Blue velvet

It was lush, liquid and soft; the music coming from the virtual blue velvety soundstage was pure and vivid. I could almost feel Eva Cassidy’s heart pounding as she crooned, What a Wonderful World. I have played Eva’s “Songbird” album before, but, listening to her rendition of this feel-good ballad has never been more soul-stirring. I became more aware of her subtle vocal inflections and depth of expression, and the clearness of the music allowed me to ponder the song’s meaning.

Then I spun George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue executed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (Telarc Recording), I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to hear. The orchestra was right there in my listening room, caressing the violins and pounding those drums in heart-stopping rhythm. Eugene List’s masterful piano passages were clear as pristine snow; and yes, with my eyes closed, I could picture Erich Kunzel conducting as the whole masterpiece unfolded before me.

Listening to the two long-playing albums took only about an hour or so, but they treated my senses to holographic images that lingered long enough to soothe my frayed body and listless soul. Rhapsody In Blue’s tonal balance — from those rumbling lows to the majestic highs — and its presentation of time and space were simply overwhelming. I have listened to this Telarc album maybe a hundred times before, but never have I heard it sound as steamy. If the yardstick of a truly high-fidelity sound system is to express the music more than the sound, then Sutherland’s Ph3D accomplished what others in its class have failed to do.

This may sound superfluous to others but, for me, this $1,000 phonograph preamp beauty helps listeners to understand the message that artists mean to put across in their music. The two LPs I listened to had never before clearly manifested what their creators wanted me to feel and hear, until they were amplified by the Ph3D.

Noise is an audiophile’s worst nightmare. Like it or not, the electricity coming out of our wall sockets is so polluted that, if left untreated, the noise — which travels mostly in the form of a 60-Hertz hum along the signal chain — becomes audible enough from the loudspeakers to obscure a supposedly pleasant listening session. More so with analog playback, with the cartridge having the monstrous job of picking up the faintest signals from the record groove and the phono stage such as the Ph3D amplifying these signals to listening levels. This process of extracting and amplifying low-level signals is so sensitive that it is prone to noise interference.

The first thing that impressed me about the Ph3D is how dead-quiet the battery-powered phono stage really is. Operating in total silence, the Ph3D can now richly fill in the blue velvety soundstage with musical details that are otherwise drowned out by electrical noise. This gives the music a finely tuned sense of three-dimensionality. Low-level sound signals, which by and large sound flat, unexpectedly break into jagged holographic focus. Now you have four invisible walls giving way to a virtual stage in front where the artists perform. This phenomenon is what probably directly connects listeners to the performers, a good enough distance to make the former understand the meaning behind the latter’s songs.

I was a bit hesitant when Pic Anonuevo of Acoustic Dimension offered to lend me the Ph3D to audition. I’ve heard some battery-powered phono stages before, and they all lacked the dynamics that I look for in a system. But Acoustic Dimension’s top honcho Eric Lim is known in the audiophile community as a no-nonsense audio man who carries products that one can rave about. And with Pic (Eric’s assistant) hand-carrying the heavy package all the way from the shop’s Rockwell branch to Wiredstate/Bikini Bottom’s headquarters on Batangas St., Makati, who was I to say no?

I’m glad I agreed to try out the Ph3D. Otherwise I would never have known that a 21st-century gadget designed by Ron Sutherland to give life to an 18th- and 19th-century technology could actually deliver. The Ph3D, along with other products in its class, is a glowing testament to the analog renaissance and could also be the poster gadget for DC’s (direct current) efficiency.

Mounting noise pollution, for one, renders the alternating current (220 volts/60 hertz) that comes out of our wall outlets one of the weakest links in the high-end audio chain. Some cures, such as adding power conditioners in the power supply to rein in the noise, are not enough. Even if the electric current were delivered as idealized 60Hz sine waves, it wouldn’t stay that way for long. The audio power amplifier gets uneven current from the power line and there soon would be a large current spike drawn when the sine wave get to its voltage extremes. At other times, there won’t be any current to draw. High-frequency harmonics and noise worm themselves into the same power line that’s used for sensitive phono preamplification. The Ph3D doesn’t even have a power cord. Instead, it runs on 16 alkaline D cell batteries neatly stacked at the sides of the chassis. One can juice out about 1,600 hours of playing time from it up until a red light tells you that the batteries need to be changed.

This improvement in the analog section of an audiophile’s system is a welcome development, indeed. Having that virtual blue-velvety wall in front of you where beautiful music springs from is an unparalleled delight.

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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 or http://bikini-bottom.proboards80.com/index.cgi for quick answers to your audio concerns.