Audionervosa – an insight into the mind of a self-confessed audiophile
As someone who has a foot in both home audio and car audio I have been asked to describe (or try to) some of my journey in the whacky world of high-end home audio. I was barely in my teens when, thanks to my father, I was first introduced to home audio - ‘proper’ home audio that is. Immediately I was hooked and so began a very long journey that has, so far, taken forty years - and shows little sign of relenting.
So, let me start by explaining where I come from in terms of music reproduction. I’m not one of those who wants numerous sources - no, in fact I just play records - no CD, no streaming, no radio - just records. For quite a long time I could only play 33.3rpm albums but these days I can also play 7 and 12” singles at 45rpm. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that using just a single source must mean quite a simple system, no, not at all. In fact; there is the turntable, the speakers, a sub-woofer and then another ten boxes - eight mains leads are required! The system lives in its own room, with its own mains supply and an isolation transformer like you may see in a recording studio. There is also quite a bit of acoustic room treatment and DSP modification of the low frequencies - for a ‘simple’ system it’s all quite complicated.
What does such a system consist of - what are the component parts? Well, as I’ve been involved in the audio world for a long time (retail and later design) it’s inevitable that the answer isn’t very easy. Everything in the system has either been modified or is completely custom built. Before I list all the components let me explain that the system is set up in a semi-active configuration. The speakers are a three-way design with the mids and tweeters driven passively through custom built crossovers and the bass drivers are actively driven through a separate amplifier that includes DSP and this allows the major bass modes of the room to be addressed with notch filters.
Source
Turntable - completely custom designed and built with separate custom power supply. The turntable is physically built into the stand it ‘sits’ on.
Arm – Tiger Paw Javelin (Modified to aid tracking weight adjustment and a custom arm board) This tonearm is extremely rare and only a dozen or so were ever made.
Cartridge - Rebuilt Linn Troika moving coil (black body, unique to Troika, rewound copper coils with solid ruby cantilever and Gyger S stylus).
Amplification
Phono stage - custom built four box Paradise (with Calvin buffer boards and Z foil resistors throughout the signal path).
Pre-Amp - Naim Nac72 (all internal boards replaced by those from Ryan Sound Labs).
Power Supply to Pre-Amp - Naim Hi-Cap (rebuilt with Ryan Sound Labs PSM-1 regulator and Kendeil capacitors).
Power amps to mids and tweeters - Naim Nap135s (Kendeil capacitors).
Power amp to bass drivers – Lab Gruppen IPD1200 (the only component unchanged – unless you count the feet because, being a pro-audio product, it doesn’t have any feet as it expects to be mounted in a rack).
Speakers
Yamaha NS-1000Ms (these three-way designs have heavily custom modified, rebuilt and upgraded including custom external crossovers).
Super-tweeters (custom designed and built based on AMT drivers).
REL Stadium sub-woofer on modified feet and wired in reverse phase.
Connecting Cables
Arm cable - own design and build (Koeus).
Interconnect between Paradise and Nac72 - own design and build (Konduit).
Interconnect between Nac72 and Hi-Cap - own design and build (AnaKonda).
Interconnect between Hi-Cap and Nap135s and also to Lab Gruppen IPD1200 - own design and build (SKylla).
Linn K400 speaker cable to mids and tweeters of Yamaha NS-1000Ms.
Van Damme speaker cable ‘Tour Grade Black’ 4mm to NS-1000M bass drivers.
Equipment supports & Speaker Stands
Turntable stand integrated into the plinth of the deck.
Sound Factory stands for all electronics (Fibrelam shelf for pre-amp).
Granite plinth under sub-woofer.
Custom designed and built stands for NS-1000Ms (welded steel, mass loaded with lead shot, custom base spikes and custom speaker interface).
Mains
Dedicated ring to Crabtree unswitched sockets.
Airlink 3000VA balanced mains transformer (the whole system is run from this).
Custom built ‘Cerberus’ DC blocker.
Custom designed and built six-way ‘Hydra’ distribution block (Belden 19364 to all components).
Custom twin headed lead for Paradise phono stage (Belden 19364).
Room Treatment
DSP correction to bass range applied by Lab Gruppen IPD1200 amplifier.
Custom designed and built acoustic panels hung on four walls of listening room (between speakers, first reflection points on left and right walls and behind the listeners heads).
In more recent months I have also acquired a rather nice Revox B77 reel to reel tape recorder - but that’s another story.
The point of all this gear is obviously to play music - but play it in what manner? At the start of my audio pilgrimage, I was very much a member of the, so called, ‘flat earth’ community. This flat earth isn’t the same bunch who believe the earth is actually flat, it was a term coined to describe the Linn/Naim (British manufacturers) axis that reigned in the 80’s. These guys believed that aspects like stereo imagery and tonal neutrality were secondary to ‘tune playing’ - the ability to follow the rhythm of individual instruments and enjoy the gestalt of the music. But I also wanted forensic levels of detail retrieval (largely so I could hear the impact of my own turntable experiments) and, as time went on and I listened to more music that used unamplified instruments, I wanted tonal richness and pinpoint stereo imagery with clear separation between instruments and a strong reproduction of the recordings acoustic. I also wanted really wide dynamic range but with control and tonal differentiation in the bass. A lot of this will resonate with car audio aficionados. In my car system the speakers are all actively driven and DSP is used to overcome some of the problems a cars acoustic space presents.
How does my car audio system compare to my home system? Well in some ways it’s closer than you may imagine and in others it only really hints at what is possible. The car system cost a few thousand, but the home system cost significantly more than that and has taken forty years to develop! The home system has significantly wider dynamic swing and much more detail - but then I’m generally listening to Spotify in the car. However, I’ve certainly heard high-end audio systems that don’t sound better than my car installation and sometimes worse. I’ve also heard most of the high-end audio systems that car manufacturers offer as upgrade options and, as a whole, I’ve not been that impressed and my own aftermarket car system sounds significantly better!
Mark Holterman (8ch designs)
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