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ZAN-TINEL HI-FI SHARING DAY
ZAN-TINEL HI-FI SHARING DAY with a good cause on June 9th
Well, all good things must come to an end and after over 3 years of getting my present system to perform its best, I hope to share the sound I’m currently enjoying with fellow audiophiles before I change my present speakers later next month, I am confident some may be aspired to become a hard-core TYPE C+ audiophiles like myself after hearing a Zanden based system driving a pair of full-range speakers in an acoustically treated room. I will select various CDs (with some LPs) I constantly use to test my system plus the ones I enjoy listening to (all of them have excellent sound recording), I will explain to the guests what I listen to from each piece of music I play (rather than the artistic quality) and hope this will help them to evaluate their own system as well as others - I will post the details of the music I’ll be demonstrating at a later date. If time permits, I will demonstrate in the last session how these resonators can work to your advantage, you can literally alter the treble, mid-range & the bass of your system by moving/rotating the diffuser/wooden block in your room, in other rooms, in the corridor or even outside your apartment.
My good other half suggested this event should be done with a good cause and those who come will donate HK$ 150 to the charity. Tentatively, I will prepare for 2-3 sessions (starting in the late morning until late afternoon as I will go to hear my favourite violinist Hilary Hahn performing one of my favourite violin concertos – Brahms in the evening ), each will last between one-and-a half to 2 hours with a short break. So fellow audiophiles who are interested to come along please contact PT (thank you so much for helping me out) who is organizing this event and then write a cheque payable to Medecins Sans Frontieres ( see their web site on www.msf.org.hk ) to him. Due to the limitation of the number of people (5-6 maximum at a time) my listening room can accommodate, the availability is on a first come first served basis, I look forward to meeting true TYPE C or C+ audio enthusiasts on that day !
Well, all good things must come to an end and after over 3 years of getting my present system to perform its best, I hope to share the sound I’m currently enjoying with fellow audiophiles before I change my present speakers later next month, I am confident some may be aspired to become a hard-core TYPE C+ audiophiles like myself after hearing a Zanden based system driving a pair of full-range speakers in an acoustically treated room. I will select various CDs (with some LPs) I constantly use to test my system plus the ones I enjoy listening to (all of them have excellent sound recording), I will explain to the guests what I listen to from each piece of music I play (rather than the artistic quality) and hope this will help them to evaluate their own system as well as others - I will post the details of the music I’ll be demonstrating at a later date. If time permits, I will demonstrate in the last session how these resonators can work to your advantage, you can literally alter the treble, mid-range & the bass of your system by moving/rotating the diffuser/wooden block in your room, in other rooms, in the corridor or even outside your apartment.
My good other half suggested this event should be done with a good cause and those who come will donate HK$ 150 to the charity. Tentatively, I will prepare for 2-3 sessions (starting in the late morning until late afternoon as I will go to hear my favourite violinist Hilary Hahn performing one of my favourite violin concertos – Brahms in the evening ), each will last between one-and-a half to 2 hours with a short break. So fellow audiophiles who are interested to come along please contact PT (thank you so much for helping me out) who is organizing this event and then write a cheque payable to Medecins Sans Frontieres ( see their web site on www.msf.org.hk ) to him. Due to the limitation of the number of people (5-6 maximum at a time) my listening room can accommodate, the availability is on a first come first served basis, I look forward to meeting true TYPE C or C+ audio enthusiasts on that day !
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Marvel
ps. by the way, Mr. Zanden, which Type do you think I am? I am not sure by myself to be honest.
Many thanks^^
Thank!
Thank you for your prompt response, I think every genuine audiophile enjoys hearing any good sounding system so that he can improve his own afterwards (like myself for instance after audtioning the Cessaro and was inpired by what it could do rather what it was not doing well - amp matching, speaker placement & room acoustic problems etc).
Marvel bro, only you know who you are and the type (audio type A, B, C & C+/-) of audiophile you want to become but no matter what, I am always very pleased to welcome you in my hi-fi abode.
