Father and Son
Father and Son
My father always reminds me to turn on the preamplifier first before toggling on the power amplifier switch. When the listening session ends, the sequence is always to turn the power amplifier off first, followed by the preamplifier. This is simple enough logic for a teenager but I got the sequence wrong most of the time. I dislike remembering all these steps. At that time, a CD Walkman was more than adequate to satiate my musical curiosity.
Time flies. I have become an audio manic. I have my own family now. On top of my daytime job, I got two systems to take care. Due to the scarcity of time, I told my father to take care of the 2nd system for me. One day, he phoned me, how do I turn off the Baldur amplifier? There are two switches. Should I turn off the operate button or…….. The impatience of my voice cut his simple question into few pieces. I replied, This is something that you should know because you taught me at least one thousand times in the past. That was how I ended the conversation. At that evening, I went back home for dinner. I usually arrive one hour earlier before dinner time to enjoy that little listening session without the presence of my wife. The power amplifier did not switch off in the absence of an air conditioner in active mode. No wonder it was so hot in that little room. It turned out my father only turned the operation lever down but had not toggled off the corresponding power lever.
I said to him, Why didn’t you turn off the power amplifier? He replied. I did. My finger then pointed to the light of the tubes glowing in amber color. He moaned. I am getting old. I am sorry. At that very moment, the phrase I am getting old pierced directly into my heart as though something has awakened my conscience. Well, I am getting old too because I had recently forgotten how to use jumpers correctly on a pair of speakers. It took me 15 minutes to get them correct in places.
Before the dead silence between us was broken, he put a female soprano recording from Romania into the Orpheus Zero transport. He hit the play button and returned to the chair in the middle of the room. The moment when the sound of mass violins burst out from the left hand side, my heart knew that it was up to the standard. The sound is silky but never betrays the true texture of the violin. The energy factor is there too because the sound energy from a group of violin must be larger than a single violin. This energy is, however, not the type running towards the listener. It is high frequency energy in a dispersion manner. Harmonic tails from each violin left their respective fundamental tone in search of space until it vanishes into distance before the anew of another fundamental tone. The whole sequence then repeats itself again. The serenity reference cables always depict such processes with clarity.
My father did not say a word until the female soprano started singing for 2 minutes. He said to me. The sound is not good. The control of high frequency energy is absent. High frequency energy simply bounced back and forth everywhere. The female soprano does not sound like a female soprano. Lyrical climax has now come ear-bleeding session. Something is wrong. The evils of strong ego prompted me to argue back, Father, don’t you know that these speakers got a pair of diamond tweeters? Maybe, the tweeters of your speakers cannot reach that high. You are simply not used to the sound. He played a few more opera recordings including few cuts on Carmen and Don Giovanni. His verdicts were consistently the same. I played the usual audiophile tricks, i.e. changes a few cables albeit only in exchange with another set of deficiencies including much earlier roll off of high frequencies and/or sweetening of mid range erasing all the lyrical details and transient spike of vocal energy. The problem is still there. Reducing the energy of high frequency does not mean the reproduction of the soprano is right.
My father asked me. How often do you listen to opera? Surpassing the test of violin does not warrant equal success on soprano recordings. The energy of human voice, especially with formal soprano training, can be much larger than a violin or even a small group of violin. The control of using this energy in high passages with quick lyrical transients demands huge dynamic capability and transparency of an audio system to get it right. If not, the emotions of the singer will not be captured and what was being reproduced was only sound but not music. Sometimes the faults may not be due to electronics or cables. It could be the limitation of your room. It may be a combination of everything.�
After all, my father is not so old. The wisdoms in his words are immense. If I am not familiar with soprano voices and opera arts at large, the presence of a pair of diamond tweeters merely reconfirms its physical existence and the price-driven egoism of audio consumers. Technologies improve everyday. Audio technologies improve every now and then too. What about the quality of our listening skills? What about the importance of music in our culture? Do we have some basic ideas on how different musical instrument operate? Without knowing them, how do we know our system performs up to a certain standard?
The arrogant side of my ego almost prompted me to argue, How do you know your system got it right? I am glad my maturity and calmness terminated this thought before translating into a verbal question. It is the attitude that matters. I should think how I can learn more about opera instead of running away from the problem. Intelligence also ages. It does not simply age with our ages. It will only ages with a correct learning attitude.
My dear father, thank you.
Piano Tuner
My father always reminds me to turn on the preamplifier first before toggling on the power amplifier switch. When the listening session ends, the sequence is always to turn the power amplifier off first, followed by the preamplifier. This is simple enough logic for a teenager but I got the sequence wrong most of the time. I dislike remembering all these steps. At that time, a CD Walkman was more than adequate to satiate my musical curiosity.
