Go Mook – the balancing act

How many times have you achieved that perfect balance? How many times have you achieved it, gone itchy and broken every balance you strived to achieve? What does it feels like to have such balance achieved, you may ask.

The answer is simple, you tend to buy a whole lot more CDs and brush away most, if not all of the time the urge to upgrade. That lasted me for 3 years and I kept on buying CDs and cherished every single moment I had with my setup. Over my many trips to HK, I was greeted with so many opportunities to get good bargains, but most of the time, I ended up lugging CDs back home. There was once I had to acquire an additional huge backpack just to bring my CDs back!

Then bonus day came and I started to get itchy with crazy thoughts running thru my mind. And so went the AQ DBS Panther, Harmonic Tech Magic Link interconnects and my lovely ProAc Reference 8. Then came AQ DBS Cheetah and ProAc Reference 8 Signature. A happy new family you may think but it proved otherwise!

This actually brought almost a halt to my musical enjoyment as I was trying and trying and trying to get that balance again. That brink point where you have ultimate resolution and yet still effortless in conveying intimacy, where a wee bit more would topple the whole thing and send you fleeing with bleeding ears.

Tremendous effort was put into getting that final balance. From sending the full family to medical checkup in our friendly neighborhood Oh Clinic, changing cables, switching sources to silly speaker placements. Nothing could get me that last drip of refinement. The sibilance just stuck out like a sore thumb, stubbornly refused to go away!

How I wish I could have an invisible acoustic sandpaper to just sand that away! My highs were gloriously beautiful; my lows were good given the sizes of the speakers and room; my mids were seductively communicative. Indeed, the setup handled audiophile approved CDs with aplomb. But it failed miserably with pop CDs, a trait I held in pride previously and was now gone.

This lasted until yesterday when I found my ultimate fix, working in such minute precision where more would kill the sound and less would render the fix useless. Personally, I hate to use cones and spikes below rigs. Many have got that hardening effects that might make you think you are getting more resolutions. Yes, the outlines of imaging snap in better focus but the musical flow would be hindered with strangulating results.

I am sure many have heard about the Qi Cones, but I think I am one of the last few knowing it due to my ignorance to cones. I met Mr. Go the second week in SG, starting anew and without much to do. It was a casual outing and before I knew it, I was invited to his little music abode and discovered all these little cones with crystals lying around. That was how I got to know he was indeed the creator of Qi Cones.

After a couple of chats and meet ups, I suggested that I would like to have a go with his Qi Cones. These cones were not those crystal ones, but were meant for speakers with flat rounded tip. Heck, I’ll let the pictures describe the shape to you. So I was back in town and Mr. Go too was in town fixing, coincidently, my cousin’s setup. Or rather, got my cousin kick started.

So we met up and I was anticipating eagerly the cones! Upon close inspections, they felt so much like Shun Mook, albeit with rougher finishing and lighter in weight. Who cares about cosmetic when all it matters was whether it works or not!

Quickly, I removed all the silly stuff you wouldn’t want to know that I put between the speakers and the stands’ base plates. At first, I put them all pointing up with 2 behind and 1 in front. Upon initial listening, there was a slight tame down in the sibilance but not enough! So I switched the front ones pointing downwards, and further taming down happened! Being a gifted audiophile, I sort of got the drift. I switched the inner ones behind pointing downwards and the same results greeted me! So I switched all pointing downwards and voila, great resolution with no strangulating effects!

I stressed great importance in having ultimate transparency and effortlessness in emotional conveyance, too. Going without the cones, my setup was transparent. However, the balance was easily toppled with lesser pop CDs, piercing the ears with hardened sibilance. With the cones, it imbued certain darkness to the tops as well as the overall tones. It might be the added heft/richness in the lower regions or the slight attenuation from the extreme tops that caused such observation. But the most magical moment was when I was able to regain my splendid mids.

The once emotional liquidity and seducing wetness were all flowing effortlessly again. This was imperative to have to enjoy all my female pop divas’ CDs! With such short time, I quickly ran thru some familiar tracks and was smiling in approval. I was so glad that I am back on track again, to be able to not play only audiophile CDs, but really listen to what I like most. I don’t have to keep an audiophile approved setup with limited listening choices anymore!

For me, great sound was about how fast and effortless the energy was released/dissipated/emancipated from the speakers, the freedom of energy FLOW. Musical flow to be exact, failing so would get you a dull and lethargic sound. The cones passed with flying colors with no hindrance to the flow of musical energy. There’s neither hardening of outlines nor strangulating effects.

With just 1.5 hours on tap before my departure to SG, these were what I could observe. Bear in mind that these were in minute proportions and it was exactly the last ounce that perfectionists would crack their head for. If we have to, we would kill!

So, was there any ill-full effect on the overall sound? Frankly speaking, with just 1.5 hours on tap and focusing on the sibilance issue, I ain’t so sure yet. With speakers of this size, bass is still not one of my fortes. However, the observed added mid region richness/slight attenuation at the extreme top would definitely have to be investigated further. Although we are talking about minute variations, this could render certain opacity to the overall transparency.

To round up this initial impression, I have to say that the cones acted like mechanical switches where the tip was the direction where the energy was being dissipated, allowing only a one way channel to get rid of ailing vibration. It worked wonderfully, but I have to listen further to have a better gauge. As of now, it fixed my problem and I am happy!

Oh, I think Mr. Go is going to have his version of cable risers later! You have Shun Mook, we have Go Mook, which deserves worldwide exposures me think!