When Joe announced that every Saturday was dedicated to visiting members’ homes to do tweakings, Alan got so worried that all Joe’s Saturdays may be fully booked, he sent in his invitation immediately. Last Saturday, as usual, after spending a couple of hours in the office, we set off to Alan’s house in Choa Chu Kang area. Alan was already waiting eagerly for our arrival.

He looked like a schoolboy and nobody could have guessed that he was already over 30. Instantly Joe asked about what kind of rejuvenator he takes, “Do you practice Qi Kung?” He asked.

Alan promised to tell Joe his secrets of maintaining the youthful look in exchange for Joe’s tweaking his system. They bargained for at least three minutes outside the gate.

As soon as we entered his house, we were attracted by Alan’s aquarium, not his Hi-Fi set; the tank was so beautiful that we simply felt breathless and couldn’t take our eyes off it. The fish are so colorful and the water so clean and clear as the blue sky. I immediately turned to tell Joe that if he wanted to have an aquarium, this is the standard. Not a small fish tank with some muddy water and a few skinny black molly as what we have now purely for fengshui purpose. Joe said that the one in Changi Airport is even better, why don’t we have something like that instead? Later, I found out that Alan has 3 main hobbies, fish, hi-fi and gardening, in that order of importance? Maybe. He has one big and two smaller aquaria, one main hi-fi system plus separate A/V system in the living room and was in the process of setting up another smaller system in his bedroom. There are many flowerpots outside his main door along the corridor. How come there are no roses?

Mrs. Alan told me that everyday her husband rushed home immediately after work to either take care of his fish and flowers or listen to his hi-fi. He seldom went out, not even on weekends and holidays. He was very busy and happy at home. So lucky, I suppose every wife will envy her good fortune. Where to find such a home-loving husband? Maybe all wives should start to encourage their husbands to take up hi-fi as a hobby as this will keep them at homes. We don’t have a hi-fi system in our house; with a bit of coercion, I think it is time to force Joe to give up drinking and set up one.

Alan has sent in three CD players for upgrading and has been waiting patiently for our extremely busy Dr. Jon Wong to do his jobs. Because of the tweaking session Dr. Jon has to rush to finish the upgrading of one of them for Joe to bring back to Alan. Thus, the CD Player used was a newly upgraded (analog part only) Arcam CD player.

Anyway, I dare not say that Alan is a Hi-Fi abecedarian but his system is quite preliminary. However, Joe told me many times that never judge the performance by the value of the set-up. Well, the system consisted of:

Pre-amp : Arcam Delta 9 Power amp : Arcam 9P Interconnect : Audioquest Quartz  (Pre to Power); Audioquest Opel interconnect (CD player to DAC) Power Cord   AFA Adphrodite Power distributor : AFA Ares Speakers : Monitor Audio PMC-703

A nicely, specially built display cabinet housed all the hi-fi and A/V components in compartments with glass doors. A 32” wide-screen television sit right at the center of the cabinet and the speakers were posited symmetrically; about 8’ center to center. The sound was actually quite sweet and mellow. However, the soundstage was low and flat, I’ve been following Joe around and thus have listened to many systems lately and I noticed that this is quite a common phenomena. And as a whole the system sounds a bit messy, and noisy.

I didn’t pay much attention as Joe did the tweaking; I was talking to Mrs. Alan and admiring the fish. After so many tweaking sessions, to Joe the procedure was more or less routine. There is nothing exciting anymore.

Recently, Joe dig out some chromed iron 17mm diameter ball bearings in our storeroom and bought some 12mm diameter small copper rings (those for pipe works) from our neighbourhood hardware shop. According to Joe, these two materials made a good combination and are very good for opening-up the soundstage to give livelier sound. Together with some 1-cent and 5-cent coins and some irregularly shaped clear crystal pieces (around $15 per 100g from China Town Point) placed at strategic places, the system’s performance has improved vastly.

What he did was: one crystal piece on the main fuse box; another one on the 13 amp power point; one more on the center of the Television’s top (near the rear) and one stuck right at the center of the top portion of the cabinet (above the TV). He placed one ball-bearing/copper-ring combination on top of the TV at the rear edge, right at the center. Then one set on each speaker along the rear edge, again right at the center, one set right on the floor underneath the center point of each speaker.

Well, that’s about it!

The soundstage opened-up tremendously with much better separation of instruments and depth. The tonality remained original and sweet. But somehow the sound was still a bit muddle, especially when we played Faye Wang’s “Sky” track 5. The harmonica’s sound was not clear and extended as it should be. Joe suspected it was due to the back wall. It looks like an ordinary concrete wall but it wasn’t. It was part of the cabinet and was made of wood and there was a space between this ‘wall’ and the original concrete wall. Upon knocking, the sound was hollow. This acted as a subwoofer trapping the sound waves and caused the muddling of sound.

Joe told Alan to stick three 1-cent coins, one right in the middle of the area of the wooden back wall and one each in between the middle and the left and right boundaries. The distance in relative to each of them and with respect to the wall area is very important, so Alan has to take out a measuring tape to measure and marked the spots carefully before sticking the coins. He took 20 minutes to get the job done and all the while Joe was either smoking in the corridor or appreciating the fish.

Just 3 little 1-cent coins solved the problem almost completely. When we listened to “sky” again, the sky has opened up, the highs were extended and clarity has improved vastly, it seemed that the haze has gone. Joe told Alan that if he could remove all the glass doors, the effects will be even greater, however, Alan needed time to think it over as this will spoil the looks of his beautiful cabinet. Joe said for the time being just stick one 1-cent coin right at the center of each glass door and this should eliminate the reflection.

Even though Alan would like Joe to look into his home-theatre system, we have to rush off for a lunch date. Joe promised to return again after Alan has set up his mini Houston system in his bedroom. Anyway, Alan was very happy with the vast improvement after the tweaking. However Joe seemed to fell nothing as this has become too common for him…

Joe is dying for some real challenges…we’ll see!