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A tale of 2 (3) cables - part 2
A tale of 2 (3) cables – the end of the beginning
Further to my recent acquisition of 2 ORs, one replacing the FR to my Zanden transport and the FMR to pre-amp, I was a happy man to cut the long story short. However, in order to share a detailed account of my recent experience with these power cords and my journey in reaching closer to hi-fi nirvana, it would not be proper to skip the rather traumatic encounter I had with the 2nd OR and then 2 subsequent ORs.
I was quite pleased after replacing the FMR feeding the pre-amp with the second OR, the sound coming from the CD had a better balance & coherence, however, after further listening, I found the overall sound was a little bit light in balance and I needed to do something about it. After consulting with PT (his advice has always been good), he suggested I should plug the ousted FMR to my DAC as this will improve the overall sound as well as reducing the noise. After doing so, I was rather unsettled by the extra energy coming from the FMR, although the sound was definitely more dynamic and had plenty of bass, it was like someone has fed viagra to my Zanden DAC, there was just too much energy, in acoustic vocabulary – too much tension in the sound.
I had to make minor adjustments to speaker placement as well as room acoustics in order to retrieve previously more natural sound balance. After 2 hours of sweating, I was almost done with this tweaking exercise, then I checked the sound of LPs, it was totally opposite to the CDs, whilst the sound coming from the polycarbonates was okay, in contrast, LPs sounded light in balance, obviously, the variable which caused this phenomenon was the removal of FMR from the pre-amp. Out of pure intuition, I replaced the FMR connected to the ORB power bar with FR and plugged the bigger brother to the power supply of my turntable, lo and behold, I managed to retrieve a richer balance.
When I played the CDs again, the balance was a wee bit lighter (due to replacement of the FMR to the power bar by FR), so I had to make tiny adjustment to speaker placement again as well as the 16 noise filters on the large window (raising them a notch i.e. 1-2 mm) behind my speakers. After a while, slowly but surely, the overall sound improved with better tonal clarity and balance.
Several days later, the AE duo came to my place to audition my system, Jlam was well prepared for this visit by bringing along a library of CDs to test one’s system. My system played all his discs with ease and one of the discs with a very dynamic low bass (from double bass) impressed J very much. Of course I would not let them leave after playing their CDs, I quickly spun 2 LPs to show off my system, the first was Belafonte Live at Carnegie Hall, J remarked that my system captured the hall ambience and different seating of the audiences with uncanny realism. Last but not least, I saved the best in the end by playing the finale of Telarc’s Carmina Burana to them, the dynamics especially when the tympani played with their ‘thundering’ transient power would make any serious audiophile sweat with shock & excitement. Jlam said he sweated a little and asked why PT’s horn can’t deliver this kind of startling dynamics? N.B. of all the systems I have listened to during my high-end encounter, only 3 other systems I had heard could deliver this kind of dynamics and the electronics were solid-state. However, I must emphasize when I visited some audiophiles’ abodes who claimed their systems are really dynamic, the so-called dynamic sound (because one’s perception is purely subjective) almost puts me to an instant nap, the same happened to my own dynamic system several days later.
Well, all was well in the next few days. I was very happy with the sound, now reaching new heights especially on the coherence, from top to bottom. I played more and more opera music not just because of the Bryn Terfel’s CD J gave me but because of a pending visit by an American freelance tenor, his website can be found on www.michaelsommese.com. I hosted a dinner in the VIP room of my local favourite restaurant and in the middle of the meal, I asked Mike to perform Turandot’s Nessun dorma and asked if he wanted to stand up to do the solo part, he said no need as he was sitting rather comfortably on his chair (after many glasses of champagne and red wine). I quickly proceeded to stand on the other side of the large table opposite Mike in order to get a direct sound from him, when he started to sing, wow, the dynamics coming from a tensor’s lungs were awesome/ unbelievable. Next day, I hosted another dinner for Mike at my home, when he arrived, he was rather amazed when he saw my big horns. I started to play Verdi’s Brindisi, (Decca performed by Giacomo Aragall and conducted by Lorin Maazel), this was the piece he sang on his CD, his voice was very similar to the tenor, he asked me to play Decca’s Turandot, track 7 by Pavarotti and others and afterwards, he was very impressed with the sound of my system. Half way through the dinner, I could not help but asked him to perform Nessun dorma again so that I can hear how well a live rendition compares to a CD recording in my listening room. Well, honestly, there was no contest, the texture & unlimited dynamics of his voice were really unheard of, even with a pretty well tuned high-end system, it still can’t compete with the real thing, my system still could not deliver the dynamics of the real thing and perhaps my room was still too small to accommodate the powerful voice of tenors who sing in a concert hall without microphones.
