Your writing is very interesting and informative all the time! I agree with Ajar. The Flow does an excellent job on the dac. I belive your entire system has already FLOWed up.
Our listening bias – biggest barrier in reaching hi-fi nirvana !
The inevitable finally arrived when I had lunch with P.T. last Friday and he handed me over the last FR cord AE had in stock, as usual, I hooked it up to my faithful radio to burn-in for 2 days and went to Elaine Page concert that evening and a classical concert on Saturday to hear another live performance of my favourite piano concerto – Beethoven 5 th.
At the HKCC on Friday night, even though I had the best tickets ($ 2,380 each), I was saying to myself this place always sounds BAD (Art Garfunkel, Robin Gibb, Whitney Huston etc). I was in for one of the biggest pleasant surprises in recent concert memory, when the band played and Elaine started to sing, it was exactly the way I hear her in my system but better in terms or dynamics (wow, it was awesome) and the acoustics by any concert standard, near perfection. Why ? Because we had sound engineer from Broadway upbringing where no added mixing to the vocal or other instruments were used, the result, very pure and dynamic vocal. This goes to show 99% of rock music engineers are tone deaf (did anyone go to hear the Eagles – my brother, who is NOT a hi-fi guy but music lover, reported to me how bad the sound was, period). Next evening, at the concert hall sitting in my FAVOURITE middle of row E, with the Steinway 18-20 ft strategically placed in front of me, the power & majestic sound reverberating in the opening movement swept me away, unfortunately the orchestra (very small – just less than 50 musicians) could not reproduce the powerful full orchestral sound & ambience of the Emperor, anyway, I came here to hear the piano, the pianist played okay ( my preference is always Arrau).
Came Sunday, my wife & daughter went about their usual morning activities, giving me ample time to audition the FR cord and under the auspices of P.T., Julian & Ajar, I plugged it to my DAC and played the CDs I usually listen to every day. Instantly, the sound was a wee bit more dynamic and extra subtle details on these CDs could be heard. Since I had previous experience (3 times) with the installation of FLOW, it only took me a couple of hours (huge shortening of the lead time) to adjust the acoustic resonators (one simply needed to raise the upper ones by a notch to unleash the extra energy from this silken white cord). The overall sound became more organic or life-like as well as allowing the listener to follow the playing with ease.
Today, I played music as soon as returning home from work, recent rather humid weather really has a small sonic effect on these wooden resonators, diffusers & the tiny wooden blocks, after quick and very minor tweaking, I played Gladiator (track # 2, 3 then 16 & 17), the sound literally engulfed the area behind my 2 monoliths and passages with low frequencies made the floor vibrate – what a thrilling sensation (my speakers, after installing 5 FLOW power cords, are really unparallel in reproducing low level information). I played several more of my favourite CDs and then proceeded to Arrau again, this time, the tonality of the piano was the Steinway sound I heard & remembered. After 4-5 minutes of playing the Allegro movement, for the first time ever, I stood up and started to mimic the conductor I saw at Saturday’s concert, the sound I was hearing was the most concert-like sound I have ever experienced, it almost brought tears to my eyes as I was saying to myself – I have finally transformed my modest listening room into a mini concert hall. Yes, Julian, you were right, my system has now truly FLOWed up !
Now, 2 hours after my exhilarating moment has lapsed, I’m trying to write some sense in what I want to say. I’d like to declare, in a nutshell, “ there is no single best system “ in this world. Our absolute best endeavor is to reproduce the TYPE of music/listening bias exactly or as close as possible, the way we want to hear it or the way we enjoy it the most. For me, the better my system gets, the more I’m aware of its strength as well as its weakness(es). My goal in last 3-5 years has been the reproduction of FULL orchestral music, be it large-scale symphonies, piano & violin concertos. I think I have reached there, at least as far as I’m aware of it after hearing numerous so-called top full-range systems in H.K., U.K. and Malaysia, none can reproduce the type of music mentioned above (my listening bias) as good as my own. Incidentally, my LP playback system equipped with air-bearing tone arm scored big time on large scale music was heard by Yamada-san and Franck Tchang, subsequently both gentlemen purchased the same record player and the same tone arm. My system’s weaknesses, well, there are many and too numerous to list, not that it will detract me from enjoying other different types of music like chamber music, jazz and opera/vocals, I personally do not think its sound is comparable to the other best systems in these areas that I have heard in the past.
