Analog Journey to Singapore Hifi Show


Well, the real audiophile never sleeps well...so I will make a short report on the search to probably some rarely seen units.....

First stop HongKong to Listen to a System with very rare speakers.....Pioneer Exclusive Series with highly selected TAD drivers....Micro Seiki 5000 Turntable with the motor from Seiki 8000, a custom order at that time ....
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Malaysia System 01
After landing and check in I was told that Malaysian Audiophiles also never sleep :-)
So the first Visit started at 10.00 pm....I did enter the room and my first impression....Whoooah, absolutely no mercy from the owner....huge room and loaded - and I mean loaded - and when there was some free space, there were his audiophile friends, but more about them later.
Very friendly and warm welcome, like the coming home of a lost son, really great. Very friendly, relaxed...I learned, there are audiophile groups, they are in very lose touch, do visit each other regularly and they grow...great community.... We know somebody who has this and that and that one knows someone who owns....and so it went on....
But back to the stuff dreams are made of -:)
On the right side was Clearaudio Statement Turntable, you know, the really big one, left was one rack with Vitus electronics, the full monty, preamp plus phono-stage with external power supplies, on the next rack was a Airforce One Turntable and in some distance I started to count ....one, two, three, four Mono Amps from Vitus...those, when you want to move you need the help from your neighbor, cables, power supplies and so on to a very elegant looking 4 Tower Speaker System from Gryphon.....on my way back to the listening seat I stumbled across some huge metal boxes with handles at each side with speaker cables, MIT Oracle something, but there was dust on it, so probably out of use for longer time.:-)
And what my jaw drop, when it started to play, it was really good. I mean outstanding good, I would say, among the best sounding expensive High End Systems in my last 5 years.... What was - or is - very remarkable, room tuning is made seriously.....but more to that later... really cool...now 01.00 am .... time to eat something...02.00 am back to the room...listening to this and that...discussions about cables, arms, phono alignment...great time....came back to the Hotel 03.30 am...System visit for the next day was prepared ...
Malaysia System 02

I learned, an audiophile Day starts always somewhere in a Restaurant (meeting point) no matter how good the breakfast was...and relaxed discussions about Arms and interestingly, much about Cartridge Alignment
Analog has a very serious standing, of course, they all have high Digital Quality, too and the discussions about that are short. Very short....
Next visit, opening the door and also very well done room with damping done everywhere. Sperling Turntable, Ikeda cart, Audio Note GB preamp and their huge monos, speakers are a former Sonus Faber Design ( i guess, not really sure about ), Esoteric Digital complete and another sonic presentation which is simply stunning....all kind of music ...first I thought, a great, normal priced System until one whispered in my ear that the Audio Note Preamp is 100k British Pounds ....
Malaysia System 03

Honestly, what came now I was absolutely not prepared for ....
A professionally designed listening room, huge Focal Utopia Stella EM, the latest FM Acoustic Resolution Electronics, FM 222 Phono (when I remember right, it was the large unit), FM 255 Pre and their powerful amp....Vertere Record Player and Vertere SG-1 Tonearm (from Great Britain I think) and a TechDas Airforce One Turntable with Axiom Tonearm, Digital from MSB and Proceed....the Owner loves Rock Music and another stunning Performance for the next 3 hours was served, one record after the next....very, very nice room
Btw...some restaurants have a Lunch/Dinner Card with pics from the meals, very helpful and what is great, sometimes there is a red cross or similar warning behind the name...that means 'hot/spicy' .... From the 21 meals there were 18 with such a sign so it made it easy for me....from 3 only I had to choose :-)
Did it save me? Of course not -:)
Meat was fine, then I tried some Salad and there was 'something' in the dressing what increased the blood volume in my ears .quite fast ...Huh... A different way of 'preparation' for the next listening session .... -:)
Malaysia System 04

I was really curious, I never had that experience before, not one weak System, all great ones and always completely different.....
Another great room, probably one of the best tuned ones I've ever seen...electrically lighted room diffusors, super nice .....Eggleston Savoy Signature Edition Speakers, Pass XA160 monos, a TW Acoustic Raven Phono, Simonte Audio Pre (I think and I also think, it is a passive Pre when I understood it right), TW AC Turntable with Copper Top Plate, XV-1S cartridge with Axiom Arm placed on unknown Isolation Platform....and here we made comparisons with different Phono alignments....first was made with a Mint Protractor...we listened to a few records and then the owner was interested to align the XV-1s to a new calculation which is called UNI- DIN and when it was done I had serious problems to believe the overall improvement. Much better tonal definition, increased soundstage, much better headroom, much more open high frequency are combined with an unheard sonic coherence. In a way shocking how great this System was sounding now....no way back ....
Again .... late after midnight .... But...who cares -:)

Malaysia System 05

Next System visit at 02.00 pm in the afternoon, I thought, great, now I am in the normal time frame ... Indeed right but we left also that room after midnight -:)
Also very tasteful from Interior, professionally done, really super nice....Goldmund Equipment...Mimesis Series....top models ... Mono Amps Telos 3500, Goldmund Phono Preamp and the Preamp is a Digital Design when I got it right ...the communication with the Bladelius Digital was not via RCA or XLR cable.... Speakers are Grande Utopia Made in France by Focal, Turntable Clearaudio Master Reference, Souther Arm with Goldfinger Cartridge ....anyway, a very warm welcome, trying something here and there, more and more other audiophiles came by ....

And....Dinner with very relaxed audiophiles ... Again 01.00 in the morning, normally no problem....but I prepaid Hotel in Singapore....well, no way out ...a night drive to Singapore .... I am shot now .... the real Audiophile is born to suffer .....