a valuable visit

kc and i visited our friend, mr.o, for the 2nd time to listen to his megabuck system, which comprises of krell 700cx power amp, dCS combi and apogee duetta signature planar speakers. we are already familiar with the sound but we just wanted to sample it again (now that our listening skills have improved) to see what's the gap between a super-duper system like his and a high-end aspiring system like mine.

we realized that all the differences were contributed mainly by the source, that's his dCS combi. even a top-notch cd source like my meridian G08, pales in comparison to the dCs.

mr.o's system sound so detailed and high-res that my meridian, in contrast, sounds rough and unrefined. can you imagine meridian sounding rough? that's an oxymoron! someone once told me before - the difference between a state-of-the-art cd player (above RM100K) and a class-leader like meridian G08 (RM14K) lies mainly in the resolution and precision, and this is right on the dot.

eventho' my meridian has subjectively more PRaT and presence (always a forte of meridian), it can't match up to dCS' precision and accuracy. all the images are compact and precise, not an ounce of fat and excessive bloom like my ARC. and the vocalist's mouth is very very small, that's the way mr.o wants it to be.

at the end of the day, we were so thrilled to have visited mr.o, knowing that we have learned another important lesson in audiophilia.

oh, btw, mr.o has the best dedicated sound room (done to robert harley's measurement) i have ever seen in malaysia.