What I mean is if I invite an avid concert-goer to my place and listen to orchestral music, I bet he/she would not leave in less than 3 hours, however, same can’t be said if a die-hard high efficiency speakers/ SET audiophile comes along, he will not want to hear large-scale orchestral music but his own type. If he is a TYPE C Minus type (excuse the pun, please refer to the article on this dated Feb 19), then he will probably critique my system why it can’t play as well as the best system which reproduces the type of music he usually listens to. I still remember several years back when my H.K. super-fi crowd and I visited a very nice chap in Penang who used full Kondo Audio Note gear (M100 + Ongaku) driving the Grand Slam, the gentleman listens to chamber/soft music but one of sinister H.K. chaps asked him to turn up his system to full and played the Zoro’s soundtrack, after 60 seconds (or thereabouts), we heard the left side speaker popped and the owner immediately rushed to turn down the volume, he tried to play one of his own CDs and noticed the sound level from on left channel was gone – we quickly left his home as a result of our embarrassing & obnoxious act.
If I point out almost all horn speakers & other high efficiency designs which need to be placed close to the back wall have no true depth and wide soundstage and also produce unconventional (no-so coherent) bass when compared to my speakers, then I’ll be missing a lot of the strengths of these types of transducers like tremendous micro dynamics and life-like vocals and my system will be not tuned to achieve a sound closer to these welcoming attributes . Nevertheless, since hi-fi/music is one of the most subjective topics of discussions, being a TYPE C Plus audiophile, I am always striving to push the boundaries of my system to attain a more balanced sound so that I (rather than others) can enjoy as many different types of music as possible. So tell me, or tell yourself honestly, what is your listening bias, is it too narrow because you think you are different and better than other fellow hi-fi brothers or do you continue to live under the state of denial that your system can only play a very limited range of music that precludes you from enjoying Beethoven Symphony No. 5 as much as Wagner’s O du mein holder Abenstern – Tannhauser.
It is such a tremendous pleasures to read your writings. It is very thoughtful. I am just offering my innocent opinions to you. I got my 2nd FR for the Zanden transport. I thought the improvement after using one on the dac is minimal but I was wrong again. It bring my system up another level. Bass extends further down. There are more bass motion surrounding the organs.
Those resonators are magical! PT installed a few silver and copper resonators for me. Two of the walls in my listening room disappear in no time!
The start of 2007 has been a very busy year for me in terms of hi-fi as I have suffered several relapses of the Type A bug (like many AE’s customers – new & old alike). The arrival of Argento’s FR & FRM cords had made me re-think the importance of utilizing great power cords to produce a better balanced sound from my system and fortunately, I was able to achieve slight improvement but it will never be transformed into a sound system which gives me 100% satisfaction as my full-range speakers, although excellent in their own rights in terms of design, because the use of ceramic drivers for the mid-range, does have its limitations of not being able to produce a realistically ‘natural’ timbre when it comes to reproducing human voices and wooden classical instruments (violin & cello etc), anyway, all I can manage to do is to make my speakers sound its best and they do produce a satisfying sound to me – let’s put it bluntly, I have not heard better sound in terms of overall rendition of hi-fi music (as opposed to live music) from any conventional box design, however, they have unable to render the last ultimate 15-20% of reality in sound & the micro and macro dynamics that I long for.
