we have hit the 100,000 mark!

[scarlet johansson]

3 years and 580 posts later, we have hit this auspicious mark!

looking back, the last 3 years has been filled with good memories. what started off as a place to sell "boutique" hifi items (hence the name desirable audio boutique) has become a major daily chore of mine! not chore la, on the contrary, quite a pleasure of mine ;-)

from apogee centaur minor to maggie 1.6QR to maggie 3.6R; from AQ anaconda, to stage III magnus and now its flagship gryphon; from arc LS25MkII to LS26; from meridian 508.24 to g08; from richard gray to shunyata hydra... along this upgrading process, my understanding and appreciation in hifi have leaped forward so much i almost couldn't tolerate the kind of sound i liked 3 years ago!

my criteria of good sound has also changed so much. i now pride "realism" above anything else. realism emcompasses a balanced top-to-bottom sound; an "organicity" and "humanness" (i didn't check if such words exist!) that is close to live music.

a balanced sound to me is a spectrum where highs, mids, lows coexist together seemlessly without any frequency screaming for attention. highs must have air, extension and substance, mids must have body, density and substance, and lows must be tactile, bouncy and also substantial. heck, a good sound must have substance!

"organicity" means the flow, fluidity, cohesiveness, completeness, continuity of music. some call it musicality too.

and lastly "humanness" is the tonality of the sound that i give top-priority to and very few systems could achieve this single criterium well. i mean, if a human voice doesn't sound like a human voice, how good can your hifi be, never mind the soundstaging and imaging? it is in the tone, my friend.

i am amazed that i could go on blogging for that long. most bloggers gave up after 3 months. 3 years, 580 posts and 100,000 page views are definitely a milestone in a niche hobby like ours.

occasionally, there are some readers who try to spoil the party but most of the times, the moderator in me could make them see the bigger picture and act within the decorum of a good reader. as i have said, this is not just another me-too blog/forum/website. i don't allow it to be. it has too much personality ;-)

i don't know how many regular readers do i have (seriously) but to those who derive their daily joy from reading my scribbles, i thank you. you are the reason for me to go on.

i really hope i could continue blogging for another 30 years!