Several days later, another 2 ORs arrived on Thursday, I did something which I had never done before, I plugged these 2 exquisitely finished cords straight to my Zanden power amps ‘without’ the usual 3-day burn in period, contrary to the initial favourable impressions by other OR users who reported good results without the usual burning-in process, they did not sound good out of the box, at least in my system and to my ears, sure, although there was a slight improvement in clarity, the overall sound was wee bit tense and previous natural timbre was missing. I had to plug them to the radio for proper cooking, perhaps for another 48 hours before I could sit down to listen to them.
Came Saturday, I waited until afternoon before plugging the 2 ORs to my power amps, the sound improved with a natural timbre and I knew it was time to fine tune the noise filters and some of the wooden pucks residing on the amps and 2 on the racks to achieve the tonality I desired for. Afterwards, I was satisfied, apart from better details and deeper plus fuller bass, the sound stage appeared to be slightly deeper.
Yesterday, I continued to indulge myself in fine tuning the abovementioned pucks and added 2 more noise filters to the side walls in order to achieve the richer/organic tonality I had longed for, the ORs really facilitated me to accomplish this (I mean simply by using 4 ORs would not) after going through some very time consuming procedures. My system can play now violin & piano equally well with just the right wooden tone & extension on the highs on the former and precise pitch plus attack on the latter (play track one of Gil Shaham’s on DG’s The Fiddler of the opera and see if you think the sound is good and dynamic). Opera music now becomes more real, allowing tenors & sopranos to sing their hearts out with dynamics and much minimal stress during the loud passages. In order words, the sum of using 4 ORs (after further tweaking with room acoustics & speaker placement) is much greater than the improvement simply by replacing the previous power cords.
Since today is the last day of 2007, let me end by repeating my hi-fi philosophy to all you audiophiles out there that from my experience, simply upgrading to a better product, be it cable, electronics and or a pair of speakers will not give you maximum bang for your buck. I have heard many systems, large and small, modest to very expensive ones during these years, over 90%, yes 90% plus of the systems, to my ears, were only giving not more than 50% of their potential, some even less than 30% (if you ask me about my own system, I reckon not more than 70%). Why is that ? Well, the owners did not know how to, why ? Because they could not discern the real thing, why ? Because they did not go to hear the real thing or go to any classical concert. Secondly, the speaker placement is not optimum (there is only ONE sweet spot in the room) or speakers are in wrong position (if the speakers are placed correctly, the sound will automatically bloom with the room, the sound you hear has a good balance, bass is full and tuneful, overall sound is pretty dynamic and the bass has impact). Thirdly, problem with room acoustics - let me declare simply by having a room built by acoustic engineer to achieve the ideal acoustics had never sounded right/natural to my ears. In one situation, the most elaborate room costing over US 200K sounded worse to my ears because it was built around a studio, sure, the sound isolation was done perfectly but the room robbed the huge system of its dynamics with lack of highs & low level resolution.
My intent to end my last article in the forum is to make people better aware of the many shortcomings inherent in one’s system which they are unaware of and there are generally 2 ways of improving their system : 1) invite those experienced good ears to give a very critical appraisal of their system, then take heed of their advice, 2) go to hear those good sounding systems and learn how to achieve that. Simply by upgrading to a (assuming) better component will only give you a very marginal improvement. Since our system is never perfect, our perseverance to achieve better sound will surely make our system sounding incrementally better over time. One of the best sounding systems I have heard literally cost less than the total cost of some audio buddy’s cables and although the system still can not play ALL types of music well (according to my standard, it shocked and impressed everyone when orchestral music was played) and it sounded better every time I visited the proud owner (food for thought to many of you TYPE As out there !).
Happy new year to all the audio comrades who have read my occasional contributions in this forum and may 2008 brings absolute sound improvement to your treasured hi-fi systems.
Mr Z.
Further to my recent acquisition of 2 ORs, one replacing the FR to my Zanden transport and the FMR to pre-amp, I was a happy man to cut the long story short. However, in order to share a detailed account of my recent experience with these power cords and my journey in reaching closer to hi-fi nirvana, it would not be proper to skip the rather traumatic encounter I had with the 2nd OR and then 2 subsequent ORs.
I was quite pleased after replacing the FMR feeding the pre-amp with the second OR, the sound coming from the CD had a better balance & coherence, however, after further listening, I found the overall sound was a little bit light in balance and I needed to do something about it. After consulting with PT (his advice has always been good), he suggested I should plug the ousted FMR to my DAC as this will improve the overall sound as well as reducing the noise. After doing so, I was rather unsettled by the extra energy coming from the FMR, although the sound was definitely more dynamic and had plenty of bass, it was like someone has fed viagra to my Zanden DAC, there was just too much energy, in acoustic vocabulary – too much tension in the sound.
