That Voodoo That You Do

So I will be picking up my first "tweak" this weekend in the form of some Myrtle Blocks from Ayre Acoustics to put under my power amp. My main goal is to get something to raise the amp up off the shelf so that air can flow underneath it. But I have heard that these Myrtle blocks make a difference and at $5 each how can I go wrong?

While I was at Ayre's web site I saw this listed among their accessories. It is a CD that has a track on it that they say if you play it the track will make your system sound better. Ayre says they think the track "functions by demagnetizing residual fields that build up in your components over time". This sounded pretty crazy to me, but who knows? I am not an electrical engineer. Ayre even says that they "don't have conclusive proof of the mechanism involved". This seemed crazy to me. But then while I was reading my latest issue of Stereophile I came across this little item from Gryphon Audio Designs. It is a little device that you can hook up to your system to generate the same tone to demagnatize your system and improve the sound. Wow I thought. Two encounters of the same kind of product from different manufacturers in one day. Is there something to this? Is it just voodoo that makes you *think* your system sounds better? I have no idea, but it sure makes me curious.

The Devil

I have been spending a lot of time recently listening to my friend's pair of Anthony Gallo Acoustics Nucleus Reference 3 speakers. I have the great good fortune to be "storing" them at my house for him while he is looking for a new place. I have to say that I am continually amazed by these speakers. I do not really feel like I am yet qualified to write up a true review of these speakers, so I will just tell you what I think of them.

These speakers have amazing range. My friend has both a main full range amp and the Gallo SA amp that drives the 2nd voice coils on the woofers. With this amp on the second voice coils these things can dig way down deep. I have heard bass on these speakers that I have not heard duplicated on speakers that cost 4 times as much.

However, the thing that continues to amaze me time after time, CD after CD is how much detail these speakers are able to deliver. From the breathing of a bass player to the sound of fingers moving up and down strings to lyrics that used to sound muddled now sounding crystal clear, the detail of these speakers delivers a sense of being there. A sense that you are not listening to a recording but a performance. I have heard music sound great on other speakers, but never with the detail of the Reference 3s. As they say, the devil truly is in the details.

The Way it Was...

I received my latest issues of Stereophile yesterday and while reading the letters to the editor I was reminded of a debate that I have seen raging in the audiophile community. Mainly, this is the "are iPods good or bad?". I figured I would take a minute and talk about this issue. Of course the debate is not just about iPods, it is about lossy compressed music and downloaded distribution vs uncompressed music and traditional distribution. I (and others) only mention iPods because they get a lot of press.

I will start out my saying that I own an iPod and I like it. However I am very concerned about the prevalence of compressed music and lack of hard media.

There is a place for the iPod and other digital music players that play compressed music (I know, most of them can use some kind of loss-less compression, but few people take advantage of it) such as listening on the bus or when you are our on your bike. It also seems to me that this digital music revolution has re-invigorated people's love and appreciation of music. I can definitely see the benefit of having more music out there for people to listen to and enjoy, and I feel like the advent of the portable music player has enabled that. People can get music they want quickly and take it wherever they go for their enjoyment.

However, I am concerned that we are moving toward a music industry that distributes most music in 128k compressed formats. This causes me great consternation. I have done side by side comparisons of CDs and their encoded counterparts and there is no contest. Even on an inexpensive, non-audiophile system the differences are apparent.

Many of you may be thinking, "But Erik! The music that is available in the compressed format is also available at your local CD store in all its uncompressed glory!" To that I say most of it, yes, but I went to find the latest EP by one of my favorite artists Mike Doughty and to my disappointment it is ONLY available from the iTunes music store in 128k compressed audio! On this album Mike does a cover of The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. It is a great cover, and it sounds decent on my cheap headphones at work, but anything better than that it sounds thin. Something is missing and I can not get it back.

My only hope is that as your basic audio gear gets better and people listen to their CDs they start to wonder why their iPods do not sound like that, and they start to demand high quality recordings. Then we have the best of both worlds, the ability to listen to our high quality CDs at home, and then put the music on the portable music player when we are on the go, the way it was meant to be.