Last month, I was privileged to audition the Cessaro horn speakers and after 2 consecutive days of auditioning these full-range speakers, I was convinced they are finally what I want even though I was not totally satisfied with the overall sound due to the room acoustics/ environment, speaker placement & drive units not broken in, I could hear the potential qualities these speakers can bring in my listening room. I am confident once I have these beasts in my home, I can really make them sing & ‘swing’ with all its might, yes, they are one of the MOST dynamically sounding transducers I have come across. My life-long endeavor in searching for the right speakers has finally come to fruition, it is like journey’s end, or put it in another way, it this the end of the beginning of my quest for reaching closer to hi-fi nirvana, I believe I am definitely moving in the right direction and closer than the majority of other audiophiles. Well, enough of this day dreaming as I still do not have these horns residing in my acoustically tuned hi-fi abode, I have to wait until the end of June.
The designer of Cessaro also paid a 2nd visit to my place during his last visit to hear my system and made several constructive comments (he is a true audiophile and told me he has used over 20 different types of the big speakers in the market – so he does know what a competent speaker should behave). After auditioning the horns, I knew exactly what can be improved immediately. Actually, after hearing what these horns can do on certain parameters in music reproduction, I had to tweak my present speakers/system yet once again.
The bass output from my active speakers system had been set a wee bit too much, so I reduced the output by 4 notches, the clarity of the entire sound improved but the mid-range had thinned out, next, I changed the subwoofer crossover setting from 41 to 43 HZ and bingo, the mid-range sound was fuller and sounded more natural, furthermore, I adjusted the amplitude, allowing the bass transient to move faster, these adjustments resulted in a clearer, faster as well as better coherence in sound. Contrary to popular belief, Cessaro’s designer told me in order to achieve the kind of bass comparable to the sound/impact from my present active subwoofer, one has to use ‘solid state amps’, cos only such design can produce enough transient power to control the woofer (to stop the bass cone from moving backward when another bass note has already been played), so ultimately, when I acquire the massive bass horn units in the future, I need to use solid state amps. I intend to visit this German designer in July to hear the flagship model so that I have a good idea of what is possible in sound reproduction.
Later on, I moved my monoliths 5 mm towards the rear wall as well as closer to each other and raised all the top acoustic resonators, the soundstage improved further and finally, I tilted (backward) the treble, mid-range & woofer section of upper speaker section by 2 mm, the previously slightly elevated image had been lowered, giving me a very good 3-dimentional soundstage & image.
The arrival of the SRA platform proved to be untimely as I had no time to add an extra variable to my existing system, room acoustics & speaker placement completely pre-occupied my time ( I think PT has also been busy with adjusting the acoustic resonators recently too), however, after everything was done, I slipped this impeccably finished black glossy square under my CD transport and the improvement it brought to the sound was comparable to the F.L.O.W. power cord, nice one PT !
Very recently, after attending 3 concerts, I proceeded with more tweaking – room acoustics and minor speaker placement. The first concert was baroque music performed by the famed Trevor Pinnock (he had worked with Rachel Podger) who has been promoting this type of music using period instruments, sitting in the front row and with the ensemble performing 12 feet in front of me was quite an experience as the sound was startling real & ambient. Then I heard the world famous Chinese pianist Fu Tsong play Mozart’s # 12. Last Saturday, I heard Kolja Blacher (ex-concertmaster of Berliner Philharmoniker) playing my favourite Beethoven’s violin concerto (I had heard this piece of music performed live 6 times in H.K., previous players included, in terms of preferences, Accardo, Shlomo Mintz, Maxim Vangerov and Vadim Repin). The tonality of his violin was the best I had ever heard, silky top and sweet/rich/glorious mid-range. Sunday, I spent whole day making more finer adjustments and in the evening, I was really enjoying the sound and after hearing it again today, I think I can now enjoy listening to all types of music as it is producing the most balanced sound in my listening room.
Last but not least, my very supportive other-half has suggested to me now that my system is sounding better than ever before, it would be nice to share present sound experience with fellow audiophiles, after all, it has taken me over 3 years to tune it to its present sound & glory and perhaps we can invite some true audiophiles to audition my system and let them enjoy it too. She knows only too well it will take me a long time to fine tune the horns when they take residence in my living room next month. So PT, if you can help me organize this event, I will start preparing for it, perhaps one can tentatively call it Zan-tinel hi-fi sharing day where people can hear what a full Zanden-based system sounds like in an acoustically-tuned venue.
