HI-FI AUDIO: THE JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND LEAGUES
Music is the Single Most Evocative Art Form that I have encountered, and my Greatest Passion, so I am very demanding about how pursue it. As a result, I can't help being an audiophile. I've known passionate music-lovers who would be perfectly content listening to their music on a hand-held transistor radio; for them, music seems to inspire more of a mental, almost intellectual appreciation. For me, on the other hand, music is much more of an emotional and atmospheric thing, an encompassing, overwhelming transport that I seek to lose myself in completely. The better the music sounds, the more effective it is in bearing me away. So it is that I never cease searching for what I call the Perfect Rendition--that is, the ultimate experience of each of the pieces of music that I love so well.
The quest for the Perfect Rendition has perforce made me a hardware enthusiast and a Tweak. I subscribe to Stereophile Magazine, in which I read about hi-fi equipment that costs more than my entire net worth. I've learned a bit about the specs and what they really mean, and I judge equipment by a combination of those specs and my own subjective ideal.
At present, my (alas, most humble) equipment consists of the following:
- One Arcam Alpha 9 CD Player (Stereophile Class B).
This is a truly phenomenal piece of equipment, my most recent purchase and probably my best piece to date. I had previously used a crappy Panasonic portable CD player to feed the equipment below, thinking that all CD players were created equal. When I found that I couldn't stand the sound quality any longer, I suspected the speakers. I later patched my friend DJ Nihil's Denon DN-2500 F CD mixing deck into the system for a party, and noticed a substantial improvement in sound clarity and definition. This opened my eyes to the dramatic impact that a CD player can have on the sound of a hi-fi system, and decided me on my next upgrade. The very complimentary review of Arcam's Alpha 9 in Stereophile Magazine convinced me to give the model a try, and after an extended, wine-swilling Friday night audition in my listening room, I decided that I couldn't live without it.
- One Carver Classic Tube Preamplifier.
I really don't have much to say about this component. It's nice enough, I suppose, and the warm, golden light shining through the window in the front that shows off the tubes is a nice atmospheric touch. I really don't have much experience with preamplifiers, though, so I can't give an opinion concerning its quality. Basically, if it's holding me back at all at this point, I doubt that it's by much.
- Four Marantz MA-700 Monoblock Amplifiers (Stereophile
Class C).
These 200-watt mono amplifiers are rated Class C by Stereophile, but I have four of 'em, by God, which should help things a bit, I think. I currently have them bi-amplifying the BP-30 speakers--that is, each speaker is powered by two amplifiers, one for the high and midrange frequencies, and one for the midbass and low frequencies. Incidentally, I would strongly recommend that anyone who is serious about sound quality give serious consideration to bi-amplification, for in my experience it has an immediate and very positive effect on the output of any pair of speakers. As such, I'm fairly satisfied with the paired MA-700's, and I'll wager that in this configuration they would compare with some amplifiers in the Class B range.
- One pair of Definitive Technologies BP-30 Speakers.
These are bi-polar speakers, having identical d'Appolito arrays of two 6" full-range and one tweeter firing front and rear. The bi-polar configuration gives these speakers a very broad soundstage--that is, they are not limited by a small, precisely focused soundstage, but rather sound tolerable from a broad range of listening positions. I fell out of love with the BP-30's relatively quickly, finding them weak on both the high and low ends of the sonic spectrum. Bi-amplification has roused them to much greater depth and definition, though, such that I think that I'll be able to put up with them for a while longer.
- One Optimus SW-120 Subwoofer.
I don't really have a great deal to say about this component, either. It's a basic 12", 120-watt powered subwoofer, with adjustable volume and crossover controls. It capably renders frequencies from about 80 Hz to perhaps as low as 30 Hz, and it can do so at a fair volume--I can make the CD player skip with it, if that says anything. It's not a bad performer for its $400.00 price, but it's nowhere near as precise as I'd prefer; the sound seems sluggish and muddy, and it tends to boom more than I care to put up with. As such, I'll be replacing it at some point. I have made a few modifications to it to extend its life, though. I got sick of having to walk across my listening room to adjust the volume and crossover levels, so I pulled the amplifier out of the back of the box, stuffed the box with poly-fill, and cut a cover of 3/4" MDF to cover the hole where the amplifier was. So it is that the subwoofer amplifier now sits near my right hand, easily adjustable as I please.
Of course, Hi-Fi audio is indeed a Journey of a Thousand Leagues, for though I have spent a fair amount of money to assemble the collection of equipment listed above, I have not yet begun to fight.
Copyright © 2006, Troy Hunt. All rights reserved.