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The most important man in the AE community
I don't make such bold statement easily. His acoustic tools transform the way I look at "audio" in the past 4 years. Words cannot describe his magic. What he taught me through the years indeed help many audiophiles within our community to combat our very own room.
Butcher's small space can house a pair of Horning with two pairs of isobraic bass at the back. Charles and Small Potatoes were impressed and shocked by the quality of the system. Without the resonators and other acoustic tools provided by Franck, this is impossible.
Charle's system was transformed to a much higher level due to 1 single show of acoustic magic I performed 3 months ago. I believe ever since that evening, his whole concept on audio also changed, which subsequently lead him to the present ultra high end state.
AF was also fascinated by the improvement brought by 1 single silver resonator above the plasma TV and 1 single basic resonator on the floor last evening. Before the placement, the soundstage was trapped between the speakers. After one silver, he could not believe the improvement and thought it must be psychological factor more than real improvement. After a few trials, he was convinced. The 2nd basic resonator calms down the resonances of his wooden floor, resulting in much cleaner bass response.
These are just some recent examples. There are just too many real life examples for me to report here. Of course, Mr.Zanden and Marvel, will have much more to say about Franck. Marvel's room acoustic is full of reflective surfaces everywhere. How can this system sound balance earning the compliment of Srajan? Anyway who still have doubts on the importance of acoustics should pay Marvel bro a visit.
AE is happy more and more audiophiles with open mind are willing to accept new ideas. I have seen many audiophiles' system quality evolve by leaps and bounds after full acoustic treatment. While some are happy with partial healing, AE encourage you to explore more of your acoustic limit. The details are all in front of you right at the beginning. It is a matter of retrieving them back.
Franck, once gain, a big thank to you for what you had taught me thorugh the years. I shall preach your acoustic arts to more and more people.
Butcher's small space can house a pair of Horning with two pairs of isobraic bass at the back. Charles and Small Potatoes were impressed and shocked by the quality of the system. Without the resonators and other acoustic tools provided by Franck, this is impossible.
Charle's system was transformed to a much higher level due to 1 single show of acoustic magic I performed 3 months ago. I believe ever since that evening, his whole concept on audio also changed, which subsequently lead him to the present ultra high end state.
AF was also fascinated by the improvement brought by 1 single silver resonator above the plasma TV and 1 single basic resonator on the floor last evening. Before the placement, the soundstage was trapped between the speakers. After one silver, he could not believe the improvement and thought it must be psychological factor more than real improvement. After a few trials, he was convinced. The 2nd basic resonator calms down the resonances of his wooden floor, resulting in much cleaner bass response.
These are just some recent examples. There are just too many real life examples for me to report here. Of course, Mr.Zanden and Marvel, will have much more to say about Franck. Marvel's room acoustic is full of reflective surfaces everywhere. How can this system sound balance earning the compliment of Srajan? Anyway who still have doubts on the importance of acoustics should pay Marvel bro a visit.
AE is happy more and more audiophiles with open mind are willing to accept new ideas. I have seen many audiophiles' system quality evolve by leaps and bounds after full acoustic treatment. While some are happy with partial healing, AE encourage you to explore more of your acoustic limit. The details are all in front of you right at the beginning. It is a matter of retrieving them back.
Franck, once gain, a big thank to you for what you had taught me thorugh the years. I shall preach your acoustic arts to more and more people.
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PT has helped me in performing all the room aoustics tuning using Franck's invention of resonators and diffusors. Every now and then, PT keeps reminding me that there are still rooms for improvement in room acoustics especially there is a change in the equipment affecting the entire energy dispersion, alignments of phase difference across different frequency spectrum. Mr. Zanden has his speakers changed to Cessaro recently and obviously a review on the room acoustics becomes more than desperate.