As usual, very well written article. Hi End is never about plug and play. One must do hardworks to achieve the utopias. There are no luck and coincidences. You deserve a great deal of respect. The amount of time and effort you persistently spend on improving your system is second to none that I know of.
May I invite Marvel, Studiogrey, MatthewC, Azzuri, Julian and many others who happen to stop over HK to visit Mr.Zanden before he ventures in the world of Cessaro Horn?
I may have forgotten some names because there are too many anyway. Bigpiece in Shanghai, Mr.Wavac, Zil and William in Beijing, please feel free to give me a ring when you are in HK next time. Prepare to be melt down by the passion of Mr.Zanden!
Live concert – A REALITY CHECK or RUDE AWAKENING and
JUNE 09, ZAN-TINEL HI-FI SHARING DAY
Further to my last posting several weeks ago and the subsequent employment of more FR power cords plus, you’ve guessed correctly, more tweaking on my room acoustics, I was a happy audiophile.
Yesterday, I went to yumcha with a bunch of hi-fi old timers and the sifu there told me whether I notice our sound system sounds a little bit different everyday and does not always sound consistently good all the time and when he learnt about my intention of becoming a horn guy soon, he commented I’d be disappointed with the soundstage (depth & breadth), 3 dimensionality, deficient highs & bass coherence problem etc as these were and still are his experience with the old Altec, JBL and the new JBL and other horn designs, anyway, after hearing my future hi-fi love of my life, I know what these new horns can do, so I’m confident the inherent weaknesses mentioned will be minimized with a bit of hard work after the initial learning curve period.
In the evening, I went to a concert performed by HKPO conducted by Rumon Gamba (he bears no relationship with the famed Pierino Gamba who conducted LSO’s Rossini Overtures on DECCA), the first piece of music performed was William Tell (what a coincidence) , this was the 1st time I heard it play live. The opening began with a cello solo (played by the principal cellist), followed by other cello players, the rich tonal colour plus sound decay gave me the goose bumps, then the double bass joined in and finally the string section, well the recordings in my collection were dull & anemic by comparison , that’s why I never took much interest in this piece of work until last night. The final movement was the climatic part where the horn section and percussion joined in, some of the loud passages reached over 105-110 dB, with the concert hall’s ceiling must be extending 30 ft above me, the power and the ambience produced by the group on the stage were simply majestic. Anyway, why is it almost all classical recordings are nowhere near as good as the real event, was it the engineers/recordings or limitation of our hi-fi systems ? I realized if you add up the volume/surface area of each instrument (violin, viola, cello, double bass, horns, timpani of this 80+ musicians’ orchestra) , it must be rather large, this means we have on certain loud passages all the instruments playing at the same time, the sound pressure and the dynamics produced are simply awesome, that’s why one can NEVER reproduce a genuine concert hall effect in our domestic environment with just a pair of speakers, period. So I would laugh at (rather than despise) those who think their flea-powered amp can make their high efficiency speakers rock & roll ! Furthermore, I read the latest enjoythemusic.com’s 2007 Primedia Stereophile Home Entertainment Show, the reporter wrote one of the exhibitors had 2 identical rooms with the same equipments but one of the rooms was totally untreated and he said he was rather startled by the difference or the improvement in sound coming out from the treated room, so if we continue to hear our beloved system in an acoustically untreated room, the chance is we are hearing the characteristic (or rather the annoying part) of our room more than the sound of our system is producing ! I could hear a slight improvement after treating a small side window with a tiny wooden block as it reduces the nasty sound reflection of the glass. I have been fighting a hard battle with the large window on the wall behind my full-range speakers and the difference between a treated rear wall with large windows and an untreated one is not unsubtle.
Came Sunday, with my memory of the previous concert sound still fresh on my mind, I started tweaking with my room acoustics yet once again, I raised my upper resonators to allow the speakers more room to breathe, the ambience increased and the sound dynamics became less strained, in order words, the dynamic headroom improved a little bit, anyway, I think this is really as good as it gets with my present setup, so perhaps I should accept the sound of my beloved system until something new comes along later on – its time to be pampered by my Zanden-based system after so much hard work had been put into it.
