- Joined
- Jan 3, 2011
- Messages
- 1,947
- Reaction score
- 1,254
Close associates seem to delight in telling me how others perceive me as being way too serious, asking if I ever laugh and how scared they are of me. The other day a younger member had the tea room in stitches while he explained to us his,patent-pending, 3 step process on how to approach me with a difficult problem. Seeing my crestfallen face at being called Mr Glum (again) huge laughter usually ensues.
To counter my seemingly stiff professional personality, I tend to wander through the rest of life like a 5-year-old with a lollipop, always curious, never knowing quite what is really going on but always fascinated. Never, more so that in the Yellow Brick Road that is Audiophilia and Music. I want to understand but not too much. Total understanding, I find, removes the element of mystique and magic. Partial understanding creates that sense of wonder that I find so stimulating.
On fora such as these, there are always armchair experts, Internet graduandi who seldomly realise how little they know and therefore just know enough to see one side of an issue. However, usually quiet, there are the true Experts. I visualise these guys as quietly watching bunfights with knowing smiles. One such a guy is pwatts. Now, I don?t know Pierre from Adam but I do know that he knows his stuff, is thoroughly qualified to do what he is doing and that what he is doing is Audio, very much 21st-century Audio. When I posted my experiences with the Croak Switch elsewhere I felt a bit of an idiot but it was OK cos Guillaume cheerfully admitted that he applied known audio tweakery to a commercial switch, didn?t really understand all of the tech but did what he could. Wasn?t that so typical of the big guy? Anyways it sounded fabulous, so good I just kept it and sent him the money. I suspect he wanted his Switch back and would build me another but never said so straight, so I just played stupid. Now we?ll never know.
Then pwatts posted his take on a Switch. To me, it was like reading the instruction manual to the Mars Rover. What is he talking about? I felt I had to say something but didn?t know what. Clearly, others felt the same as not a single of the other digital swarm ?experts? said anything either.
Imagine my total horror when Pierre contacted me to ask for an evaluation of his prototype Switch. At night Free State farmers set out to hunt hares. These pests will freeze when a strong light is shone upon them, totally lame. That is how I felt. Before sending the Switch Pierre sent a bunch of instructions. I sent a weak message to Reeman -"Help!". Turned out it wasn't necessary. With the thing in hand, the instructions made perfect sense.
I set it up, being lazy just plugged it into Croak?s Switch with Pierre?s SMPS. He is developing another supply. The sound was first-generation CD. I jumped up in horror, switch PSU with the Wyred for Sound, still the same harsh, flat, 2 dimensional. Suddenly the sound turned fuzzy, like a dirty stylus. Finally, I realised, this is an extreme version of what great cables do. I should have headed what Pierre said. Give it 15 minutes to settle. It was a little more but still. The flower started unfolding.
I find Moby?s music a little like the Curate?s egg. Some bits are excellent. My go-to is 2 albums. 1999?s Play and 2000?s ?Songs?. Play became a little overexposed as one time not an ad for a bank, tampon or toothpaste didn?t feature that music. I was intrigued to see the new Moby released on Deutsche Grammophone. What did he do? A Deep Purple or Billy Joel Classical disaster? No. Requiem is the old songs re-imagined. I listened to it last week and thought it ho-hum. Last night something happened. In the middle of ?Extreme Ways?, a clear thought shot through my mind: I have seen the future. That future is Digital and that future is good, very good. If someone said to me I would say that a year ago, I would have burst out laughing.
I need to listen more but apart from a brief bypass to the Croak Switch only which left the entire soundscape to collapse and an improvement wrought by an alternative wiring option I was too enthralled to mess.
I honestly believed I am now closest to that ideal sound I had in my head when I started this particular limb of my Audio journey in 2003 than I have ever been. I am just totally amazed that that pinnacle came in the form of digital replay. Schalk?s preamp, Mains power changes with Ben?s Shunyatas, Timber?s thinking on horns and diffusers, Achim?s Dac and now Pierre?s Switch-and G too. Jirre boys, we have some clever people, right here.
To counter my seemingly stiff professional personality, I tend to wander through the rest of life like a 5-year-old with a lollipop, always curious, never knowing quite what is really going on but always fascinated. Never, more so that in the Yellow Brick Road that is Audiophilia and Music. I want to understand but not too much. Total understanding, I find, removes the element of mystique and magic. Partial understanding creates that sense of wonder that I find so stimulating.
On fora such as these, there are always armchair experts, Internet graduandi who seldomly realise how little they know and therefore just know enough to see one side of an issue. However, usually quiet, there are the true Experts. I visualise these guys as quietly watching bunfights with knowing smiles. One such a guy is pwatts. Now, I don?t know Pierre from Adam but I do know that he knows his stuff, is thoroughly qualified to do what he is doing and that what he is doing is Audio, very much 21st-century Audio. When I posted my experiences with the Croak Switch elsewhere I felt a bit of an idiot but it was OK cos Guillaume cheerfully admitted that he applied known audio tweakery to a commercial switch, didn?t really understand all of the tech but did what he could. Wasn?t that so typical of the big guy? Anyways it sounded fabulous, so good I just kept it and sent him the money. I suspect he wanted his Switch back and would build me another but never said so straight, so I just played stupid. Now we?ll never know.
Then pwatts posted his take on a Switch. To me, it was like reading the instruction manual to the Mars Rover. What is he talking about? I felt I had to say something but didn?t know what. Clearly, others felt the same as not a single of the other digital swarm ?experts? said anything either.
Imagine my total horror when Pierre contacted me to ask for an evaluation of his prototype Switch. At night Free State farmers set out to hunt hares. These pests will freeze when a strong light is shone upon them, totally lame. That is how I felt. Before sending the Switch Pierre sent a bunch of instructions. I sent a weak message to Reeman -"Help!". Turned out it wasn't necessary. With the thing in hand, the instructions made perfect sense.
I set it up, being lazy just plugged it into Croak?s Switch with Pierre?s SMPS. He is developing another supply. The sound was first-generation CD. I jumped up in horror, switch PSU with the Wyred for Sound, still the same harsh, flat, 2 dimensional. Suddenly the sound turned fuzzy, like a dirty stylus. Finally, I realised, this is an extreme version of what great cables do. I should have headed what Pierre said. Give it 15 minutes to settle. It was a little more but still. The flower started unfolding.
I find Moby?s music a little like the Curate?s egg. Some bits are excellent. My go-to is 2 albums. 1999?s Play and 2000?s ?Songs?. Play became a little overexposed as one time not an ad for a bank, tampon or toothpaste didn?t feature that music. I was intrigued to see the new Moby released on Deutsche Grammophone. What did he do? A Deep Purple or Billy Joel Classical disaster? No. Requiem is the old songs re-imagined. I listened to it last week and thought it ho-hum. Last night something happened. In the middle of ?Extreme Ways?, a clear thought shot through my mind: I have seen the future. That future is Digital and that future is good, very good. If someone said to me I would say that a year ago, I would have burst out laughing.
I need to listen more but apart from a brief bypass to the Croak Switch only which left the entire soundscape to collapse and an improvement wrought by an alternative wiring option I was too enthralled to mess.
I honestly believed I am now closest to that ideal sound I had in my head when I started this particular limb of my Audio journey in 2003 than I have ever been. I am just totally amazed that that pinnacle came in the form of digital replay. Schalk?s preamp, Mains power changes with Ben?s Shunyatas, Timber?s thinking on horns and diffusers, Achim?s Dac and now Pierre?s Switch-and G too. Jirre boys, we have some clever people, right here.
