Bruce Gowans is an unapologetic audiophile. As with most who listen deeply, his musical taste is very broad and his pursuit of musical high-points, relentless. A long time fan of Driving Sounds Magazine, Bruce now has his car in which to continue his quest for audio excitement.
Those of you blessed with a good memory, may recognise Bruce's name, as we first mentioned him in June 2014! - He submitted a cracking Top Five and expressed interest in our two BMW 1-series demonstrators as featured in issue III of Driving Sounds Magazine. He has recently had a system installed into his own 1-series which I am very much looking forward to auditioning for issue VI. In the meantime, here is a Sneeky-peek to pique your interest (a sneeky-pique perhaps?).
It seems that eclectic taste in music happens as one begins to delve deeper than the chorus, the guitar solo, the lyrics and the stylish trousers worn by the singer of a piece of music. When listening deeply a panapoly of audio experiences and stimulations is unleashed capable of carrying the listener way beyond the sometimes annoying fad, fashion and face of the piece and right into the heart of the matter. The combination of many, often very different, musical elements which sum to deliver emotion and especially pleasure to the listener can for some, become an obsession. The desire to unpick a favourite song and analyse its component parts is compelling and in order to make that easy, the reproduction has to be capable of representing all of these musical elements.
Bruce has been a music lover for as long as he can remember and took up the quest for sonic perfection as a student when he invested, extremely wisely, in a Linn turntable-based hifi system. Mechanical Design Engineer, Bruce, is currently edging toward the end of his forties and still hooked on great sound. His early car audio adventures involved replacing a factory head unit with an aftermarket one and adding a small amplifier and some large speakers cut into the rear parcel shelf. His first experience at the hands of a professional however, was in 1989 when he took his Ford Fiesta XR2 to the Sound Gallery in High Wycombe but he has done little to subsequent cars until now!
Bruce chose to take his own BMW 1-series to the very capable Carl "Shakey" Shakespear of Studio Incar - (www.studioincar.com). Carl is a music lover himself and deserves his reputation of being one of the nation's finest audio installers.
"I dropped the car off at Studio Incar on the South Coast back in January. Shakey and I had a long discussion about the plans I had, and after 6 long months of development the car is finally finished." Bruce told me before explaining; "I wanted to go for high-quality, using some of the best components I could afford. We eventually based the installation around Audison's bit Play HD, feeding in to a bit 10D and then 3 Audison AV amps. Speakers are from Hertz, with a 15" Energy subwoofer and Mille 7" woofer, 3" mid and 1" tweeters in custom door builds."
In this particular install, the tweeters and woofers share an Audison Voce Quattro, 4-channel amplifier whilst the mids are driven by a second Quattro bridged. A mighty Audison Voce Uno looks after the 15" Hertz subwoofer. Playing high defintion FLAC files through the bit Play HD and delivering pristine audio directly to the inputs of the amplifiers has me very excited I can tell you! I have to say, this sounds like one cracking system and I cannot wait to hear it. I have yet to hear a car with Mille Legend in that has been properly set up.
Equipment List:
Audison bit Play HD
Audison bit 10D signal processor
2 X Audison Voce Quattro 4-channel amplifiers
Audison Voce Uno, monoblock amplifier
Hertz Mille ML 1650.3
Hertz Mille ML 700.3
Hertz Mille ML 280.3
Hertz Energy ES380.5