I had to make minor adjustments to speaker placement as well as room acoustics in order to retrieve previously more natural sound balance. After 2 hours of sweating, I was almost done with this tweaking exercise, then I checked the sound of LPs, it was totally opposite to the CDs, whilst the sound coming from the polycarbonates was okay, in contrast, LPs sounded light in balance, obviously, the variable which caused this phenomenon was the removal of FMR from the pre-amp. Out of pure intuition, I replaced the FMR connected to the ORB power bar with FR and plugged the bigger brother to the power supply of my turntable, lo and behold, I managed to retrieve a richer balance.
When I played the CDs again, the balance was a wee bit lighter (due to replacement of the FMR to the power bar by FR), so I had to make tiny adjustment to speaker placement again as well as the 16 noise filters on the large window (raising them a notch i.e. 1-2 mm) behind my speakers. After a while, slowly but surely, the overall sound improved with better tonal clarity and balance.
Several days later, the AE duo came to my place to audition my system, Jlam was well prepared for this visit by bringing along a library of CDs to test one’s system. My system played all his discs with ease and one of the discs with a very dynamic low bass (from double bass) impressed J very much. Of course I would not let them leave after playing their CDs, I quickly spun 2 LPs to show off my system, the first was Belafonte Live at Carnegie Hall, J remarked that my system captured the hall ambience and different seating of the audiences with uncanny realism. Last but not least, I saved the best in the end by playing the finale of Telarc’s Carmina Burana to them, the dynamics especially when the tympani played with their ‘thundering’ transient power would make any serious audiophile sweat with shock & excitement. Jlam said he sweated a little and asked why PT’s horn can’t deliver this kind of startling dynamics? N.B. of all the systems I have listened to during my high-end encounter, only 3 other systems I had heard could deliver this kind of dynamics and the electronics were solid-state. However, I must emphasize when I visited some audiophiles’ abodes who claimed their systems are really dynamic, the so-called dynamic sound (because one’s perception is purely subjective) almost puts me to an instant nap, the same happened to my own dynamic system several days later.
Well, all was well in the next few days. I was very happy with the sound, now reaching new heights especially on the coherence, from top to bottom. I played more and more opera music not just because of the Bryn Terfel’s CD J gave me but because of a pending visit by an American freelance tenor, his website can be found on www.michaelsommese.com. I hosted a dinner in the VIP room of my local favourite restaurant and in the middle of the meal, I asked Mike to perform Turandot’s Nessun dorma and asked if he wanted to stand up to do the solo part, he said no need as he was sitting rather comfortably on his chair (after many glasses of champagne and red wine). I quickly proceeded to stand on the other side of the large table opposite Mike in order to get a direct sound from him, when he started to sing, wow, the dynamics coming from a tensor’s lungs were awesome/ unbelievable. Next day, I hosted another dinner for Mike at my home, when he arrived, he was rather amazed when he saw my big horns. I started to play Verdi’s Brindisi, (Decca performed by Giacomo Aragall and conducted by Lorin Maazel), this was the piece he sang on his CD, his voice was very similar to the tenor, he asked me to play Decca’s Turandot, track 7 by Pavarotti and others and afterwards, he was very impressed with the sound of my system. Half way through the dinner, I could not help but asked him to perform Nessun dorma again so that I can hear how well a live rendition compares to a CD recording in my listening room. Well, honestly, there was no contest, the texture & unlimited dynamics of his voice were really unheard of, even with a pretty well tuned high-end system, it still can’t compete with the real thing, my system still could not deliver the dynamics of the real thing and perhaps my room was still too small to accommodate the powerful voice of tenors who sing in a concert hall without microphones.
Several days later, another 2 ORs arrived on Thursday, I did something which I had never done before, I plugged these 2 exquisitely finished cords straight to my Zanden power amps ‘without’ the usual 3-day burn in period, contrary to the initial favourable impressions by other OR users who reported good results without the usual burning-in process, they did not sound good out of the box, at least in my system and to my ears, sure, although there was a slight improvement in clarity, the overall sound was wee bit tense and previous natural timbre was missing. I had to plug them to the radio for proper cooking, perhaps for another 48 hours before I could sit down to listen to them.
Came Saturday, I waited until afternoon before plugging the 2 ORs to my power amps, the sound improved with a natural timbre and I knew it was time to fine tune the noise filters and some of the wooden pucks residing on the amps and 2 on the racks to achieve the tonality I desired for. Afterwards, I was satisfied, apart from better details and deeper plus fuller bass, the sound stage appeared to be slightly deeper.
