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Reviewer's Bio
Jonathan Lo
PC Audio and Tubes
It all began
with the love of music, and after all these years and equipment, I am glad music
is still what drives my passion for audio. Somewhere during high school is
when I first assembled a rather serious-appearing audio system in order to
better immerse myself in the music that gave me goosebumps and heartthrob. Through
college dorms and medical school, I have always been referred to as "that
guy with the audio system," but I have never really minded people asking me "Why
do you have those huge speakers?" or "Why do you have lightbulbs in your amplifier?" In
fact, I have rather enjoyed "converting" other music lovers
into audiophiles over the years, guiding them into assembling great-sounding
systems at reasonable prices. It really does not take much to convert
these folks because one listen to their favorite music on a good system is
usually all it takes. "Wow, I have never
heard that song like that!"
I have tried a lot of audio gear over the years, and I am not one of those people who believe there is only one path to audio nirvana. If I had many rooms, I could assemble many systems of very different topologies and budgets that all sound excellent. However, as of this moment my journey has led me to a particular configuration that takes some explaining.
The System
As for source, I was probably one of the very early
adapters of PC audio, but I did not go into it because I believed PC audio
inherently sounded better than traditional transports as claimed by some PC
audio devotees. In fact, in those early days many high-end transports
clearly sounded better than hard drive to my ears. The problem was
that a large portion of my music collection was being neglected purely by the
sheer physical size of my CD collection. By having my music on hard drive,
I have instant access to all my music at any time without leaving my listening chair. Furthermore, I can create playlists to group certain artists or
songs together, and if I felt adventurous, I could even push random play and sit
back. As far as sound quality of PC audio today, I believe PC audio can
now potentially sound at least as good as state-of-the-art transports, but as
with most things in audio, it takes some work. I only got there after a
lot of tweaks to my audio PC, including modifying S/PDIF output of my Lynx pro
card and moving everything to e-SATA drive outside the actual computer case. This
audio PC transport feeds an outboard DAC, currently an AD1852-based DAC
with custom/DIY discrete output stage.
Another interesting development in recent years has been
single-ended triodes, and I do use a pair of 2A3 SET monoblocks; however, that
does not mean SETs are the only way to go. SET-lovers tend to minimize
their shortcomings, mainly limitations in macro-dynamics, bass, and speaker
choice by saying things like "great bass for SET" and "loud enough for my type
of music most of the time." Well, since my musical tastes include pretty
much every genre, not just chamber music or quiet vocals, I need a system that
retains the midrange palpability and presence of SET with never-die bass and dynamics. I
do not mind horn systems, but the ones I would want will have
to be horn-loaded from treble to bass and sound coherent. Physics dictates
they will be huge behemoths that require even larger rooms, not to mention a
hugely patient significant other. I went about the problem with a custom
speaker system with active crossover. The treble/midrange section is
genuine 95 dB @ 7 Ohm, which is driven by highly-modified 2A3 monoblocks. The
bass section is 95 dB @ 4 Ohm driven by solid-state. By having an
adjustable active crossover with careful driver selection, this system can be
crossed over at a low 140 Hz, which is crucial for avoiding incoherence issues
when two different amplifiers are used for top and bottom. Full-range
electrostat headphones, including Stax Omega II, are used for a different
perspective on the upstream components.
What about a preamplifier? Well, I have tried many and
still own some. Currently in rotation are highly modified DIY Pass B-1
active buffer, highly modified Transcendent Sound Grounded Grid tube
preamplifier, and a LDR (light dependent resistor) preamplifier. Most of
the time, I prefer to run without a preamplifier as the audio PC directly feeding the
DAC with volume controlled by playback software. The system gain has been
tweaked as to not lose "bits" with digital volume control, but if need be,
EVS Ultimate Nude attenuators are used to further adjust system gain. More recently, the DIY Pass B-1 has been placed in the signal path of the bass
amplifier while the SET is driven direct.
Cable, power, room, and tweaks encompass a huge topic. For
now, suffice it to say many, many thousands of hours have been spent
evaluating and comparing these very essential components, and when no suitably
neutral one is found, I have ended up making my own.
Such has been my personal journey so far, and it should be pretty evident by now that I am not the one to walk into an audio store, plunk down $20,000 for a CD player, $60,000 on an amplifier, $30,000 on cables, $120,000 on speakers and have the dealer set them up in my home. Even if I could afford to do so, I still would do it differently, and I believe it would be more fun along the way and maybe even sound better.
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