Stairway to heaven

I have been flooded with requests from readers to reveal the sound gadgets that I’m going to showcase in this year’s staging of the Hi-Fi Show on Nov. 10 and 11 at the Dusit Thani Hotel. As I announced in my last column, “AudioFile” and the Philippine STAR will be exhibiting all-local sound gadgets made by the who’s who of Filipino audio design.

I hate to disappoint you guys, but everything has to be kept under wraps for now. You have to come to the show to see and hear for yourself what we have to offer. Entrance is free anyway, and you can even bring the whole family to enjoy the event.

What I can tell you, however, is that we are showcasing a concept, and not a particular gadget. We’d like to show how the strengths of different gadgets can be harnessed and integrated into the whole system to recreate life-like sound. This is the reason my bosom buddy and neighbor electronics engineer John Alegre and I have informally named our exhibit the “JV (John and Val) Sound Concept.” What you’re going to see and hear in our exhibit room will approximate our own quest for that “elusive heavenly sound” which many hobbyists have tried but failed to achieve.

There is no perfect system, but what John and I have succeeded in doing is to mix and match the right components to reproduce full frequency sound. The JV Sound Concept mirrors our years of research and experimentation. It represents the step-by-step building of a sturdy stairway leading to our own audio heaven. The musical heaven we have reached may not be your idea of Nirvana, but what we can assure you is that there’ll be no discordant notes when our system performs the sound that defines many generations. It can play any genre with the attack and dynamic that will never quiver even at full-sound speaker level.

This is why we have chosen to partner with some of the best minds in local audio design. There will still be a couple of “AudioFile” editions before the Hi-Fi show, and I will introduce these designers in my succeeding columns. At the moment, all I can say is that my partners and I have reached an agreement that the best system possible is one that a music lover and/or audiophile has built personally and intelligently.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. This is the reason each component has to support the weakest in the chain. We believe that transducers (speakers and cartridges) have potential nonlinearities in frequency response and their interactions with room acoustics can lead to peaks and dips (distortions) that can adversely affect the performance of the whole system.

I ask you, how often have you wished to improve your sound system, and wonder if it can really be good enough? I know some audiophiles who keep upgrading their components, sometimes even twice a year. To many it is a never-ending quest, until their wallets are empty. For me, the time has passed when I would be nagged by the disquieting, unquenchable feeling that I had so much more to do to improve my system. 

JV Audio Concept’s goal has always been to spend as little as possible to achieve the best sound fidelity. We do not believe in the concept that money is no object when it comes to achieving music Nirvana. Actually, we object to spending too much money. Until you discover the weakest link in your sound system, it is absolutely impossible to hear anything sound good even with the most expensive components in your chain.

The chain starts with the sound source and ends with the speakers where you finally hear the music. If you’re into analog audio, which we are into deeply, sound signal starts traveling as soon as the needle touches the record’s groove. The signal is pre-amplified (phono stage/preamplifiers) to decode the minute details in the record’s groove. It will then be further amplified (using amplifiers) to come out as music in your respective loudspeakers.

We believe that in building up a good sounding system, one has to start with the speakers and cartridges, and then form the whole system around them. Transducers have serious flaws in the absolute sense so you’re left with no other choice but to pick and choose what you want the speakers and cartridges to do (which basically refers to your personal music preference), and how you’re going to complete that goal. Just to reiterate: there is no perfect sound. Don’t fall for that misleading marketing pitch. This is never a truthful goal to achieve even for an artist or a seasoned engineer. To be continued.

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For comments or questions, please e-mail me at audioglow@yahoo.com or at vphl@hotmail.com. You can also visit www.wiredstate.com for quick answers to your audio concerns.