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 !
Comments
Your writing is very interesting and informative all the time! I agree with Ajar. The Flow does an excellent job on the dac. I belive your entire system has already FLOWed up.
Ju
The inevitable finally arrived when I had lunch with P.T. last Friday and he handed me over the last FR cord AE had in stock, as usual, I hooked it up to my faithful radio to burn-in for 2 days and went to Elaine Page concert that evening and a classical concert on Saturday to hear another live performance of my favourite piano concerto – Beethoven 5 th.
At the HKCC on Friday night, even though I had the best tickets ($ 2,380 each), I was saying to myself this place always sounds BAD (Art Garfunkel, Robin Gibb, Whitney Huston etc). I was in for one of the biggest pleasant surprises in recent concert memory, when the band played and Elaine started to sing, it was exactly the way I hear her in my system but better in terms or dynamics (wow, it was awesome) and the acoustics by any concert standard, near perfection. Why ? Because we had sound engineer from Broadway upbringing where no added mixing to the vocal or other instruments were used, the result, very pure and dynamic vocal. This goes to show 99% of rock music engineers are tone deaf (did anyone go to hear the Eagles – my brother, who is NOT a hi-fi guy but music lover, reported to me how bad the sound was, period). Next evening, at the concert hall sitting in my FAVOURITE middle of row E, with the Steinway 18-20 ft strategically placed in front of me, the power & majestic sound reverberating in the opening movement swept me away, unfortunately the orchestra (very small – just less than 50 musicians) could not reproduce the powerful full orchestral sound & ambience of the Emperor, anyway, I came here to hear the piano, the pianist played okay ( my preference is always Arrau).
Came Sunday, my wife & daughter went about their usual morning activities, giving me ample time to audition the FR cord and under the auspices of P.T., Julian & Ajar, I plugged it to my DAC and played the CDs I usually listen to every day. Instantly, the sound was a wee bit more dynamic and extra subtle details on these CDs could be heard. Since I had previous experience (3 times) with the installation of FLOW, it only took me a couple of hours (huge shortening of the lead time) to adjust the acoustic resonators (one simply needed to raise the upper ones by a notch to unleash the extra energy from this silken white cord). The overall sound became more organic or life-like as well as allowing the listener to follow the playing with ease.
Today, I played music as soon as returning home from work, recent rather humid weather really has a small sonic effect on these wooden resonators, diffusers & the tiny wooden blocks, after quick and very minor tweaking, I played Gladiator (track # 2, 3 then 16 & 17), the sound literally engulfed the area behind my 2 monoliths and passages with low frequencies made the floor vibrate – what a thrilling sensation (my speakers, after installing 5 FLOW power cords, are really unparallel in reproducing low level information). I played several more of my favourite CDs and then proceeded to Arrau again, this time, the tonality of the piano was the Steinway sound I heard & remembered. After 4-5 minutes of playing the Allegro movement, for the first time ever, I stood up and started to mimic the conductor I saw at Saturday’s concert, the sound I was hearing was the most concert-like sound I have ever experienced, it almost brought tears to my eyes as I was saying to myself – I have finally transformed my modest listening room into a mini concert hall. Yes, Julian, you were right, my system has now truly FLOWed up !
Now, 2 hours after my exhilarating moment has lapsed, I’m trying to write some sense in what I want to say. I’d like to declare, in a nutshell, “ there is no single best system “ in this world. Our absolute best endeavor is to reproduce the TYPE of music/listening bias exactly or as close as possible, the way we want to hear it or the way we enjoy it the most. For me, the better my system gets, the more I’m aware of its strength as well as its weakness(es). My goal in last 3-5 years has been the reproduction of FULL orchestral music, be it large-scale symphonies, piano & violin concertos. I think I have reached there, at least as far as I’m aware of it after hearing numerous so-called top full-range systems in H.K., U.K. and Malaysia, none can reproduce the type of music mentioned above (my listening bias) as good as my own. Incidentally, my LP playback system equipped with air-bearing tone arm scored big time on large scale music was heard by Yamada-san and Franck Tchang, subsequently both gentlemen purchased the same record player and the same tone arm. My system’s weaknesses, well, there are many and too numerous to list, not that it will detract me from enjoying other different types of music like chamber music, jazz and opera/vocals, I personally do not think its sound is comparable to the other best systems in these areas that I have heard in the past.