Yesterday, I continued to indulge myself in fine tuning the abovementioned pucks and added 2 more noise filters to the side walls in order to achieve the richer/organic tonality I had longed for, the ORs really facilitated me to accomplish this (I mean simply by using 4 ORs would not) after going through some very time consuming procedures. My system can play now violin & piano equally well with just the right wooden tone & extension on the highs on the former and precise pitch plus attack on the latter (play track one of Gil Shaham’s on DG’s The Fiddler of the opera and see if you think the sound is good and dynamic). Opera music now becomes more real, allowing tenors & sopranos to sing their hearts out with dynamics and much minimal stress during the loud passages. In order words, the sum of using 4 ORs (after further tweaking with room acoustics & speaker placement) is much greater than the improvement simply by replacing the previous power cords.
Since today is the last day of 2007, let me end by repeating my hi-fi philosophy to all you audiophiles out there that from my experience, simply upgrading to a better product, be it cable, electronics and or a pair of speakers will not give you maximum bang for your buck. I have heard many systems, large and small, modest to very expensive ones during these years, over 90%, yes 90% plus of the systems, to my ears, were only giving not more than 50% of their potential, some even less than 30% (if you ask me about my own system, I reckon not more than 70%). Why is that ? Well, the owners did not know how to, why ? Because they could not discern the real thing, why ? Because they did not go to hear the real thing or go to any classical concert. Secondly, the speaker placement is not optimum (there is only ONE sweet spot in the room) or speakers are in wrong position (if the speakers are placed correctly, the sound will automatically bloom with the room, the sound you hear has a good balance, bass is full and tuneful, overall sound is pretty dynamic and the bass has impact). Thirdly, problem with room acoustics - let me declare simply by having a room built by acoustic engineer to achieve the ideal acoustics had never sounded right/natural to my ears. In one situation, the most elaborate room costing over US 200K sounded worse to my ears because it was built around a studio, sure, the sound isolation was done perfectly but the room robbed the huge system of its dynamics with lack of highs & low level resolution.
My intent to end my last article in the forum is to make people better aware of the many shortcomings inherent in one’s system which they are unaware of and there are generally 2 ways of improving their system : 1) invite those experienced good ears to give a very critical appraisal of their system, then take heed of their advice, 2) go to hear those good sounding systems and learn how to achieve that. Simply by upgrading to a (assuming) better component will only give you a very marginal improvement. Since our system is never perfect, our perseverance to achieve better sound will surely make our system sounding incrementally better over time. One of the best sounding systems I have heard literally cost less than the total cost of some audio buddy’s cables and although the system still can not play ALL types of music well (according to my standard, it shocked and impressed everyone when orchestral music was played) and it sounded better every time I visited the proud owner (food for thought to many of you TYPE As out there !).
Happy new year to all the audio comrades who have read my occasional contributions in this forum and may 2008 brings absolute sound improvement to your treasured hi-fi systems.
Mr Z.
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Comments
I am very happy for your success in 2007 and no doubt it is the envy of many audiophiles. For one, I am particularly impressed by your steadfastness towards achieving the best sound out of your system (which is the benchmark setup in town). I only wish I would have your patience in your eternal flame for fine tuning. Most often time, I just choose to maximize my limited time to enjoy the music rather than ironing the wrinkles in the system (which there are too many).
Would be keen to witness your hardworking achievement in pushing the envelope of the state of art. I am sure this will be a jaw-dropping and salivating experience.
Have a happy new year to you and all the forum readers.
Thank you for your compliments. In fact, I am beginning to question whether I should spend more time listening to music than tweaking my system. I belong to the minority group of audiophiles who pays extra attention to the absolute reproduction of hi-fi in our home. Franck, my acoustic master worte to me after reading my write-up on OR said he can never listen to cables without making minor adjustments to his sugar cubes (noise filters).
Anyway, there is no right or wrong, normal or abnormal in hi-fi, I guess if you are happy with what you are doing/listening to, then this is the ultimate goal in hi-fi as you're in this hobby to please your own self and not others. I spend hundred of hours tweaking my sytem to satisfy my hi-fi expectation instead of trying to impress others ( I have never invited people to come to hear my system even when the system sounds good to me).
My hope in 2008 is to listen to more music than spending endless hours tweaking my system as the law of diminshing returns is taking a toll on me. I am certain my system will further improve with the delivery of Yamada's 211 tube-based amps as well as a custom-made modification to my horns later next month, then perhaps I should stop at that and try to play more music, more classical, some jazz and 70's rock (Joan Armatrading, Dire Straits, Eagles, Linda Ronstadt etc).
Just do what your heart desires and enjoy life.
Best regards,
Mr Z