While studying sociology, a particular theorist attempted to equate the structure of society to our human anatomy. NO prizes for guessing, this is a task which a brain pre-occupied with audio decides to uptake. The Human Anatomy = Equipment??? Is this guy mad or what? Read on…

From frequent visits to audiophiles’ systems, I often find that different people are negligent towards certain parts of their “audio health”. For example A has totally no concern about room acoustics, B uses almost bell-wire equivalent cables to link his expensive system and leaves the power cords, interconnects and speaker cables laying over each other, while C places his speakers in places so incredible, it is embarrassing to print. The list goes on so long, I can only attempt to address all these by separate articles.

Let’s first take a look at the Human Anatomy - in my perspective of course. Hey, I’m no doctor, so forgive me for my inaccurate representations.

I have shown the Human Anatomy using a skeleton coz in audio what you often see is not what you hear or get…

Headline : LP vs CD vs SACD vs 24/96 DAD vs DVD-A

You mean there are so many types of formats further confusing the hi-fidelity issues? Which magazine dares to feature a headline such as that and approach this issue that I believe everyone out there wishes to know about? None whatsoever. I for one do not have the resources to conduct a face-off of this propensity (unless kind folks are willing to donate their equipment for my experiment). Just joking.

Despite digital rearing its head and showing its potential everywhere, you can still find analog devotees denying its very existence in the high-end world. Well, I have heard decidedly very high-end setups with both turntables and CD players as front end. All I can say that (favouring the Analogies – pardon the pun) the turntables are not optimally set up. Well what I definitely heard was that the CD player definitely sounds better!

Do not be discouraged, but I myself am not having turntables due to the great difficulty and effort required to get it right. Whether you get LPs or CDs to sound better, I would say, depends on your dedication and expertise.

For people who think that a decent front-end like perhaps a Pioneer DVD player is no different from a Wadia transport is probably an extremely good tweaker or out of his mind (will have to be crazy in both cases). Point is, can you type 200 words per minute if you have the brain of a 2 year old child?

Every body has a nervous system, whether or not it is functioning will mean the difference between having fast or slow reflexes, whether your left hand moves when your brain tells it to or your right foot moves instead. Whatever orders your brain churns out has to be correctly interpreted by your nervous system otherwise it will mean nothing or something very different.

Enough said? Probably. Go read up and check how many times does your pre-amplifier amplifies the signal from the front-end and how many times your power amplifier amplifies the following signal. Imagine the signal being distorted by 10% from your pre-amplifier and let me know by the time your amp has done its job, what rubbish are you left with.