What I mean is if I invite an avid concert-goer to my place and listen to orchestral music, I bet he/she would not leave in less than 3 hours, however, same can’t be said if a die-hard high efficiency speakers/ SET audiophile comes along, he will not want to hear large-scale orchestral music but his own type. If he is a TYPE C Minus type (excuse the pun, please refer to the article on this dated Feb 19), then he will probably critique my system why it can’t play as well as the best system which reproduces the type of music he usually listens to. I still remember several years back when my H.K. super-fi crowd and I visited a very nice chap in Penang who used full Kondo Audio Note gear (M100 + Ongaku) driving the Grand Slam, the gentleman listens to chamber/soft music but one of sinister H.K. chaps asked him to turn up his system to full and played the Zoro’s soundtrack, after 60 seconds (or thereabouts), we heard the left side speaker popped and the owner immediately rushed to turn down the volume, he tried to play one of his own CDs and noticed the sound level from on left channel was gone – we quickly left his home as a result of our embarrassing & obnoxious act.
If I point out almost all horn speakers & other high efficiency designs which need to be placed close to the back wall have no true depth and wide soundstage and also produce unconventional (no-so coherent) bass when compared to my speakers, then I’ll be missing a lot of the strengths of these types of transducers like tremendous micro dynamics and life-like vocals and my system will be not tuned to achieve a sound closer to these welcoming attributes . Nevertheless, since hi-fi/music is one of the most subjective topics of discussions, being a TYPE C Plus audiophile, I am always striving to push the boundaries of my system to attain a more balanced sound so that I (rather than others) can enjoy as many different types of music as possible. So tell me, or tell yourself honestly, what is your listening bias, is it too narrow because you think you are different and better than other fellow hi-fi brothers or do you continue to live under the state of denial that your system can only play a very limited range of music that precludes you from enjoying Beethoven Symphony No. 5 as much as Wagner’s O du mein holder Abenstern – Tannhauser.
It is such a tremendous pleasures to read your writings. It is very thoughtful. I am just offering my innocent opinions to you. I got my 2nd FR for the Zanden transport. I thought the improvement after using one on the dac is minimal but I was wrong again. It bring my system up another level. Bass extends further down. There are more bass motion surrounding the organs.
Those resonators are magical! PT installed a few silver and copper resonators for me. Two of the walls in my listening room disappear in no time!
Ajar
The start of 2007 has been a very busy year for me in terms of hi-fi as I have suffered several relapses of the Type A bug (like many AE’s customers – new & old alike). The arrival of Argento’s FR & FRM cords had made me re-think the importance of utilizing great power cords to produce a better balanced sound from my system and fortunately, I was able to achieve slight improvement but it will never be transformed into a sound system which gives me 100% satisfaction as my full-range speakers, although excellent in their own rights in terms of design, because the use of ceramic drivers for the mid-range, does have its limitations of not being able to produce a realistically ‘natural’ timbre when it comes to reproducing human voices and wooden classical instruments (violin & cello etc), anyway, all I can manage to do is to make my speakers sound its best and they do produce a satisfying sound to me – let’s put it bluntly, I have not heard better sound in terms of overall rendition of hi-fi music (as opposed to live music) from any conventional box design, however, they have unable to render the last ultimate 15-20% of reality in sound & the micro and macro dynamics that I long for.
