用心玩家Ken的分享

不是小雞雞不寫,而是小雞雞現在人在印尼,連小雞雞都沒得聽歌了,哪裡來的力氣寫呢？

原本昨天可以回星島翻雲覆雨的,卻因為在這裡的卓越表現而被要求留下來了.

天意啊,現在的系統簡直是巔峰時期,加了另外一對喇叭線,喇叭大鈦錐,喇叭端蓋子和完全把系統蓋上了白金蓋子之後,自己就只聽了一個晚上就飛到印尼來了.

友人也開始打電話給小雞雞問Telos喇叭端蓋子的效果了,這樣好了,如果系統平衡了,加了喇叭端蓋子肯定會尖叫！

現在在星島的調音行程已經安排得不錯了,馬國也有一眾朋友等著,一顆分享的心在忐忑不安地跳著,怕就怕人家以為小雞雞瞧人家不起,故作神秘遲遲不到！

小雞雞答應,一有時間就一定為民服務！

請分享用心玩家Ken的分享:

In my 12 years dabbling in hifi, I thought I have seen and heard many things. I already accept that cables and power cords make a difference. I even believe that pieces of ebony wood like Shun Mook make a difference. So does platform where one put the hardware on. I am also convinced that different type of material used to make all hifi accessories affect the sound. All these products are no longer snake’s oil because any audiophile worth his salt can discern the difference that these things wrought, for better or for worse.

It’s CNY and the only time that I am really free from my day job. I thought I call my friend KC, for a chat and maybe a meet-up during this festivity. He told me that he found a new tweak and wanted to share with me when we meet up. I didn’t ask him what it was but I knew he would tell me soon. The date, 31st January 2009 will forever be etched in my audiophile journey as the day that I discover something that has never been discussed in the world of audiophilia. I don’t think it has even been discussed in any forum in the net as well. What KC turn up at my home, he brought with him was a box of screwdrivers that he says will change my thinking of hifi. All he wants to do is to screw all the screws that are found in my hifi setup from the cd player to the speakers and it will bring my setup to another level. The brand of this screwdriver set is Tohnichi and it comes with a variety of screw heads (Allen, Philips etc) with different sizes. It is an industrial screwdriver, which can be adjusted to tighten all type of screws to a fixed level of torque or tightness. It looks plain enough and so I thought to myself “Let’s see if this can really happen”. Anyway, what have I got to lose?

KC states that he has improve the sound of a friend’s setup by doing the same thing earlier in the day. Actually I have just switched on my system about ½ hour before KC turned up. He says that he has set the Tohnichi driver to 5.5 in tightness level and will start tightening the screws on the speakers back panel first (where the speaker binding post is situated). Truth be told, I only heard a slight tightening of the overall sound, nothing special. Then we continue to tighten the Allen screws on the driver, starting with the 12” driver and then the tweeter. Again, the sound sounds a smidgen more coherent. But the sound instantaneously improve when he tighten the Allen screws on the 3” driver. The midbass just tighten up which help to make the bass to sound more developed and tactile.

I asked him to tighten up the cd player next and KC did this with glee. All the visible screws on the back panel and the underside of the cd player were tighten with the Tohnichi screwdriver. I just could not believe my ears. The sound has become extremely airy. The cd that could really showcase the improvement in sound that I am getting is Koji Tamaki Red Wine (MUCD-1064). Track 6 consists of the singer with a guitar accompaniment. At 3.26 minutes into the track, Koji would start the whistle. You can distinctly hear him standing further back from the mike to do so. Just as he about to finish whistling (3.36), he lost his breath. But he quickly continues to whistle in apparent attempt to act as though nothing happened.

I pleaded with KC to continue to tighten the screws of the preamp, power amp and the power conditioners. We did it on all the visible screws on the hardware. I never thought there were so many screws of differing shapes and sizes on those gears. The sound has now become very 3D and even more airy. The front wall (which is untreated) seems to have disappeared to be replaced by a very believable soundstage. The best song to illustrate this is Bill Morrissey’s You’ll never get to heaven (Tag MacLaren). The sweep of the cymbals is so real that I have to pinch myself to make sure that I am not dreaming. And when the kick drum starts, it does so with the full force but never in your face. It is au naturel. Bill is in the room!!!

The true test of any tweak in hifi is to gauge how they sound with challenging recordings. One cd that I have owned for years is U2’s Joshua Tree (Mobile Fidelity UDCD650). I love the group since my younger days and still do so now. Track 3 of the disc (With or without you) is typical U2 music. But whenever I play this disc on my setup, I just had to press stop after listening to it for less than half a minute. The challenging bass and screeching guitar is more than I can bear. It starts with the slow rhythmic bass followed by Bono singing. With the new tweak, the sound is more coherent because of the better-controlled frequency extremes. I like the sound now so much that I even repeat the song again at higher volumes. The Edge electric guitar just sets the drama to the song. The bass is also better developed but does not overpower the sound.

Like I said earlier, I thought I have seen it all in hifi. In comes a tweak, that I never heard before and it change my world. The sound that I am getting sounds marvelous to my ears and the best thing is my friend KC did it for me for free!! Now I know screwing is needed to achieve aural orgasm;-)

My system consists of the Meridian 508.24 cd player, Audio Research LS25 MkII preamp, Rowland Model 8 power amp driving the ATC SCM100 speakers. I used all Audioquest cabling with an assortment of PS Audio and Stage III power cords. I also used an assortment of Shun Mook platforms, Diamond Resonators and mpingo discs.