May I take this opportunity to REMIND all those who are interested to come along on 9th June to get in touch with PT - my sole hi-fi event coordinator and not directly to me as he already has a list of those who had contacted him earlier. Once again, tks very much for suppporting this event with a good charitable cause. We should not just help those hi-fi buddies who are having a bit of sound problem (it's only a strange hobby) but must make every conscious effort to help those are in dire needs of anyone's help.
Btw, after praticising a special Qi Gong for several years, I have developed the skill which can be applied to our beloved hi-fi system - I can make your system sounds at least 5-10% better, Marvel bro, Chris , JLam & many others had witnessed this at a public hi-fi event several years ago. For the first time and for a good cause, I can make home visit to tweak your system with my Qi power and if you can discern the improvement, then pls write a cheq. for HK$ 500 payable to Medecins Sans Frontieres, if you do not hear any improvement, then there is absolutely no obligation to pay.
Cheers to ALL
Mr. Z
Marvel
MatthewC
Studiogrey
Calvin
Butcher
Santamomo
Ronald
I am the unlucky guy who will miss the event of the year as I will be out of town on 09Jun. I hope I have another chance in short future to gather with all audiofiles in short future. I also hope all bro and sis will enjoy the day and the music.
Azzurri
Greetings to all you Type A, B, C, C+, C- & other hybrids out there,
Tentatively, time of this event is from 2:00 to 4:00pm
There is a saying " all god things must come to an end " and the good thing is owning my current full-range speakers has been a bitter sweet experience. It was bitter initially as despite having owned many speakers (medium-sized box designs, electrostatic & planar speakers) in the past, it was a real challenging task to have these monoliths (weighing over 1,000 lbs in total including external crossers & dedicated subwoofer power amps with built-in electronic x'overs) singing in my room. The first year was difficult for me (the learning curve period), speakers were a wee bit too close to my sitting position and coherent bass was hard to achieve until I switched all my electronics to Zanden and had my room acoustics completely changed to the exotic resonators (as well as treating the front & back windows, then “other” rooms including the master bathroom, store room as well as the hallway outside my front entrance), this marked the end of the bitter era.
Then came the sweet period when most of the anomalies in sound caused by speaker placement, electronic crossover settings & changes in the positioning of resonators had been tackled successfully by continuous pain-staking effort and perseverance in order to obtain the kind of tonality I have been longing for. The overall sound took a turn for the better in 2007 when the employment of the FLOW power cords & SRA accessories further facilitated my endeavor in tweaking the room acoustics & speaker placement.
With current sound performance of my Zanden-based system, in my opinion, as good as it gets (without the additions of external factors such as better interconnects, speaker cables & other accessories), it is time to share the enjoyment of the sound I'm experiencing with fellow 'serious' audiophiles b4 I move to horns later this month. First & foremost, let me declare my system is NOT the best system in H.K. or even the best you have heard, however, for my "personal" taste, it is the best as I have not heard any system in my past experience anywhere, which is better in the "overall' sense. Allow me to wake everyone up by saying there is not a single system in this audio world that can reproduce rock, pop, classical & opera music equally well and sound better than other systems (even if there were such a system, we, who are mere mortal souls, lack the wisdom to do so !), if you can do one or two of this category of music very well, then you have really arrived in your hi-fi journey.
For my taste, my present system is “tuned” to play classical & pop, therefore, on June 9th, I have selected the following CDs & LPs which I will give them a spin in my CD transport & LP turntable, these are the references I use most of the time not only on the merits of their recording standard but also on the pleasure they have brought to me again and again. I will make particular emphasis on several selections which I can whole-heartedly recommend to fellow audiophiles because they are not just a pleasure to listen to but have proved invaluable to me whenever I'm tweaking my system or evaluating someone else's.
