10 Essential Rules for the Aspiring Audiophile

A note of thanks and appreciation to the following: my uncle Su Lim who first started me on this hi-fi journey; my audiophile mentors Kuo YH, Ashley Elias, Sim TS, and Gabriel of Zenn Audio; and last but not least, the members of the group RFSG Vinyl, who have rekindled my passion for good music, and made me rediscover how fun this hobby can be - thanks guys!

The following are some basic rules that I didn't have the luxury of knowing when I started out on this hobby. After lots of painful trial and error, I think I finally have some of it figured out. 

Hopefully, some day I'd understand 'em all and achieve audiophilic nirvana, and maybe then I can finally stop buying audiophile grade CDs....

Listening Room, circa Jan 2008

1. Optimise the listening room.

If you have the luxury of a dedicated room, good for you! Most of the rest of us have to make do with a room that doubles up as the AV room, bedroom, study, living hall etc. Even then, it’s possible to optimise the room from an acoustic point of view.

Firstly, the room has to be balanced between acoustically live and acoustically dead. The average real-life room with lots of furniture, junk and gear should be fine, but beware of large swaths of glass or bare wall or floor - if you can discern echoes from hand-claps while walking about the room, it won’t hurt to lay down a rug or two, or a set of curtains.

Next, the speakers need to be positioned correctly – here there’s lots of resources online – the Cardas golden-ratio method, the Rule of Thirds etc. – so you’re welcome to explore and experiment, but do note that a correctly positioned pair of speakers will likely to be far out enough from the wall to incur (gasp!) The Disapproval Of The Wife, so be-warned.

Most people will place the rest of their audio or AV gear in the space between the speakers, but do note that this will negatively affect the speaker’s sound projection. Ditto for any piece of furniture (e.g. study desk or coffee table) between the speakers and you at your listening position.

If, and when, you get your listening room right, this is what should happen when you sit down at the listening position and close your eyes - the speakers, the whole system, should disappear sonically. With your eyes closed, you should not be able to discern where the speakers are - in front of you should just be a 'wall of sound'.
If, and when, you can achieve this - congratulations!

CEC ST930 turntable, Jelco SA250ST arm, Ortofon Rohmann cartridge, circa April 2013

2. Proportion the budget right.

This depends on how many sources of music you intend to play – obviously the more sources you want the more you’re going to have to spend. To keep this simple, let’s assume you just need one source, e.g. a turntable.

I would suggest a 3:3:3:1 split as a starting point, i.e. 30% of your budget for each of the source, amplification and speakers, leaving 10% for the rest (cables etc.).

There will obviously be much variability in this, but if you are eyeing a CD player costing twelve hundred bucks when your budget is two grand, then you might be in for a bit of a fix.

3. Find the love-of-your-life speakers.

The most important item to nail down right is the speakers. I cannot emphasize this point enough!

Just think of the speakers as your life partner. The same way you’d want to take your time to find the right life partner you truly love, you’d want to take your time to find the pair of speakers that you, your ears, and your heart truly love. Reviews and all can help, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to like, no, love how the speakers sound – you’re the one who’s going be listening to them day in day out, not anyone else.

So the same way you’d want to choose the girlfriend you wanna go out with, not the one your mother wants you to go out with; choose the speakers that you like, not the ones that the Stereophile reviewer likes.

Yugoslavian EI 6CA7s, Antique Sound Labs AQ1008 amps, circa Jan 2008

4. Match the amp to your speakers.

Once you’re found the speaker love of your life, then this next rule is easy – get the amp that best drives your chosen speaker. Do note that this might be easier said than done – getting a correct speaker-amplifier pairing can be a black art, but there are a few tricks....

The store where you bought your speakers – what amplification did they use to drive them?

When your speakers were designed, what was the amplification used? For example, Robin Marshall famously used Naim amplification when designing the Epos 14 speaker.

Go onto the forums – is there a particular pairing that many people seem to rave about?

Do note that good amplification often don’t come cheap, and cheap amplification often don’t sound good.

Lastly, just because the speaker and the amp share the same brand does not automatically make them an ideal pairing. Case in point – my Mission 751 speakers sound terrible with a Rotel integrated, pretty darn good with a Mission Cyrus amp, but exceedingly wonderful with an Audiolab 8000A!