Time flies. I have become an audio manic. I have my own family now. On top of my daytime job, I got two systems to take care. Due to the scarcity of time, I told my father to take care of the 2nd system for me. One day, he phoned me, how do I turn off the Baldur amplifier? There are two switches. Should I turn off the operate button or…….. The impatience of my voice cut his simple question into few pieces. I replied, This is something that you should know because you taught me at least one thousand times in the past. That was how I ended the conversation. At that evening, I went back home for dinner. I usually arrive one hour earlier before dinner time to enjoy that little listening session without the presence of my wife. The power amplifier did not switch off in the absence of an air conditioner in active mode. No wonder it was so hot in that little room. It turned out my father only turned the operation lever down but had not toggled off the corresponding power lever.
I said to him, Why didn’t you turn off the power amplifier? He replied. I did. My finger then pointed to the light of the tubes glowing in amber color. He moaned. I am getting old. I am sorry. At that very moment, the phrase I am getting old pierced directly into my heart as though something has awakened my conscience. Well, I am getting old too because I had recently forgotten how to use jumpers correctly on a pair of speakers. It took me 15 minutes to get them correct in places.
Before the dead silence between us was broken, he put a female soprano recording from Romania into the Orpheus Zero transport. He hit the play button and returned to the chair in the middle of the room. The moment when the sound of mass violins burst out from the left hand side, my heart knew that it was up to the standard. The sound is silky but never betrays the true texture of the violin. The energy factor is there too because the sound energy from a group of violin must be larger than a single violin. This energy is, however, not the type running towards the listener. It is high frequency energy in a dispersion manner. Harmonic tails from each violin left their respective fundamental tone in search of space until it vanishes into distance before the anew of another fundamental tone. The whole sequence then repeats itself again. The serenity reference cables always depict such processes with clarity.
My father did not say a word until the female soprano started singing for 2 minutes. He said to me. The sound is not good. The control of high frequency energy is absent. High frequency energy simply bounced back and forth everywhere. The female soprano does not sound like a female soprano. Lyrical climax has now come ear-bleeding session. Something is wrong. The evils of strong ego prompted me to argue back, Father, don’t you know that these speakers got a pair of diamond tweeters? Maybe, the tweeters of your speakers cannot reach that high. You are simply not used to the sound. He played a few more opera recordings including few cuts on Carmen and Don Giovanni. His verdicts were consistently the same. I played the usual audiophile tricks, i.e. changes a few cables albeit only in exchange with another set of deficiencies including much earlier roll off of high frequencies and/or sweetening of mid range erasing all the lyrical details and transient spike of vocal energy. The problem is still there. Reducing the energy of high frequency does not mean the reproduction of the soprano is right.
My father asked me. How often do you listen to opera? Surpassing the test of violin does not warrant equal success on soprano recordings. The energy of human voice, especially with formal soprano training, can be much larger than a violin or even a small group of violin. The control of using this energy in high passages with quick lyrical transients demands huge dynamic capability and transparency of an audio system to get it right. If not, the emotions of the singer will not be captured and what was being reproduced was only sound but not music. Sometimes the faults may not be due to electronics or cables. It could be the limitation of your room. It may be a combination of everything.�
After all, my father is not so old. The wisdoms in his words are immense. If I am not familiar with soprano voices and opera arts at large, the presence of a pair of diamond tweeters merely reconfirms its physical existence and the price-driven egoism of audio consumers. Technologies improve everyday. Audio technologies improve every now and then too. What about the quality of our listening skills? What about the importance of music in our culture? Do we have some basic ideas on how different musical instrument operate? Without knowing them, how do we know our system performs up to a certain standard?
The arrogant side of my ego almost prompted me to argue, How do you know your system got it right? I am glad my maturity and calmness terminated this thought before translating into a verbal question. It is the attitude that matters. I should think how I can learn more about opera instead of running away from the problem. Intelligence also ages. It does not simply age with our ages. It will only ages with a correct learning attitude.
My dear father, thank you.
Piano Tuner
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Comments
This is the quality of writing that I and other fellow audiophiles are longing to see!! No where can I find something similar except perhaps in 6moons. This is indeed much much compelling and reflecting for all of us to re-vitalise our learning attitude which would sometime get aged when we believe we have more experience than before.
Your simple example would also tell although older people may not catch up with the technologies, the wealth of their experience is evergreening and I can see that they are so accommodating to our generation because to them, we are the real 'inexperienced' and 'impatience'.
Take good care of your father as I believe he is a treasure in both of your personal and musical lives.
Marvel
I was touched by your writing like the others who already expressed their appreaciation.
After reading it, my mind was not in your story, nor was it in you, your dad, or audio. I spent the whole night thinking about my dad, who passed away 16 years ago. I do not think my dad was very interested in music, there is no audio story to tell between us. However, so many little things came back to my memory that warms my heart all over again.
Robert