GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Melquiades Amplifier
In the Thread: My Koshka is meowing

Post Subject: I agree with you both, but...Posted by anthony on: 3/10/2015

rowuk wrote:
I personally think that appreciation of music and audio are not connected.

Definitely agree here. I have always appreciated music and was always frustrated in my youth when my piano did not actually sound as "it should have" in my head. Frustrated musician I was...

But in the last few years I have begun to try to get a better musical connection through a better sound system and unfortunately this means playing with audio gear...something which I would never have foreseen myself even contemplating five years ago. Doing it like run of the mill audiophiles or diyers do it seems pointless from a lot of perspectives, but at the same time I want to be able to put together a musically satisfying system and then be done with it...just immerse myself in what gives me the real pleasure from there on in.

Even though I am aware that collecting drivers and horns and tubes and capacitors et cetera will not get me that musical connection that I really seek, I do need a place to start in lieu of spending another decade visiting people and rooms, trying to understand technologies and trying to figure out how to get what I want.

There are two primary reasons (among others of course) why I personally am attracted to Macondo/Melquiades:

Your description of "soft bass". I go to a concert hall and listen to an orchestra and what I hear correlates to my interpretation of how you describe soft bass. This is what I want, almost more than anything else in audio. I have not really heard it yet in any audio installation.
You outline some of your thought processes regarding why you have made many of your decisions with your acoustic system. To me, this is very important because I could (and probably would) make up all kinds of crazy assumptions about the "why" if all I knew was the "what".

I would like to think that I am undertaking to emulate your system for mostly the right reasons. From time to time I feel like a bit of a goose for buying ancient audio drivers, frequenting audio forums such as this, reading books on electronics and building valve amplifiers and clogging up my shed with MDF dust and rings or even for simply considering placing giant horn speakers in my listening room. But for me it is a case of "the end justifying the means", and if I can think and reason and learn from others enough to be able to implement a good sound within a couple of years then I will be the happiest bloke in town.

Tax put up a few videos for his friends when he followed your lead and added an upperbass horn to his AG's that roughly showed differences with placement of the new horn (at least I assume that is the purpose of those videos). As a further step he is now building a fullrange Melq in an effort to further understand what you are talking about in your description and his act of building it could probably be construed as an act of faith in the lead you have taken (already he has mentioned beginning to understand what you mean by 'dynamic viscosity'). Admittedly, I can see why you think this is "spinning his wheels" but I can not think of any other way forward unless you do spin the odd wheel from time to time. We have all done it I am sure. And that is precisely why I picked your system Romy as a starting point...because I don't want to "spin my wheels" if it can be avoided.

Regards,

Anthony

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