Cyrus CDP, Audiolab 8000A, circa March 2013

5. Get the best source component that your budget allows.

You’d think this is an obvious no brainer, but what a lot of budding audiophiles tend to do is to overspend on fancy downstream gear, and then buying an entry-level source component.

As with most men’s toys, entry-level gear tends to get outgrown very quickly, thus it often makes more sense to go straight for mid-level gear right from the get-go.

Also, for the same quantum of money, it’s often more worthwhile buying used mid-level gear than new entry-level gear.

6. Don’t go overboard on accessories.

I’m going to stick my neck out here and boldly proclaim that if you follow the rules above and get the room, speaker, amp and source right, then accessories like cables and power cords etc. are going to matter much less - as in you won’t need to over-spend on hideously overpriced accessories and tweaks cos you’ve already got your basic components right.

The reverse is also true – if you’ve got your room acoustics wrong, or a poor source component, or a amp-speaker mismatch, then no amount of exotic cable upgrading, fancy tuning devices, power conditioners, tube socks, cleaning fluid, or green marker pens is going to right the fundamentally wrong sound.

7. Listen with your heart, not your ears.

The typical audiophile should be listening out for airy trebles, neutral midrange, tight bass, soundstage, detailing, micro-dynamics, PRAT etc. correct? My tip? Forget about all that!

Sit down, close your eyes, and just feel the music. Does it make you feel relaxed, or joyful, or as if you’re in a live performance? Do you feel an emotional connection to the music? Are you losing yourself in the song? Or does it make you tense, uneasy, wanting to get up and change the track?

If it’s the former, congratulations! If it’s the latter, time to go back - you’ve done something wrong somewhere (or you’ve used a non-audiophile approved disc! =P)
Also, it's important to make your judgement only after prolonged listening. A lot of hi-fi gear sounds great on first listen - be careful here - often these will tire you and your ears out on prolonged listening. But if you find that you can sit and listen to, and enjoy, the music over a prolonged session, then you're on to something.

David Ng, Mosaic Music Festival, March 2011

8. Listen to, and take reference from, live music.

Often, the audiophile will expect his speakers to reproduce tight bass – bass tighter than the botox-ed butt of that aging Hollywood star, but have you ever heard a plucked double bass in real life? A real life double bass doesn’t sound as ‘tight’ as your audiophile recording will have you believe. You don’t have to take my word – go have a listen for yourself!

So do go check out a classical concert, play a musical instrument, attend a live gig. Listen to, and learn, what real live music sounds like, and use that as a reference when tuning your hi-fi.

Collection, circa Jan 2013

9. Don’t limit your listening to just audiophile-approved recordings.

Just think – what percentage of recorded music has been recorded and released in an audiophile-approved format? 1%? 0.1% I don’t know, but you get my point – there’s a shitload of music out there that’s not pressed using Fancy Acronym Technology (FAT) on 188gm virgin vinyl using half speed mastering, and you’ll be missing out of all of that if you only listen to audiophile stuff.

10. Learn from your mistakes, and share on your experiences!

Lastly, in this audiophile journey, you’re going to make mistakes. Nobody’s going to get it all correct the first time.

You’re not going to believe the number of audiophile boo-boos I’ve committed and the amount of audiophile snake-oil I’ve fallen for - drinking by the label, buying entry level junk, wrong amp-speaker pairing, wrong speaker positioning - I’ve done ‘em all!

It’s ok - I was young and stupid then (now I’m just stupid). It’s called ‘school fees’ – we’ve all had to pay them one way or the other.

BUT we can learn from the mistakes of others! It’s in this spirit that I’ve penned this article…hopefully someone out there will read this and benefit from the folly of my audiophile ways.

Disclaimer.

I’ve been listening to hi-fi for many years, but that doesn’t make me an expert – the same way a lifetime of farting doesn't make anyone an authority on flatulence.

The above are my personal observations - you don’t have to agree with it, or even believe any of it.

If any of the above offends your own audiophile believes and inclinations – it’s ok, you don’t have to write in to complain – the world hasn’t ended and nobody's died - just close the page and move on to another Internet site – but thank you for reading this far anyway! =)

Michell Gyrodec turntable, Graham 1.5c tonearm, Ortofon Rohmann cartridge, circa Dec 2011