporarily
on a foam packaging as the purpose build stand has
not arrived in time for the listening session. The
external cross-over placed on top of cabinet for now.



This boxed unit of cross-over enabled the tweeters to be
tuned & integrated with the main woofer driver unit!
As it has the user friendly adjustable knobs to fine tuned
to match the tweeters with the woofer drivers!


The rack of amplification equipments and CD source
placed next to the left speakers with a 10" active Klipsch
subwoofer (in picture) for conducting some fact finding
experimentations.



The flared design of the cabinets and driver placement
within the cabinet together with the horn tweeters have
enabled the sound to be projected over a wide angle
and listeners will find listening at almost any place
in the listening area will be equally listenable with
a tonal balance quite acceptable. However, me being
the stereotyped audiophile still choose to listen at
a position which is equal distant from each speaker
cabinets!


Other learned audiophiles who were with me at the
listening session tended to agree with me on the
wide sound dispersion! They too agreed on the
beguiling tonality and the effortless sound from
the combined source, amplifications & drivers!


Most part of the listen session we listened to
mainstream jazz which showcased the sound,
and especially one is doing some work on the
computer, the music would do good
accompaniments or entertainments if one
wants to call it that. Very comfortable sound
to listen all day long, with no fatigue whatsoever!

Anyway, I tried out Mussorgski's Picture at an
Exhibition: The Great Gate Of Kiev from Crystal
Cable's Selection of their Arabesque album.
Rendition was on a grand scale and effortless,
and enjoyable. I tried Suzanne Vega's Luca,
the system is not so suitable for this genre of
music, the pace has got to be much faster
with added slam to be enjoyable. However,
the system could shine with Santana's hits!!!!
Now that's something to think about!!!



A short experiment was conducted during the listening
session with the 10" Klipsch subwoofer switched on.
There were slightly more body to the whole sound picture.



The main rig: diyed valve monobloc amplifiers, a WE91a
300b configuration based on Joe Roberts schematics
in Sound Practices Magazine. Tubes are Jan Philips 6j7,
Shuguang treasures 300z, RCA 5u4g rectifiers, Audio
Note resistors & Mundorf silver gold oil coupling
capacitors, Oligato film oil PSU capacitors, Sophia
Electric OPT, Prometheus Audio power transformers
& inductors.


Pic taken: Olympus 4/3 system, e620, 14-42mm f3.5-4.5

CS's diyed setup

CS is one of several very hardworking diyers
that I have ever met. Climbing up a few floors
to the attic to reach his hifi cave and we were
greeted by the subtle lighting in the room and
it was a very welcoming sight and the atmosphere
very comfortable too.


The view of the rig from another angle, noticed
the light that comes in from the windows that
faces the sun. Just beautiful sight, if you asked
me!


For the purpose of illustration a camera flash light was
used to illuminate the room.


The frontal view of one of the speakers:
an open baffle type diyed to a fine finished.
A ribbon type tweeter, a mid range and 2
units of 15" drivers made up the combination.


A wooden panel for the first side reflection
standing next to the speaker.


The rear view of the open baffle speaker.


The main equipment stands that housed the
paraphenalia of hifi components.


A Lenco turntable was installed for the purpose of
the visit. One of several turntables that CS owned.


A LEAK amplifier was used on the day of the visit.


CS's other amplifiers and other hifi components
that take turn on the hifi racks.

We listened for a hour or so, and finished the
listen session with a tea session downstairs
in the kitchen. But not before we 'ransacked'
his vinyl collections, and ogled at his collection!


Picture taken: Olympus 4/3 system, E300,
14-45mm f3.5-5.6.

C's setup part 2: Just arrived from Japan by courier

C called about a package that just came in
from Japan. We were excited about the surprise
package, and hopped over to his place to take
a look see and hopefully be able to have a listen.
So I arrived at C's place with The Wise One and
Chan, for that meet up and listen session.


It was a pair of Yamaha NS-700X Monitor. It
now replaced the Harbeth HL5 which was
mentioned in part 1 of a very short pictorial
presentation of C's setup. Initial listening
suggest the speakers have not being used
for some time.


So we suggested several weeks of running in
before we have another proper listen session.
(And another chance to have a lunch feast.
We take whatever opportunities we can get,
sort of excuses to get together for food, drinks
and chit chat session, besides the listen
session of course).


Later after a few weeks of running in, I returned
to listen a 2nd time and this time I find the
speakers were able to sing tunes worthy to be
called 'Monitor'! Now the highs sure appeal
to us Uncles whose hearing sensitivity are
already declining in the high hz range. But
what about how the younger listeners find it.
More of that in the upcoming part 3, which I
hope will provide some insight into vintage
speakers of the '80s which some younger
audiophiles may be intrigued by and maybe
interested in a listen and be able to understand
what their parents have being listening to
during that period in time. Those who are
interested to find out more could contact
any of the contributing writers from this
blog, or e mail them directly if you can.



