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POSTED: 05-09-2010 10:25 am |
Dear King Puyi,
Thank you so much for your insights!
Unfortunately, when I visited PT last week, the Zanden 300B combined with Chopin was not ready. I listened to the big brother, Beta 1, driven by Syren/Takumi combo, crazy performance in the strings and piano on that night.
I heard from PT now Beta1 driven by one set of Tron preamp/power amp elevates its performance to the level of Tidal suite. I wish I will have a chance to listen to the enhanced Beta1 and Chopin next round when I will be back.
My personal goal now is to change my preamp to either Zanden or Tron. From you opinion, which one is better match for Chopin, now I am using Skyline power amp?
Thanks again!
Milky Boyz
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POSTED: 30-08-2010 03:15 pm |
To Mr.Zanden,
PT was completely at loss in the past few weeks because he spent all of his time to get the Tidal suite up and running to meet expectation. He got it right now, having too much bass that trigger him to "flat" all the original upward adjustment on crossover frequency and sub loudness.
Obviously, he lacked the time to fine tune his mega horn system at home. He told me that you were not satisfied about the performance. He called me up for assistance. I am no horn expert. I just know if a system sounds good, there must be technical reasons behind him. So do see me as an arrogant technocrat.
I believe now his mega horn system sounds extremely lively, transparent, and dynamic at all frequency. The trick is the lower mid-bass horn crossover frequency. To my ears, it started rolling off gently at around 140hz to 160hz. Now that is a pretty high low-cut. That is tricky. Because if the acoustics is not right - too much lower mid bass circulating in the room, we will be tempted to lower the crossover frequency to compensate acoustic deficiency. But if we lower it too much, the lower mid range begins to sound strange. The presnece of subwoofer presents another complexity because we can't really say there is no bass or lack of foundation as the solid state amp supports foundation well.
Now, the crossover frequency is around 140hz. PT later confirmed that is the region where the big horn starts rolling off and it has to be because anyting lower than that would require a much much bigger horn to load the lower mid bass.
His Tron 211 telstar and the syren reference fed by the Zanden digital source yields a very transparent sonic landscape with no bloats at lower mid-bass. Very clean basslines, and dynamics of the piano makes me understand why some big brother would prefer horn over conventional design.
I see no faults at all with the full Beta system. The speed is very fast across the band. If the room is deeper, the thrill of the dynamic of low frequency would thrill my spine more.
Go and listen some time and correct my misdeeds if you find any. Again, I have no experience on horn, just based on my ears.
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POSTED: 30-08-2010 02:27 pm |
I remember maybe a year back when PT told me his dream was to create the best possible listening environment. So like all AE regulars, I've been religiously reading all of the kudos and praises and suggestions for improvement and lapping up the photos that are posted each time someone visits the studio. I was going to be in Hong Kong for business last week, I called PT up and I made a date (with destiny) on Monday.
The first thing that will strike ANYONE who visits the AE studio is where its located. I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag, but all I can say is that its location is ... different and unexpected. Definitely a refreshing change from all the 'high-end audiophile' stores I've visited over the last few decades.
The second thing you will notice - or maybe feel - is how pleasing and peaceful everything is in the studio. From the lions at the entrace, to the cladding on the ceilings and walls, to the orange colour of the furniture, to the James Bond like control panel, to the little odds and ends that fill the studio (B&O flute clock, Leica camera ...), and of course the full Tidal system sitting patiently at one end. And what a system it is!
The new Orphues Transport with the Vekian DAC with the Tidal Precensio preamp driving 4 Impac monoblocs and a Tidal xover to the mighty Sunray. What a GLORIOUS site to behold!. PT wanted to play something immediately, but even when the studio was quiet, it was very NICE to be in. The feeling was of calmness, akin to being in a temple.
I don't want to get into the specifics of the music. A lot of other more experienced folks on this forum have described the sound in detail. I did however play many tracks from a whole set of CDs I brought from Singapore - Rock, Pop, Electronica, World, Folk, Bluegrass. For me a system I invest in needs to be multi-talented and faceted. It needs to play ALL types of music well. Needless to say, the sound was scaringly transparent and absolutely engaging. So engaging that I was immediately lost in the music. A lot of the music I was also playing were pretty complex rock and pop live tracks, that I've seen many systems costing probably double what the Tidal system cost fail miserably at.
How much of the sound was the studio, and how much was the Tidal system? Frankly I'm not qualified to determine that. BUT, I've been in studios that have cost double as much, with systems costing triple as much - sounding only half as good as what I heard last Monday. This is definitely a labour of love. The studio is a reflection on PT. It is also a continuous work in progress ... as all us audiophiles know...(we are never satisfied - yes?)
AE has reached another pinnacle. It is so wonderful that each time I visit PT in Hong Kong, there is something new on his menu that he wants me to try. And each time I bite into an AE dish, I am introduced to new and exotic flavours. PT is the chef that combines all the different dishes into a great meal! The dishes used to be served at home. Nice, but it did come with its own set of enviromental challenges. Now the Chef has his new restaurant to serve his dishes!
Watch out World!
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POSTED: 30-08-2010 08:33 am |
Dear Katongkid,
I would love to learn your view on the Tidal suite.
In particular, how the Sunray is different from your excellent Contriva Diacera driven by the crazy Tidal monoblocks?
Thanks.
Milky Boyz
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POSTED: 27-08-2010 10:54 am |
Dear 發哥,
I went to the Tidal room on past Tuesday. Because PT knew that I love rock/pop music, he first put in the CD (Wine Red no Kokoro) of Tamaki Koji (玉置浩二) into the Orpheus Signature CD drive which is a common reference CD for a lot of Anzenchitai fans. We first listen to track #2 (ワインレッドの心), I was immediately impressed by the absolute dynamics and imaging of all voice and components in the music reproduction. However, we feel that there is a very thin layer of transparent plastic wrap that sheds the familiar voice of 玉置浩二 a bit. At that time, one socket of Spartan and one socket of Troy both shared the same electrical wall outlet. Then PT put all sockets of Spartan and Troy into individual wall outlets and restart over the same track. I felt that the transparent plastic wrap was removed and that玉置浩二 sounded like singing in front of us in the studio!! Of course, this crazy improvement might have been caused by the warm up of the crazy setups.
We kept on listening to the next track, Friend, when 玉置浩二 is singing the last few words, “Friend”, I can actually feel the tension/vibration of his vocal cord from the Tidal suite (I never experienced that before in any system including different horns, Horning, smaller Tidal speakers, etc). Afterwards, we played the CD of Norah Jones (Fell Like Home), wow, the reality of her voices was fully reproduced by the crazy system as I feel the acoustic energy generated from her vocal during the recording. However, in Track #7, “Turn me on”, I feel that Norah’s voices are punching into my heart in certain verses (I think that it can be noticed as this song is different in style from other one). Also, we feel that the voices of 玉置浩二 might become a little bit too rough (also the a little bit too energetic) for singing certain softer passages in ‘Friend”. Then PT adjusted the低音音量 from +2db to +1db. We immediately feel that the voices of both玉置浩二 and Norah Jones became absolutely “real”. To be frank, I never experienced such a “real” vocal reproduction in any system which I have heard before and never expect a Hi Fi system can achieve this. The mighty power of this nearly perfect tuned Tidal system was realized when we played Jacky Cheung’s 2nd Album (1986 遙遠的她), I never heard such a beautiful and thorough reproduction of this relative older album. The system just brought back the younger Jacky Cheung from 24 years ago to our present time, I was very touched by the 80’s sound coming with full dynamics, soul and imaging. What a wonder!!
牛奶仔
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