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Sunday, November 17, 2013

Audio chance or stepping on a two kilos gold nugget




(to be read listening to Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" or "Heart of Gold" from "Harvest";-)



A few days ago, I was watching the TV for an interesting documentary (BBC's Simon Reeves) about the Australian Western Territories' Goldrush, end of XIX Century.

I was impressed that ordinary people with a cheap metal detector is still able these days to find golden nuggets like pebbles under few centimeters sand!

CAN IMAGINE THE SATISFACTION OF ABOVE MENTIONED PEOPLE STEPPING ON A GOLDEN PEBBLE!

It happened a few years ago a man brought to a gold merchant a 24 kilos single nugget!

... these lucky people still try their chances, walking randomly, gambling their lives dice... then there is the largest goldmine in the world, where large corporates dig and dig with huge lorries and escalators and filter and use zillion water liters and ruin landscape and people  with their poisonous wastes... expensive and destructive science vs. human-scaled search.

Yesterday, well, feel shy to admit, but something (downscaled) happened... I found a (musical) two kilos gold nugget while randomly fiddling around my Gotorama system.

I felt a so-so, mixed enjoyment while listening to the larger system, feeling MUCH more overall satisfied with La Scala and WE 421A amp then the expensive Goto and Hiragas' multiamped behemoth.

For this reason, seekimh for a solution to my discontent, only a couple of weeks ago, I dismantled the system, re-routed the Audio Consulting's silver speakers wires, quite bending sensitive and too near to mains cables, changed the Elodis' TGE amp, swapping from 30W Class A to 20W Class A, so now using 20W on low end, 30W on mid low, 30W on mid high and 20W on high... no TacT, anymore... only Thomas Mayer's 4-ways crossover.

Yesterday I further slightly reduced the low-end level and... WOW!

I found my personal nugget, by chance... in the most romantic and human way... pure random!

I immediately noticed the sense of surprise and deep enjoyment blossoming again, after it disappeared: a seldom heard sense of cohesiveness and beauty I unfortunately lacked for the last months, since I took a plum playing and fiddling with the Klipsches' and their "ready to go" approach which also Jean Hiraga-san appreciated on last July.

Thanking my sense of (relative) unhappiness with Gotorama, and thanking some conversation I had with Jean Hiraga while reaching Marco and his system in Bologna, last July... well, putting TacT on a shelf was only the first (important) step...

I had to go further, trying to obtain the BIG sound available with Gotorama and re-reaching again the subtleness and airy sound I was so (surprising or unsurprising) appreciating with La Scalas'...

My friend Lo was right... "keep Klipsches until - at least - you'll better tune your larger system"... and he was right...

My friend Franz Hinterlehner used a scientific approach, ABSOLUTELY necessary when building my TGE and his other great speakers, then he used again a scientific attitude, impulses, class A measurement microphones and only "then" music... well, as also Hiraga-sensei-san agreed, this is ONLY a part of the tuning of a complex multiamped system: a lot of careful and inspired listenings are necessary and... yes, as per above similitude... industrial gold mining and walking in the bush and stepping on a large golden nugget, you know;-)))

Well... the yesterday evening "clicking" was the proof... seems silly, idiotic... moronic, like Roman Bessnow would say... yet, the so human approach of listening and changing something, a setting, finely tuning by ear...  paid a LOT!

I had to force myself back home... sort-of saying to a relaxed, music soaked me: last disc, last track and then... PLEASE, shut the system OFF and go back home, to your wife who's sleeping in the warm bed... stop yourself playing the childish game with your toys, you nut... you fucking lunatic!

I wasn't able to turn OFF the Gotorama for hours... at 2 A.M. I told myself... "OK! also if a meteor will kill me on my short way back home... that's fine, as I listened to the BEST reproduced music I ever experienced in my whole life... naturally sounding and naturally found, as well".

... and I turned off the system with a smile.

So, who cares... living on my own skin the pluses and minuses of life, my passions... feel I'm not exagerating that having such an aural deep Satori was... IS the prize for a life of searches and spending money and time and sweat on the matter... music.



My personal, musical "nugget"... the immaterial gift I got from somewhere out of the blue, from the Music Heaven.



Om mani padme hum








2 comments:

Sound Matters said...

The La Scala has something. It inspired my foray into horn building. Was it the 119db midrange horn, phenolic driver or inductance in the crossover? There were magical moments with them. Very nice to see them get some airplay. Thank you.

M.Agrimi said...

Gold is where we do not expect it !!