I had the privilege of inviting Franck to come to my place again during this visit. During the dinner last night, we discussed a lot about room acoustic and how it affects the dynamics, frequency alignments, speed and propagation of high, mid and low frequencies. Many know acoustics is important but to what extent it affects the entire performance? Look at the drivers of your speakers, they are small surfaces which make air to vibrate harmonically and when the air movements reach your ears, they cause vibration and that signal is transmitted to our brain thus forming the virtual music images. Besides the tiny surfaces on those drivers, how many other surfaces are vibrating at the same time? To what extent would those surfaces create noise, distortion to the original music waveforms? According to Franck's explanation, air waves are like tidy current flowing throughout the entire space surrounding our system, not just limited to the listening area, it could be outside of the window, back in the kitchen, toilet, bedrooms, corridor...any kind of space which can trap air would cause vibration to different extent and therefore different frequencies. IN my case, thre are glasses, tile floor which would cause a lot of high frequency noises. PT has helped me in reducing a lot on wave reflections, bouncing back but the high frequency noise can only be 'filtered' by another tuning device made by Franck using Indian rosewood with a few small holes drilled through the 7mm wood cube.
In his visit last night, Franck didn't spend much time explaining, he just put me on my usual listening seat, put the spin on my favourite LP and he started some fine tuning on my existing resonators and diffusors alongside with some additional 'sugar cube' of doing the high frequency filtering in the locations deemed necessary. Throughout the process, i was generously helped by Mr Zanden to test prove the result since I was 'anchored' in my seat judging the change/ improvement made. My salute to Mr. Zanden!
The result? I seem to have my listening area expanded in all 3-axis and with at least 3 more SMR EE power cords added in my system with a significant improvement on dynamics, bass speed, background darkness and treble softness. Sound stage is expanded beyond the physical size limiations.
Today, I went to visit Mr Zanden together with Franck and while we were chatting in the carpark, Franck told me he is dong the acoustics engineering work for concert hall in Paris which can house 500 audience. Compared to room acoustics refinement for homes of audiophiles, concert hall is a much easier job since he doesn't need to care about the cabinet in the living room, a special 'false ceiling' design, uneven shape of the lstiening area, etc. But still there are concert halls which are poorly built that need acoustic engineering. That also negates the argument of some audiophile saying their listening room is large enough and no acoustic treatment is needed. Even music performers would go and visit concert halls and to those concert halls with poor acoustics, they may refuse to perform over there.
Cessaro in Mr. Zanden's place is really 'magnificent' !! The dynamics and bass punch heard from this monster are unprecedented in my listening experience. Most importantly, I can hear a very coherent propagation of treble, midrange and bass from this horn speaker. Compared to Mr. Zanden's previous speaker, the tonal picture is continous with lyrics, it doesn't sound broken or staggered while in the past, I also felt that bass is traversing slower than the mid and treble. This is the 'best time' ever that I have heard in Mr. Zanden's system and in fact it is no doubt one of the best systems that can deliver big picture, macro dynamics, right tempo and rhythms without compromising on msuicality and resolution. Those who had been on Zanden's day a couple of months ago should pay another visit again and I can assure you that this is a 'day-and-night' difference.
After today and last night's experience and sharing with Franck, I am now fully convinced that we are not fully utilising our gears without properly deal with the acoustics.
Marvel
In 2008.
PT & Marvel have already given a full account of their experience & understanding of the famed acoustic resonators plus the new sugar cubes, this has saved me a lot of effort to describe how they work.
Franck's little gadgets had been ridiculed more often than not in the past especially by engineers and also scientists by his radical design approach, because to them, what can not be measured or proved by empirical means can not be accepted, otherwise, this will invalidate the works they have done. According to Franck, some of these people later became his avid users and followers. This is not too difficult to explain as in the beginning, CDs were considered to be vastly superior to LPs in their technical measurements, many audiophiles soon dumped their life-long LP treasures and regretted it afterwards, those who still hold the belief that a well recorded CD has quieter background, greater dynamics and deeper bass should hold on to his polycarbonate discs and continue to live in a state of denial.
