Musical Journey
I had been looking forward to this trip. The last time I had been to my uncle's friend house was almost 10 years back. He had an amazing music system - a 5.1 surround (which at that time really wasn't common at all). The demonstration had blown me away. I couldn't wait to check out his new system!
First, we had lunch at a nice sausage pub - I finally got to taste wild boar (in a sausage format though) and was really happy cos' I'd always wondered what it was like - had watched Obelix and Asterix gorging on it for many years. In sausage form it tasted swell, by Toutatis!
Mr. H has above a 1000 CDs which are arranged alphabetically. A lot of progressive rock, folk rock, weird rock, unclassifiable music and more groups than you can point a finger at.
As soon as you enter the room you're overpowered by the presence of two speakers. The way the new system works is the CD goes into the CD transport which passes on the unadulterated digital content to the preamp which passes it onto the amp which passes it to the huge (see the How High? pic to understand height - I'm 6'1" and those things reach almost my shoulder) and incredibly modified speakers outfitted with super tweeters. All the components are connected with high quality cables. There are two chairs in the room - if you sit on these all the other room noise cancels out and you get pure unadulterated music. What's the cost of this new setup? Around £40,000. No, I haven't added a zero by mistake. It's crazy.
It sounds great. But I could never spend that much! For example, I had carried the New Radicals CD with me and as soon as "You get what you give" started playing - I immediately heard sounds I had never heard before (guitars in the background, clean drum hits, great bass reproduction - what not). It's quite a ear opener. If you listen to MP3s on this system you can make out the limitations of the format...
Mr. H took me through a whirlwind tour of some of his CDs. It felt like being in a musical education class. I think we sat for atleast 9 hours straight in that room listening to music ranging from Jade Warrior, Nektar, Manfred Mann, Uriah Heep to James Blunt. By the end of it my head was caving in. Seriously. Too much information. :)
I fell in love with that room. Later at night I listened to some of my mp3s, then watched Steve Vai's Live at Astoria performance after Mr. H had hooked up his portable DVD player to the system. Finally, I lay down listening to Porcupine Tree's "In Absentia" and fell asleep at around 4:45 a.m. on the carpet. 5:30 a.m. I woke up and went up to the guest bedroom. I really wish there had been a bed in the music room itself! :)
Finally, what's the photo of the of that strange pink thingy, you ask? Well, you put it on top of the CD player - play your CD for 5 seconds and it gets chipped. By chipped I mean - the sound quality becomes better. No physical contact with the actual CD itself - it's like some sort of talisman. WHAT?! Well, Mr. H swears it does change the sound quality significantly, other professionals who've checked it out agree as well.. and I don't know what to believe.. Mr. H chipped one of my CDs and I thought it sounded better the next time around but it could have been my mind playing tricks on me.. and heck, with a system like his.. he doesn't need a chip! That chip thingy costs around 30 quid and "chips" around 34 CDs before it stops working. It's a kind of magic? :)
One of my best weekends in the UK. I could have spent a year in that room and still not have gotten through everything.. :) Thank you Mr. and Mrs. H.. Photos below..
First, we had lunch at a nice sausage pub - I finally got to taste wild boar (in a sausage format though) and was really happy cos' I'd always wondered what it was like - had watched Obelix and Asterix gorging on it for many years. In sausage form it tasted swell, by Toutatis!
Mr. H has above a 1000 CDs which are arranged alphabetically. A lot of progressive rock, folk rock, weird rock, unclassifiable music and more groups than you can point a finger at.
As soon as you enter the room you're overpowered by the presence of two speakers. The way the new system works is the CD goes into the CD transport which passes on the unadulterated digital content to the preamp which passes it onto the amp which passes it to the huge (see the How High? pic to understand height - I'm 6'1" and those things reach almost my shoulder) and incredibly modified speakers outfitted with super tweeters. All the components are connected with high quality cables. There are two chairs in the room - if you sit on these all the other room noise cancels out and you get pure unadulterated music. What's the cost of this new setup? Around £40,000. No, I haven't added a zero by mistake. It's crazy.
It sounds great. But I could never spend that much! For example, I had carried the New Radicals CD with me and as soon as "You get what you give" started playing - I immediately heard sounds I had never heard before (guitars in the background, clean drum hits, great bass reproduction - what not). It's quite a ear opener. If you listen to MP3s on this system you can make out the limitations of the format...
Mr. H took me through a whirlwind tour of some of his CDs. It felt like being in a musical education class. I think we sat for atleast 9 hours straight in that room listening to music ranging from Jade Warrior, Nektar, Manfred Mann, Uriah Heep to James Blunt. By the end of it my head was caving in. Seriously. Too much information. :)
I fell in love with that room. Later at night I listened to some of my mp3s, then watched Steve Vai's Live at Astoria performance after Mr. H had hooked up his portable DVD player to the system. Finally, I lay down listening to Porcupine Tree's "In Absentia" and fell asleep at around 4:45 a.m. on the carpet. 5:30 a.m. I woke up and went up to the guest bedroom. I really wish there had been a bed in the music room itself! :)
Finally, what's the photo of the of that strange pink thingy, you ask? Well, you put it on top of the CD player - play your CD for 5 seconds and it gets chipped. By chipped I mean - the sound quality becomes better. No physical contact with the actual CD itself - it's like some sort of talisman. WHAT?! Well, Mr. H swears it does change the sound quality significantly, other professionals who've checked it out agree as well.. and I don't know what to believe.. Mr. H chipped one of my CDs and I thought it sounded better the next time around but it could have been my mind playing tricks on me.. and heck, with a system like his.. he doesn't need a chip! That chip thingy costs around 30 quid and "chips" around 34 CDs before it stops working. It's a kind of magic? :)
One of my best weekends in the UK. I could have spent a year in that room and still not have gotten through everything.. :) Thank you Mr. and Mrs. H.. Photos below..
2 Comments:
I saw the kit and the speakers, and I decided Mr. H was an elite audiophile. Then I saw the chip.
http://www.ilikejam.dsl.pipex.com/audiophile.htm
Hey Tushar,
He IS a major audiophile. His previous system was killer as well..
Thanks a lot for the link!! :) I didn't know what to look for in order to find more about the chip.. :)
All the products on that page.. Amusing to read about them.. :)
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