Last month, I was privileged to audition the Cessaro horn speakers and after 2 consecutive days of auditioning these full-range speakers, I was convinced they are finally what I want even though I was not totally satisfied with the overall sound due to the room acoustics/ environment, speaker placement & drive units not broken in, I could hear the potential qualities these speakers can bring in my listening room. I am confident once I have these beasts in my home, I can really make them sing & ‘swing’ with all its might, yes, they are one of the MOST dynamically sounding transducers I have come across. My life-long endeavor in searching for the right speakers has finally come to fruition, it is like journey’s end, or put it in another way, it this the end of the beginning of my quest for reaching closer to hi-fi nirvana, I believe I am definitely moving in the right direction and closer than the majority of other audiophiles. Well, enough of this day dreaming as I still do not have these horns residing in my acoustically tuned hi-fi abode, I have to wait until the end of June.
The designer of Cessaro also paid a 2nd visit to my place during his last visit to hear my system and made several constructive comments (he is a true audiophile and told me he has used over 20 different types of the big speakers in the market – so he does know what a competent speaker should behave). After auditioning the horns, I knew exactly what can be improved immediately. Actually, after hearing what these horns can do on certain parameters in music reproduction, I had to tweak my present speakers/system yet once again.
The bass output from my active speakers system had been set a wee bit too much, so I reduced the output by 4 notches, the clarity of the entire sound improved but the mid-range had thinned out, next, I changed the subwoofer crossover setting from 41 to 43 HZ and bingo, the mid-range sound was fuller and sounded more natural, furthermore, I adjusted the amplitude, allowing the bass transient to move faster, these adjustments resulted in a clearer, faster as well as better coherence in sound. Contrary to popular belief, Cessaro’s designer told me in order to achieve the kind of bass comparable to the sound/impact from my present active subwoofer, one has to use ‘solid state amps’, cos only such design can produce enough transient power to control the woofer (to stop the bass cone from moving backward when another bass note has already been played), so ultimately, when I acquire the massive bass horn units in the future, I need to use solid state amps. I intend to visit this German designer in July to hear the flagship model so that I have a good idea of what is possible in sound reproduction.
Later on, I moved my monoliths 5 mm towards the rear wall as well as closer to each other and raised all the top acoustic resonators, the soundstage improved further and finally, I tilted (backward) the treble, mid-range & woofer section of upper speaker section by 2 mm, the previously slightly elevated image had been lowered, giving me a very good 3-dimentional soundstage & image.
The arrival of the SRA platform proved to be untimely as I had no time to add an extra variable to my existing system, room acoustics & speaker placement completely pre-occupied my time ( I think PT has also been busy with adjusting the acoustic resonators recently too), however, after everything was done, I slipped this impeccably finished black glossy square under my CD transport and the improvement it brought to the sound was comparable to the F.L.O.W. power cord, nice one PT !
Very recently, after attending 3 concerts, I proceeded with more tweaking – room acoustics and minor speaker placement. The first concert was baroque music performed by the famed Trevor Pinnock (he had worked with Rachel Podger) who has been promoting this type of music using period instruments, sitting in the front row and with the ensemble performing 12 feet in front of me was quite an experience as the sound was startling real & ambient. Then I heard the world famous Chinese pianist Fu Tsong play Mozart’s # 12. Last Saturday, I heard Kolja Blacher (ex-concertmaster of Berliner Philharmoniker) playing my favourite Beethoven’s violin concerto (I had heard this piece of music performed live 6 times in H.K., previous players included, in terms of preferences, Accardo, Shlomo Mintz, Maxim Vangerov and Vadim Repin). The tonality of his violin was the best I had ever heard, silky top and sweet/rich/glorious mid-range. Sunday, I spent whole day making more finer adjustments and in the evening, I was really enjoying the sound and after hearing it again today, I think I can now enjoy listening to all types of music as it is producing the most balanced sound in my listening room.
Last but not least, my very supportive other-half has suggested to me now that my system is sounding better than ever before, it would be nice to share present sound experience with fellow audiophiles, after all, it has taken me over 3 years to tune it to its present sound & glory and perhaps we can invite some true audiophiles to audition my system and let them enjoy it too. She knows only too well it will take me a long time to fine tune the horns when they take residence in my living room next month. So PT, if you can help me organize this event, I will start preparing for it, perhaps one can tentatively call it Zan-tinel hi-fi sharing day where people can hear what a full Zanden-based system sounds like in an acoustically-tuned venue.