Description of the speakers:

YAMAHA NS-700X Monitor (3 Way, 12" Carbon
Fibre Woofer) Technics SB-8 (3 Way Honeycomb
speaker system). Tweeters were a diamond
titanium type combination.



Pic taken: Olympus 4/3 system, E300,
Zuiko digital14-45mm f3.5-5.6 with
electronic flash light.

R's setup part 2: room acoustics

If you recalled, in part 1, R's setup is made up
of the Proac 3.8driven by the Parasound
monoblocs. In this part 2 writeup I will briefly
highlight the room acoustics treatments being
used to its best effect! At least that's to the best
of my understanding and perception of the
sound heard whilst seated at the sweet spot!



2 pieces of Auralex acoustic foams with the
easily recognised ribbed pattern foams were
placed over a wall mounted flat HD television
screen. Matching cloth materials were used
to hold the 2 pieces of foam together. This
custom made tv cover which act as part of the
room treatments could be easily placed when
listening to music and as well as easily removed
when the hd screen is being used for viewing
movies or tv programmes!


A close up view of the tv cover.


There is even a piece of the Auralex being
placed behind the listening position to control
some of the unwanted sound reflections
reaching the listener's ears.



A closer look at the purpose made screen
behind the listener, will show a wooden frame
which holds the whole piece of ribbed foam in
place.


I find the sound reproduction more
contained within the soundstage in front
of me and there were little or no disturbing
sound towards the listener at the sweet spot!
I would say I'm comfortable with the sound
while seated at the sweet spot, which to me
have contributed towards an enjoyable evening
of listening to music with the setup!


Pic taken: Olympus 4/3 system, E300, zuiko digital
14-45mm f3.5-5.6 with electronic flash light.

R's Music System

If one has followed the evolution(or development if u like to call it that) of friends' hifi system, one will be probably be amazed as to how the change of equipments could affect the sound so much! I have one such experience to document in this diary entry. I've followed my friend Mr.R, in my neighbourhood over a few years, to know this to be true! Then, the time of KEF floorstanders driven by Passlab amplifications and Classe CD source and now, Marantz sacd 1, Parasound preamp and parasound monoblocs driving a pair of Proac 3.8 speakers; depicted a very significant difference in the sound/music reproduction of those 2 time periods! As I recalled the big differences and gradual changes of the sound as the equipments get some further 'running in' , have me anticipating the possibility of much greater improvements of the the overall sound presentations and even more enjoyable listening sessions to come! From what I heard over the recent past few weeks when the changes to the sound of new replacement equipments started to be more apparent, I have to dismiss the idea of a quick writeup, but instead waited out to do a writeup till the sound gets even better!!! Now what I perceived of the sound presentation, was centred around the keyword: control. That good control all round, not superlative yet, maybe there will be more surprises to come, that I may not know yet. Maybe the gears could still show sign of greater improvements to come, as I could find more differences with each visits. signifcances of those room Pretty sure those room treatments (to be detailed in part 2 of this writeup) which were progressively put in place, contributed to the comfortable sound of the system. One matter is clear in my mind, room treatments do brings out more of the music! Mr.R being more of a music lover than a hifi enthusiast, is clearly shown with his choice of music spinned for his visitors. Very varied and nonetheless shows his love of music from his very large & impressive collection of CD based softwares of redbook CDs, SACDs and have many a visitor salivating over his many CD boxsets!!! And yes I know he also enjoys fine wines and good coffee. Alright, you have to ask, and what did I listen to with every listening sessions. You name it, Classicals, jazz, progressive rocks, country and western, music from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and some 90s. Each of the listening sessions, between an hour to sometimes 2 plus hours, were made up of a good cross section of various music genres. Almost always calling it a night followed with a supper session too. At the first ever listen session of the Parasound monoblocs, I asked specifically for the replay of the Dream of the Opera CD, followed by Fleetwood Mac's 'Dream' track, Tracy Chapman's "Baby Can I Hold You', Diana Krell's 'Look of Love', some Police tracks, some Karajan's work, Bob Marley and even Tsai Chin. The content of the music replayed, come as no surprise, good control at least as much as the Proac 3.8 could take it! If one don't go for that brute force test that is. The high, mid range & bass were more than sufficient for a not so overly aged person like myself. It will still take some much younger listeners to provide their views of the overall sound, to know if different age groups have listened to the same sound. At subsequent listening sessions, the listen materials were all different, still the system could hold the music together and the overall sonic presentations still provided those many enjoyable listening sessions and we have always set the sound loudness at a comfortable level for those many listening hours! And I am grateful to have The Wise One and Village Boy to keep me company during the many listening sessions and contributing to the discussions over supper.