Everybody knows room acoustics are important but the majority of us audiophiles out there are probably investing less than 10% of the total cost of their system on room acoustic stuffs because they do know fully understand what detrimental effects poor room acoustics can do to their systems, so once they have acquired a super system, they think they have achieved the super-fi status. Without being sarcastic, the worse sounding systems I have come across are the most expensive ones because of either severe room problems or to a lesser extent, equipment mismatch. I have been to audio folks' homes with a purpose-built sound room and some with room-correction electronic systems and some of them are very happy with the results, however, how does one measure or know he/she has a perfect acoustically-sound room ?
If you are a frequent concert goer and listen often enough to unamplified music, then you should be able to discern whether a hi-fi system sounds like the real thing or not. Although hi-fi playback in a domestic environment can never reproduce the live event you have just been to, if the hi-fi system is properly matched and the room is also properly treated acoustically, then the speakers in front of you should disappear completely, the sound should be organic with rich harmonics and have decays, each recorded instrument you hear should posses the tonality of the real instrument, the soundstage is more life-like than the concert ( due to the recording i.e. placement of several or just one mike ). Furthermore, as Franck puts it, the music you hear should have the flesh, the bones and blood, for example, you can hear not just the voice of the tenor or baritone when he sings, you should also hear the sound coming out from his lungs through his throat or you can hear the vibrating sound from the violin/cello/double bass and the movement of each stroke of the musician’s bow. In addition, the sound should be fast or with the right tempo that you can easily hear in a live concert, it must also has good attack, be it horn, woodwind or tympani - the sum of all these will give you a life-like rendition of the music you hear in your room, so even though it is still not quite ( and it never will ) the real thing, you will get emotionally charged up on what you hear by tapping your feet or moving your body ( if Franck does not move any part of his body when he listens to your system, this means he can hear certain problems ! ).
Going back to Franck, his acoustic approach is very different to other acoustic engineers and sometimes, it is complete opposite to the traditional theory of sound wave movement, perhaps from my perspective, he is like Christopher Columbus who believed the world was round and not flat like everyone else in his time. The majority of modern day acoustic engineers believe undesirable excessive sound waves must be controlled, therefore, if these waves can be measured, then they will find ways to control or kill them. There are originally numerous different types and forms of acoustic panels and foams designed to be used in the audio rooms and in recent years, electronic room correction system emerged and some of those who have tried them find them very useful as they do not suffer from ear ache or stuffiness in their body caused by bass booms. However, users of these room tuning or electronic devise who go to classical concerts or concerts where acoustic instruments are played are not entirely happy with the abovementioned room treatment as although the nasty sound goes away, it also takes away a lot of musical information i.e. lack of highs, removal of certain musical details and/or lack of bass. Franck also joked to me on his last encounter at this year's CES show when he and an associate went to audition a hi-fi system with a bulit-in room correction devise, the track they played was Dave Brubeck's " Take Five ", they could hardly hear the drum solo part in the middle as the dealer must have done a really good job in taking out many vital frequencies.
The use of the acoustic resonators and the sugar cubes (these are very tiny wooden cube with holes) allow any hi-fi system performs in its optimum state as these acoustic tuning devise never suppress (compress) the audio frequencies, hence, when these wooden blocks with precious metal bells are properly installed in your room
( this must be performed by trained person ), instantly, what you can easily discern is not merely a clearer sound with more details but also better dynamics - my experience the dynamics can be improved by between 10-30%, after a full set of resonators (11) are properly installed in your room, however, if you want to achieve better results, you may install additional ones (one each) in other rooms, bathroom, kitchen and the hallway outside your front door.
Afterwards, you can add some inexpensive but highly effective wooden pucks (called diffuser & interface) and wooden cubes (sugar cube) on the surface of your wall. The resonators can change the height, width and depth of the soundstage in your room as well as the treble, mids and bass. If there are too much high frequencies/energy in the room, you simply raise the upper resonators, if there is not enough bass or bass slam, you raise the bottom resonator (if too much bass, do the opposite). If you want a sharper image, place the diffuser in the middle of the wall behind your speakers, you can adjust the tautness/fullness of the bass by sticking diffuser/interface puck on the lower surface area of a door or cabinet, literally, you are the musician (or conductor) in your room as once you have got the hang of how these gadgets work, it is really ' fun ' to work with them. Having said that, I must confess I know less than 10% of what Franck knows about room acoustics !