1) Aaron Neville - Warm Your Hearts (nickname of this disc is " the big mole"). This is really a popular CD that many audiophiles owned or have listened to, every track sounds pleasant to the ears without any nasty peaks. Once I demonstrate tracks 2, 5 & 7 to you, you'll think again. On track 2, after 5 seconds of playing, I can detect whether the tonality of my system is normal or not, then after 10 seconds, I can discern if my bass is coherent and after 40 second of playing, I may decide whether I want to listen further or tweak my system. Track 5 will tell me whether my system is giving me the palpable human voice & imaging or not as well as whether the bass dynamics are normal, excessive or anemic (in a very critical sense) and # 7 will tell me whether my left and right speakers are positioned EXACTLY the same distance (within 2-3mm) to my listening position. Once all these tracks sound good, this means I have a basically balanced system but there is no telling of whether it can play violin or orchestral music equally well. Remember I mentioned earlier our systems will always sound little different everyday due to many factors such as electricity, ambient temperature, humidity, things we put in our listening room. Last summer, I visited Acoustic System International’s showroom in Paris, it was in late afternoon on a hot summer’s day, after listening to this CD, I said to my acoustic master the sound was not normal, he concurred because there was no air conditioning (just the usual central heating) in the room and the trapped air and the heat made the sound dull & sluggish. After opening the windows & removing some movable items, the sound was back to normal after 30 minutes later – he told me he seldom listens to music in the afternoon during summer time because of this climatic phenomenon.
N.B. of all the places I had been to which employed high efficiency speakers including horn designs, none could reproduce the standard I expect in terms overall coherence in sound, soundstage & imaging when I play this disc and people seldom notice what is wrong with their system or what is so special about this innocent sounding CD.
Contrary to popular belief, I'm really new to classical music as I have only started going to concerts on a regular basis since the start of the millennium year - yes, I have passed the 7 year itch period and still enjoy this type of music more than ever. Classical is too much of a generic term, my system still doesn't do chamber music all that well so my selections are limited to symphonies, piano, violin & cello concertos and very recently, some baroque music. Experienced audiophiles should be fully aware ceramic drivers are not good friends of operatic music, therefore, I don't have a large collection but do play some popular ones from time to time. Large selection in my dictionary means one has collection of many different artists playing a certain piece of classical work, for example, Beethoven violin concerto is my favourite, I have over 30 different recordings of this masterpiece (even Szeryng, my favourite, has made 3 separate recordings - one in mono) and another favourite, again is Beethoven piano concerto # 5 (yes, I have over 30 versions too), my favourite is Arrau’s 1984 performance on Philips (CDs & LPs, he had made 2 recordings of this piece of work).
2) Zan-tinel day’s First movement - normally, when you go to a concert, the first piece of music you hear is usually a light-hearted one for warming up purpose, therefore, the opening piece of music I have chosen is Suppe's Light Cavalry, I have several recordings but finally opted for this piece played by ASMIF conducted by Marriner, there are others by Paray's conducting Detroit Symphony and Karajan’s Berlin Phil. Yes, you have to play this piece loud in a natural sense, just like sitting on the 5-6 row in the middle of the concert hall, by doing so, you can test whether your speakers are strained by your electronics/your room or not, you can hear the full ambience behind your speakers, the depth of the horn & percussion sections etc. The tonal colour of the trumpets & horns must be rich & reverberant and the strings must not sound steely. Well, the whole piece should be wonderful to listen to if you have a decent sized room and proper room acoustics to ensure the direct reflective sound wave hitting the sidewalls does not make the overall sound hard. I still need to prepare a list of the other different types of music I’ll be playing next week, perhaps I’ll do that later on.
Well, since this hi-fi sharing session is about 2 hours long (just like a typical classical concert, we may try to stretch it to 3 if time permits for tea /chit chat break), I cannot play a complete piece of work or even an entire movement, I will try to limit other classical music & non-classical of no longer than 10 minutes each so that we can hear as many different types of music as possible. If time permits, I may play the CDs some of you (but not everyone) have brought.