B's Vintage Setup

One sunday afternoon, blog master, Kenneth, Uncle Chew and myself, visited a friend with some vintage gears(for the purpose of this write up,only the gears in used were mentioned) that we were not familiar with. The setup was placed in the spacious living hall of the house, which was just about in many of opinions to be generally suitable for speakers of that size. However, I thought this could be flexible and one has to listen to be very sure, though general opinions point towards empirical experiences and proven practical knowledge that big speakers should be placed in large rooms. The speakers, a model of infinity series the Q2, from the late seventies period, and a sound typical of that time.The speakers appeared to be in the first instance different from modern day design. First the number of tweeters that were on each speakers, 3 pieces of ribbon tweeters, front firing to the listeners and 1 more firing from the back of each speaker! Arranged in a vertical array with each piece individually angled inwards to the middle between the speakers, seemingly able to cater for several choices of listening positions along a dividing line between the speakers. Besides the ribbon tweeters there were 2 more dome tweeters also firing front to the listeners and common beliefs has it that the dome tweeters would work over a lower frequency range from those of the ribbon tweeters and probably into the midrange too, as indication has it, there is a single midrange driver that could have complimented the tweeter arrangement design. A bigger woofer cone type 15 inch driver, one each to each speaker cabinets, completed the arrangement of drivers and tweeters combination. The cabinets in it's original form and aged over the many years of different ownerships, dark wood coloured and probably some wood polish or wood oil may bring back the good look to the wood veneer. A back firing port covered with a speaker cloth indicates that the speaker placement could make for careful choices and may influence how the speakers may sound with different placements. We did some test listens as the visit was a fact finding visit which the owner kindly accomodated. We listened to a jazz sampler courtesy of Interglobal music and the 'Dream of Opera' CD which I may have mentioned in the write up of visits to other music lover's music room. Not to confuse readers about how the music sounded, my personal choice of descriptions will not be provided here, as different persons in their music or hifi journey conceived good sounding presentations to be utterly different from each other. So the opening drum sound of track 6 of the Dream of Opera cd will have different meanings to different persons. So to some a drum sound is just a drum sound, to some others who may have moved on to be able to perceived the skin of the drum and how that skin vibrate and how the subsequent resonating low hz would sound like, and to some others it may be again with some ever more slight differences, and again there will be some who have not reached this level and may not be able to perceived the sonics or otherwise too subtle to be perceived yet or that the perceptions of low frequencies may be a very personal choice, and how low the low bass one wants may dictate the choice of listening materials. We have a choice of amplifications between a preamp unit plus the Odyssey power amp and a vintage Yamaha integrated amplifier CA2010. Both of which we tried, and both sounded just as good. However we unanimously preferred the vintage speakers with the vintage amplifier as the colourations (called it distortion, ifyo u like it) add to the flavour of the music for that afternoon's listening session. It would probably have been different at another listening sessions with some other listening materials. As we listened to some vocals besides some jazz and some chinese music. We even tried listening at different listening positions, middle of the hall and all the way to the back wall, which we thought the presentations of which to be different, depending on personal choices. That afternoon we looked for a 'comfortable' music presentation and a listening session that we can call 'enjoyable' and not a loudness test, and hence look into rearranging the speaker placement(the owner asked us to do the placement for him anyway) and looked at the choices of listening spots. We did found one but it wasn't what the owner would call his ideal choice. So we worked out something he could like and suggested he listen for a while to see if he will like it and could listen over a long listen session.

