Dear readers,

The evil well-organised attack against thousands of innocent people in America by rotten terrorists is simple unforgivable. The hostility must end. Even though some of us may be struggling for a living, we must be thankful that we are living safely and peacefully in Singapore. I wish the retaliation that shall be conducted by the American government is not going to trigger the 3rd world war and lead human beings to the end of the world... because in everyone's Hi-Fi journey, there is still a long way to go...

I hope all of you are open-minded and able to accept another writing from me about tweaking... I've been quiet for quite a while. I think this site has drifted far enough in this 'tweaking' direction and I believe many audio dealers out there are wondering when will we stop.

I am always hedonistic and never want to do anything to hurt the industry. I don't see why we can't live together in harmony. However, the subject of material tweaking is really too full of seductive mysteries and can manifest themselves in the smallest matters such as a few small coins. It is beneficial to all audiophiles even if you owned a very high-end system and thought that this is the ultimate and nothing can be improved upon. In fact, the better the system, the more it needs to be tweaked in order to squeeze the best out of it.

I am never afraid to discover more ways in tweaking and it is my wish to help out many budget conscious audiophiles to live happier... kind of camaraderie??? Others may be against me, but time is certainly on my side...

Someone told me that amber has magical power, good for health and can also assist my concentration which I am lacking in my meditation. I bought my first amber bracelet which is a Tibetian type at the beginning of this year and since then I have been wearing different kinds of amber. I tell you man, it really works. I have been able to eat, drink, smoke and sleep better. No more overhang even after striking 10 bottles in the previous night. What a treasure! Simply unexplainable!

One day in Ben's house after comparing the performance of a few different power cords, I threw an impromptu by taking off my amber bracelet, which has been fully run-in with my sweat and grease and placed it on his transport. Instantly, all of us, yes, including myself, couldn't believe what we heard. The musical power was suddenly being boosted by enormous amount massaging every listener's heart comfortably and the vocal or violin became so sweet and was so touching that everyone quivered. Rich body vehicled with huge dynamic and majestic soundstage stunned the whole room gloriously and since then, our whole gang became Amber craze.

As there are numerous type of amber and every species has its own musical orientation, tweakings with amber aren't quite so black and white like other materials such as Shun Mook. There are no simple rules and no guarantee results too. However, the musical charm that amber is able to offer is simply irresistible to our gang and they discovered that the only way to get it right is buy some amber, try it out and if it doesn't work, buy some more and try again... Needless to say, the damage to everyone's pocket was severe. I would say it is even worse than 1998's economy crisis!

To me it may be a blunder to place that amber bracelet on Ben's transport in an impulse as I would have sold more cables and power cords to the gang if I didn't. Looking at the way they were spending money on amber like nobody's business, my saliva was dripping like fire hose. But please don't get me wrong, this was not the reason that I've been trying to avoid mentioning amber tweak in my articles in order to endeavour for more business in cables. Deep in my soul I never have this kind of vicious thoughts. You know, that's not my style.

The fact is, just imagine, there are many species of amber available in the market such as butterscotch, antique (old), cognac, jet, green, blue, blood-red, Tibetan, Yemen, Chinese flower, gold, etc.etc. and one bracelet consisting of 9~11 beads of good quality amber can easily ask for S$300~500 at least. The Yellow-Silk amber bracelet that I'm wearing day and night cost me over S$1K. Therefore, it is a huge challenge if I have to recommend one or two particular types of amber to our members and guarantee that these will surely work for their systems. I am a coward and I always worried about all sorts of complications that may arise ... If you spent S$400 based on my suggestion and the outcome is not what you have expected, or worse still, your system sounded better without these amber, will you swear at me?

Therefore, during that time I thought the wisest act was to keep my mouth shut.

I may be a lousy businessman because I always consider your benefits in prior habitually. But perhaps that's the only reason why you are still here reading. Anyway, inevitably the news spreaded out.

It started with Oyster's two articles "Romancing the Stone" and "Romancing the Stone II". Let me abstract a few sentences from these articles:

...This gemstone transforms music of acoustic instruments to a plateau not seems possible. You will not believe until you listen. Vocals, saxophone, cello, violin and most string instruments I can name sounded more fluid, rhythmic, musical and emotional...
(Romancing the Stone)

...Given the array and choice of amber, you must be gung-ho and adventurous in attempting the different types and hoping that they all click on the word - Go. Despite the shameless amber purchases (almost to the extent of hoarding and drying up supply) by these audio nuts, I have yet to receive a single negative feedback about any amber type. So, a risk free investment?(Romancing the Stone II)

Apparently Oyster is an influential writer. Since then I have received many enquiries from 1388 members asking about amber. The first time I tweaked my buddy Yilun's system (now one of our columnists) in March this year he thought all the crystal pieces I used were amber. How I wish I could afford to. Anyway, now Yilun's system is full of nothing but crystals and amber. He had spent a couple of thousand bucks and now he can really called himself 'expert' in gem tweak. Read what he wrote in one of our forum's threads "About Amber".

Since this tweak has been revealed and getting hotter and hotter (one member even emailed me more than 10 photos of different types of amber asking for opinion), and I always think that I am a genius within this chosen field - audio tweaking, instead of inviting mimics, I might as well try my best to help all those who want to step into this new dimension of tweaking - Gem Tweak! And make it BOOM!

Same as many tweaking devices, Amber tweak is powerful affirmatively, but it is not almighty. There are negative effects, or what you called 'trade-off'. Like Oyster commented in his article:

...the multiple types of amber - color, size, purity, finishing, origin could also have varying effects. As the amber adds a degree of sweetness to your system, overly generous dosage (like your dad owns a jeweler shop or something), could possibly reduce the speed of your music...

That's not all, some species can darken your system to seriously great extent and reduced the ultra-high frequencies that we called ambience drastically. In this case these ambers are only suitable for insomniac. Some are very insouciant and although giving beautiful timbre, it also reduced the musical weight.

To me, to get ONE amber that can improve the entire audio spectrum is simply unattainable. There is only ONE SOLUTION in gem tweak, to combine different type of materials and species and get the best out of each.

Since I have decided to stand up and help two month ago, I had this idea to try to come out with a gem tweak combining various materials and this tweaking device must be able to guarantee improvement in all aspects. With it, the musicality must be significantly enriched with better involving power, pace, elegancy, timbre, and more rounded and cushioning bass and sub-bass, warmer mid, and silkily high, better 3D with wider and deeper soundstage, sharper imaging, etc... Most importantly is that there shall be no trade-off in any area. Just one affordable set is enough to beautify the world and the improvement should be so prominent that even the tone-deaf can tell you the significant difference.

Act of God? Am I asking too much? I thought my requirements are just basic and are what every audiophile is willing to pay for. I know it is not easy but I am not a mediocre and only challenge can motivate me... (Bullshzzz.....) Anyway, you can imagine the amount of contemplation and testing that was involved and many times when I were stuck I immersed myself in subconscious mind with some help of beer and I put on another 5kg in a few weeks time.