Back to Franck again, he is the person with the best (or most sensitive) ears I have ever come across – he used to be a jazz/blues guitarist of a band playing in the clubs of Paris, sometimes, without actually listening to any music, he can see whether the room environment or an object (be it a piece of furniture, cd player, amplifier or speaker box) contributes problems to the overall sound. Those who remembered how I tamed the Horning's Eufrodites bass boom in my room by placing a tiny resonator and a small precious stone inside the big port in the rear of the speakers can see the Cessaros have a similar design but the hole ( a much bigger one ) is in the front. Despite playing non-stop music for 2 weeks during my annual holiday earlier this month and with improvement in the highs & especially the mid-range afterwards, I still could not remove the lower mid-range coloration ( this is “ inherent “ in ALL horn designs) as well as the slight bass boom which really detract me from getting fully engaged in the vast range of music that I now listen to after the arrival of these big horns.
Fortunately, after explaining my problem with Franck, the acoustic master has kindly paid his 3rd visit to my home last week and spent 4 consecutive days treating my room and tweaking my system ( if you are serious about room acoustics, it takes more than an hour as ALL fine tunings are done repeatedly by playing the same track over and over again and afterwards, another cd is played, then you repeat the same process, this meticulous process is really time consuming and after 3 hours, you need to take a break ). To cut the long story short, designers (whether cd players, amplifiers and/or speakers) are just designers, there is often certain inherent weakness in the product's construction which reflects or compresses energy and subsequently distorts certain frequencies on some parts of the music we play that would go unnoticed, this will result in harshness, compression or boominess which continue to plague our system, that’s why we keep changing amps and/or cables when we can not get rid of the harshness or boomy sound from our system. No worries, we both concur the big hole design is the Achilles heel of this otherwise excellent speaker and also, almost 90% of the time, speakers should NEVER be toed-in - if you do not and can not discern harshness and bass anomaly, then good for you. The bass problem was gradually solved by placing 2 little resonators and a wooden block called “ phase corrector “ inside the big hole. Afterwards, these speakers are giving me the most coherent bass I have ever heard and as reported by Marvel, the dynamics coming from my system is startling, it is as dynamic (without any compression caused by room acoustic problem) as the loudest crescendo you hear in a live concert. Soon after Marvel had left, I told Franck I could still hear a small trace of compression as well as lower mid-range coloration, he then did 2 small tweaks on the speakers and afterwards, they sounded perfect to me. In fact, Franck told me just before I drove him back to the hotel, regardless of the room size and equipment, the sound on his last day in my home is the most dynamic and life-like he has ever come across.
So in closing, apart from giving my heartfelt gratitude to Franck for coming over to my home (I am also blessed by repeated visits from other world-class designers like Yamada-san of Zanden and Ralph of Cessaro ( he’ll be coming back in 2 weeks to install his latest super tweeter), his passion in music as well as his endless goal in achieving a better ( not the best ) sound truly inspires me, I have learnt a lot in last several years, however, I find that the more I learn about this special discipline in hi-fi, the less I feel I know about them on why they work – I can do certain tweaks in my room and others but without the acoustic resonators, I am powerless in altering the sound in any room.
Last but not least, AE has ordered Franck’s latest speakers incorporating his technology (or acoustic skills), I had heard the first generation last summer in his showroom and he told me these new ones are much better, well, if you want to hear something out of the ordinary, be sure to make an appointment with PT for an audition, I’m sure you will be shocked how a pair of medium-sized speakers (not to mention the superb finish) can sound so dynamic and life-like, hearing is believing once your room is done right !
Mr Zanden