That Vintage Feel part 4: The Music Must Go On

Listening to a piece of hifi equipments inserted in a hifi system, is mostly about evaluation of sound reproduction, yes no? What then of listening to just music irrespective of whether one is listening in a car, in the office or at home? Many would call it 'just listen to the music' or 'just enjoy the music', never mind the hardware. So most of the time I would over the time I know Koo. Until much more recently, it's listening to the music mostly and some friendly chit chat thereafter the music sessions. Of course we do enjoy the music listening sessions as much as the chatting over a hot cup of tea or coffee. A brief account of the listening sessions will more or less make up for the remaining writing of this diary entry of visiting Koo's music room. Why didn't I call it 'hifi cave' (?) because to Koo and his regular visitors it's always about music. With the exception of those first and perhaps second time visitors who came in from the 'hifi jungle' out there to see and explore and to make comparative inferences, and only to find out that they may have forgotten about the music and the enjoyment of music!!!! Over the years, I have listened to a GRP's big band swing CD, from the time of the open baffles thru the single drivers to the now vintage pair of Isophon bookshelf speakers. It's only now that the enjoyment of listening to this cd that I felt myself immersed in the music much more than I first listen to it many many years ago! The changes in the setup has brought out more of the music enjoyments. One other CD that I particularly like is Nina Simone's "Forbidden fruit", and I especially like the track 'Golden earrings'! I wouldn't go thru the listening sessions without a listen to this track! I was introduced by Koo to Aretha Franklin's Gospel singing when I was mesmerised by the shouting and singing style from the recordings of her 'Amazing Grace' 2cd album. I certainly could sit thru & listen to the whole works if not for the limited time spend each time in front of Koo's music machine! So I have got to get this album to listen at my own time. This album portrays her gospel singing and much of the church venue ambience was captured pretty well on this album as it's a live recording. She would sing right to the top of her voice and shouting most of the way yet holding up well with the background singing, hand clappings and people murmuring and at times shouting phrases after phrases with praises for God. On the lighter side I have listen to Judy Collins, Neil Diamond, Neil Young and even the more sombre Leonard Cohen. I especially enjoyed listening to the Weavers and Harry Belafonte live at the Carnegie Hall. Even with rarity such as the Clancy Brothers, and the much popular Peter, Paul and Mary. If this aren't enough, Koo would even finished off the listening proper with some classical music from Reiner, Heifetz, Anne Sophie Mutter - Karajan and even more recently from works conducted by Ernest Ansermet. And occasionally Koo would obliged with my request of tracks from Bread, Eagles and even Jennifer Wearne! And much to my surprise recently he even entertain my request to replay track 6 from the "Dream of the Opera" which I perceived as quite listenable with good control of the bass contents though I felt not the best I have heard and I have heard even worst! I still felt he has done well with the setup though not really an expensive system. Isn't the meaning of expensive rather ambiguous to different people?

That Vintage Feel part 3: The Music Presentation

That's The Blogmaster at the emperor's throne..................

In part3 which is an extension of the earlier 2 parts article of the same topic, I will like to touch on the type of music that the owner like to listen to and what he may replay for his visitors to listen. Even at the time of writing of this part3 article, Koo has already decided on not keeping the QUAD 306, he has always surprised me with his choices of equipments. So I could only guess that he is working on some changes to his setup. Could he be getting an amplifier more powerful than the already very listenable QUAD 306? That I have to wait to see. So at the moment I get to listen to the diyed 0.75w darling amplifier a few more times before I decided to write this part3 article. What I listened now of the 0.75w darling amplifier is one of more tweaks being done to it in the last few months. If that is not enough there were more tweaks to the non oversampling dac, since it's undergoing listening tests I'm can only say the detail/nature of the tweaks is along the signal path. What I perceived is a change, depends who is listening so it may or may not be that person's idea of an improvement. Firstly I noticed the highs(I hear more of it) have improved over the period, this was also being reported by other visitors who came several times over that same period. And I perceived the bass presentation is more controlled,whereas others who listen often may only want to consider this insignificant and that only more bass weight as a significant improvement. So different listeners may give credits quite differently! Here I gave him points just for better bass control, not alot of bass sound, just enough to get by. How do I know this? I heard the replay of track 6 of the Dream of the Opera CD, as I said not a lot of heart thumping bass, nothing that shake the chair I sat on, nothing to move my stomach fat around the middle, just bass sound that I'm comfortable with.But hey, that's my poison I guess! Other tracks I heard replayed include the last track of the Manger Demonstration Disc, again just about enough to get by, nothing in the room vibrated in unison with the drums and bass sound. Perhaps it's not anybody's idea of bass sound, but I would give him some marks for trying at it rather than just talk to some 'armchair critics' at some forums and can't do any 'transfer of technology' to improve the sound of his setup even after much discussions! Do I have to repeat that the vocals come around very nicely, if not lustfully with female vocals and with enough details on the male vocals? Now, now don't get me wrong that is superlative, there are many other setups with even more mesmerising vocals than this setup, but I'm just looking at the price point of a few thousand ringgit to get me glued to the chair long enough to be 'seduced' by the sound and not want to get up and go! At least not yet after a mere hour of listening in front of the setup! Another thing I like about the setup is how the hue of the afternoon sun bath the room with that yellowish tint we know so well! A lovely feeling of sort. What a wonderful listening experience I thought with a wash of beautiful colour mix of yellow to orange hue to feast the eye too! Yes the room was not to be darken for those afternoon listening sessions. It's always being enjoyable listening sessions whenever I listen, whether in the daylight hours or at night.