I strongly believe by auditioning other people systems will help TYPE C/C+ audiophiles improve their own, like in my case, after hearing the Cessaros very recently, it had brought a different perspective in sound reproduction to me and although I was not (& wouldn't be able to) trying to mimic certain characteristics of the horns, I had made minor tweaks to my speaker placement & room acoustics, these had helped to improve the overall sound of my system a little bit, no cost was involved but a lot of time & effort were spent to achieve this - greater satisfaction. I hope if after spending this session in my hi-fi abode, fellow audiophiles can somehow get inspired by the sound of my system and I, in turn hear your feedback & exchange our experiences, we all end up making further minor improvement in our own system, then this is Zan-tinel hi-fi sharing day will be more meaningful and the event will end with good cause to everyone (not forgetting those who are in dire health and need continuous medical help). I look forward to meeting old & new fellow audiophiles next week, those who are interested to come please contact our mutual friend P.T.
Cheers
Mr Z.
Should we gather in one place and then go to Mr.Zanden home (HK side) together or you guys prefer to visit there individually? Please send private email to me so that I can arrange the logistics easier.
Mr.Zanden has worked very hard to arrange this Zantinel day. He is very passionate about music. He really moves the resonators inch by inch to achieve the optimal result almost on a daily basis. He has more than 10 resonators (perhaps even more). If there are any major/minor changes to the system, he will always adjust speaker positioning too. I personally have not met anyone who works so hard to improve the system whenever there is a chance.
His room acoustic skill is excellent too. I fixed many many rooms in Hong Kong but he is the one who always helps fix my room acoustics! I had spent two respective Saturday morning with him on the system with the Cessaro and the whole suite of Da Vinci Grandezza system. He always helps to improve the system sound more.
Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to P.T. & JLam in supporting this special event and then hosting a lunch afterwards in order to cool down our hi-fi fever.
Below is the list of CDs & LPs I'll be playing on the day, please note the sequence may vary with last-minute addition & deletion according to the change in room acoustics caused by an usual full-house capacity in my listening room. Folks listening at the back will have human sound absorbing bodies, sofa & huge dinning table in front of you, the soundstage as well as the sound pressure level & bass dynamic impact will be reduced as compared to the listeners
sitting in the front row.
CD session :
1) Suppe's Light Calvalry - ASMIF, Marriner, EMI
2) The Favourite Opera Aries, track 4, Cisco
3) Bryn Terfel - The Best of Bryn Terfel, track 1, DG
4) Arron Neville - Warm Your Heart, tracks 2 & 5, A&M **
5) The King & I , Yul Bryner & Constance Towers, track 20, RCA
6) Eric Friedman's Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen, tracks 1-4, RCA
7) Arrau's Beethoven 5th, opening of track 1, Philips
8) Eva Cassidy's Live At Blues Alley, track 12, BSR **
9) Britten's Noye Fludde - track 5, London
10) Gladiator soundtrack - tracks 3, 16 & 17, Decca **
Total approx. playing time 60:00 mins
Tea Break for 10 min.
LP session :
1) La Folia - track 1, Harmonica Mundi
2) Rossini's Overtures - William Tell, LSO0Gamba, Decca
5) Ricci's Carmen Fantasie violin concerto, LSO/Gamba , Decca
6) Pepe Romero's Flamenco - track 3, Philpis
5) Jazz At the Pawn Shop's High Life, Proprius
Total approx. playing time 32:00 mins
The above choice of music has been carefully selected in order to demonstrate (to me) what a balanced system should sound as any anomalies caused by system mismatch, speaker placement as well as room acoustic problems will be revealed when listening to some of the tracks listed above with 2 arterisks marked in the end.
Today, I glanced at the last article on TAS's November's 2006 issue featuring a brief interview with Kevin Voecks, he was the designer at Snell speakers before moving to Revel. I'd like to share one of the questions posted to him & his reply with fellow audiophiles :
TAS : What's the best advice you can offer high-end consumers ?
Kevin : The biggest impact, for better or for worse, is their choice of loudspeakers, and then how it's placed in the room and whether they've paid any attention to room acoustics. After that, making sure there's enought real power from the amplifiers. I think that people underestimate microdynamics that are often several times the avergae level. Adequate power really helps them sound totally unclipped and really clean.
After reading this part, he and I are really the same type of animal, what I mean we'er both Type C+ audiophiles !
Guys, thanks for supporting this one-off event with a good cause and please be prompt on Saturday as times waits for no man, see you all very soon.
Cheers,
Mr Z