As usual, very well written article. Hi End is never about plug and play. One must do hardworks to achieve the utopias. There are no luck and coincidences. You deserve a great deal of respect. The amount of time and effort you persistently spend on improving your system is second to none that I know of.
May I invite Marvel, Studiogrey, MatthewC, Azzuri, Julian and many others who happen to stop over HK to visit Mr.Zanden before he ventures in the world of Cessaro Horn?
Piano Tuner
I truly enjoy your writing. I can feel your passion behind this hobby.
Puyi
JUNE 09, ZAN-TINEL HI-FI SHARING DAY
Further to my last posting several weeks ago and the subsequent employment of more FR power cords plus, you’ve guessed correctly, more tweaking on my room acoustics, I was a happy audiophile.
Yesterday, I went to yumcha with a bunch of hi-fi old timers and the sifu there told me whether I notice our sound system sounds a little bit different everyday and does not always sound consistently good all the time and when he learnt about my intention of becoming a horn guy soon, he commented I’d be disappointed with the soundstage (depth & breadth), 3 dimensionality, deficient highs & bass coherence problem etc as these were and still are his experience with the old Altec, JBL and the new JBL and other horn designs, anyway, after hearing my future hi-fi love of my life, I know what these new horns can do, so I’m confident the inherent weaknesses mentioned will be minimized with a bit of hard work after the initial learning curve period.
In the evening, I went to a concert performed by HKPO conducted by Rumon Gamba (he bears no relationship with the famed Pierino Gamba who conducted LSO’s Rossini Overtures on DECCA), the first piece of music performed was William Tell (what a coincidence) , this was the 1st time I heard it play live. The opening began with a cello solo (played by the principal cellist), followed by other cello players, the rich tonal colour plus sound decay gave me the goose bumps, then the double bass joined in and finally the string section, well the recordings in my collection were dull & anemic by comparison , that’s why I never took much interest in this piece of work until last night. The final movement was the climatic part where the horn section and percussion joined in, some of the loud passages reached over 105-110 dB, with the concert hall’s ceiling must be extending 30 ft above me, the power and the ambience produced by the group on the stage were simply majestic. Anyway, why is it almost all classical recordings are nowhere near as good as the real event, was it the engineers/recordings or limitation of our hi-fi systems ? I realized if you add up the volume/surface area of each instrument (violin, viola, cello, double bass, horns, timpani of this 80+ musicians’ orchestra) , it must be rather large, this means we have on certain loud passages all the instruments playing at the same time, the sound pressure and the dynamics produced are simply awesome, that’s why one can NEVER reproduce a genuine concert hall effect in our domestic environment with just a pair of speakers, period. So I would laugh at (rather than despise) those who think their flea-powered amp can make their high efficiency speakers rock & roll ! Furthermore, I read the latest enjoythemusic.com’s 2007 Primedia Stereophile Home Entertainment Show, the reporter wrote one of the exhibitors had 2 identical rooms with the same equipments but one of the rooms was totally untreated and he said he was rather startled by the difference or the improvement in sound coming out from the treated room, so if we continue to hear our beloved system in an acoustically untreated room, the chance is we are hearing the characteristic (or rather the annoying part) of our room more than the sound of our system is producing ! I could hear a slight improvement after treating a small side window with a tiny wooden block as it reduces the nasty sound reflection of the glass. I have been fighting a hard battle with the large window on the wall behind my full-range speakers and the difference between a treated rear wall with large windows and an untreated one is not unsubtle.
Came Sunday, with my memory of the previous concert sound still fresh on my mind, I started tweaking with my room acoustics yet once again, I raised my upper resonators to allow the speakers more room to breathe, the ambience increased and the sound dynamics became less strained, in order words, the dynamic headroom improved a little bit, anyway, I think this is really as good as it gets with my present setup, so perhaps I should accept the sound of my beloved system until something new comes along later on – its time to be pampered by my Zanden-based system after so much hard work had been put into it.
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 !