audiophiles have various ways to describe how moved they are by the music emanating from their hifi systems at their peak. words such as "goosebumps", "moved to tears", "awe-inspiring" are common to describe the experience. but seriously how many of you have experienced sublime sound reproduction?

I personally have experienced it close to 3 times when my system is/was really sublime. it takes a combination of good electricity, perfect tubes and perfect system synergy to achieve that sort of sound. good electricity is a random thing in my house, depends largely on luck. whereas perfect tubes does not need luck - you need to find the best tubes (e.g. svetlana 6550 winged-C for audio research amps) for your amp and you need to run-in at least 500-1,000 hours before it sounds heavenly. system synergy is the hardest to achieve among the 3 ingredient of heavenly sound aforementioned. it takes years of mix and match, trial and error, and good room acoustics before one finds/assembles a system which is perfectly synergised.

here's how my system sounded when it was at its best: vocalist seems to emerge from a cloud of dense and thick air (a very magical experience no less); and when she opens her mouth, you could feel the movement of her mouth (well, this requires a very very capable cd player! most system only manage to create a fixed spot for vocalist's mouth, never the movement), her articulation, her breathing (inhaling and exhaling) and the gymnastics of her vocal cord - all these minute details will become very very prominent in a very transparent system.

there are other attributes, of course, that make a sublime system, such as tonal beauty, mids density, sparkling highs, tactile basslines, superb layering, 3-D soundstage but we will leave them for another post another time.

can share with us your best experience?

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